It starts with a tiny brightly-colored character in fun poses. It quickly gets grim however, as a subtitle is given to the little smiling ball. A subtitle that is incredibly differen from what the character depicts, something that diverts expectations, something that storms the internet.
The Little Miss and Mr. Men franchises have recently become the basis for a popular meme trend, serving as a canvas for much darker humor than what the original characters portray. The characters from the series are now being twisted into different variations such as changing “Little Miss Jealous” to “Little Miss At My [Expletive] Breaking Point.”
The Mr. Men series was started by British author and illustrator Roger Hargreaves after his eight-year-old son Adam asked the question “What does a tickle look like?”.
The question led Hargreaves to draw “Mr. Tickle” which was soon featured in a brightly-colored Mr. Men book alongside various other characters. The book sold one million copies over three years.
Hargreaves published even more books, turning it into a franchise. The series would spark a wave of comics, songs and BBC adaptations. Hargreaves would publish a spinoff called Little Miss, expanding the already enormous amount of fun and lighthearted characters. After his death in 1988, Adam would take over, keeping the franchise up and running to this day.
This past month, an account known as “LittleMissNotesApp” accumulated over two million followers from posting Hargreaves’s characters under much darker captions including “Mr. Vape Cloud” and “Little Miss Aggressive Drunk.”
The account gives credit to a user known as “Juulpuppy” who has been posting similar content.
“Visual comedy takes advantage of unexpected pairings and I love to lean into that with all the memes I make,” says Juulpuppy,“This trend is so infectious because the pairings are so ridiculous and relate to so many people. Any caption can be applied to a Little Miss image, so no one has to feel like the odd one out from this trend.”
Writer and illustrator Max Knoblauch had the meme introduced to him through his wife, who told him it reminded her of something he had done. Knoblauch had paired the characters with edgy captions back in 2014 for an article on Mashable, a multimedia news website.
Knoblauch released “Mr. Men Children’s Books Reimagined for Millenials” after the discovery. A collection of relatable Mr. Men memes including captions like “Mr. Student Loan Debt”.
Knoblauch, a millennial himself, greatly enjoys the memes, seeing them as a versatile way of expressing personal conflicts.
“The ones that I made were so: ‘Wow, this is peak 2014 here’ — there were just bad things happening but they could be fun. Now, well, they’re bad and they’re not getting better,” Knoblauch says. “It’s a blob with a smile and it was so positive.”
The Little Miss and Mr. Men franchises have recently become the basis for a popular meme trend, serving as a canvas for much darker humor than what the original characters portray. The characters from the series are now being twisted into different variations such as changing “Little Miss Jealous” to “Little Miss At My [Expletive] Breaking Point.”
The Mr. Men series was started by British author and illustrator Roger Hargreaves after his eight-year-old son Adam asked the question “What does a tickle look like?”.
The question led Hargreaves to draw “Mr. Tickle” which was soon featured in a brightly-colored Mr. Men book alongside various other characters. The book sold one million copies over three years.
Hargreaves published even more books, turning it into a franchise. The series would spark a wave of comics, songs and BBC adaptations. Hargreaves would publish a spinoff called Little Miss, expanding the already enormous amount of fun and lighthearted characters. After his death in 1988, Adam would take over, keeping the franchise up and running to this day.
This past month, an account known as “LittleMissNotesApp” accumulated over two million followers from posting Hargreaves’s characters under much darker captions including “Mr. Vape Cloud” and “Little Miss Aggressive Drunk.”
The account gives credit to a user known as “Juulpuppy” who has been posting similar content.
“Visual comedy takes advantage of unexpected pairings and I love to lean into that with all the memes I make,” says Juulpuppy,“This trend is so infectious because the pairings are so ridiculous and relate to so many people. Any caption can be applied to a Little Miss image, so no one has to feel like the odd one out from this trend.”
Writer and illustrator Max Knoblauch had the meme introduced to him through his wife, who told him it reminded her of something he had done. Knoblauch had paired the characters with edgy captions back in 2014 for an article on Mashable, a multimedia news website.
Knoblauch released “Mr. Men Children’s Books Reimagined for Millenials” after the discovery. A collection of relatable Mr. Men memes including captions like “Mr. Student Loan Debt”.
Knoblauch, a millennial himself, greatly enjoys the memes, seeing them as a versatile way of expressing personal conflicts.
“The ones that I made were so: ‘Wow, this is peak 2014 here’ — there were just bad things happening but they could be fun. Now, well, they’re bad and they’re not getting better,” Knoblauch says. “It’s a blob with a smile and it was so positive.”
