Demotivational Posters
About
Demotivational Posters (a.k.a Demotivators) are typically designed to discourage one's moral strength and diminish one's self-esteem. It usually consists of a picture, centered and bordered in black, with an all-cap title written in white, and in some cases, a tagline written in smaller font.
Origins
Despair Inc. is widely credited as the origin of Demotivational Posters and they began making spoofs of motivational posters (often found in corporate offices) since 1998. You can click here to check out the original collection of Demotivators made by Despair Inc. Over the years, they spread consistently across online discussion boards like 4chan as well as the blogosphere. Today, they're notable for the insanely large volume in circulation and their off-track varieties/derivatives.
Evolution of Demotivational Posters
In its infancy, Demotivators mirrored popular themes often addressed within motivational posters, by juxtaposing:
1. banal optimism (ex: PERSISTENCE)
2. atmospheric picture (ex: man & woman jogging in a single row)
3. comical pessimism (ex: It's Over Man. Let Her Go)
But as they became increasingly popular across the web, the joke was no longer bound within corporate/educational themes and became a signature meme involving "crude but funny" comments. Today, the white-on-black format of demotivators is a staple in Internet memescape and it's fairly common to find demotivational posters sans cynicism.
The originals were typical Motivational Posters with sarcastic comments:
How to Make Your Own Demotivational Poster
There are many sites with programs to make Demotivational Posters, including:
- Despair's Parody Motivator Generator
- Motivator: Create your own motivational posters!
- Create a MotiFake
- There is even a program called Poster Forge that you can download to help.
Demotivational Posters in Use
A large number of sites feature Demotivational Posters. Some of them are:
- http://demotivateyou.com/
- http://despair.com/
- http://www.motifake.com/
- http://demotivationalz.com/
- http://www.roflposters.com/
Many blog sites contain specific types of Demotivational Posters, such as:
- Peter Griffin Motivational Posters
- Kurt Vonnegut Motivational Posters
- There is even a program called Poster Forge
- Demotivator youBlog
Media
- NYTimes largeMagazine (4/27/2008): Empowering numberby ofDisempowerment
- CNN (1/17/2004): "Despair sites feature Demotivational PostersInc. Somethe ofbrand themfor are:
External References
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The Glorious Lobster Emperor
The grand fucking daddy of modern internet memes.
Maybe. I dunno. These things are old.
Swoot
This entry…so old, lost, and abandoned…it's like a mummy's tomb.
Germanic Warrior
And you just opened the tomb. Now the corpse within will crawl out into the trending bar and wreak havoc on us all.
Xanofar
Unlike many people (or at least unlike most of the various "contributors" to this meme) I think I experienced this meme the correct way.
I was familiar was motivational posters for years. Mostly from middle school, etc.
(years pass)
I saw Strong Bad create several random (but not demotivational) motivational posters, such as a picture of a whale's tail sticking out of the ocean with a reminder not to use those "four letter words".
(a couple years pass)
I start noticing the demotivational posters, like one of 4 mice killed by a single mouse trap while the cheese remains untouched labeled "Teamwork: Share victory, share defeat"
(a year or so passes)
I begin noticing more and more demotivational posters start appearing, eventually leading to them simply becoming "comments" and ultimately coming to the point where most of them were funnier without the captions.
deadaim100
Damn teens today misusing this meme on facebook. <_<
Cartoonmaster
Crap, accidentally downvoted.
ShineJeans
Am i the only one who thinks a lot of images uploaded here don't belong to this meme?
There's a difference between your regular image joke delivered in Motivational Poster format,
and a Demotivational Poster.
Those are supposed to picture something that suits the caption – usually a good virtue – with a description below that makes the virtue appear like shit.
So the image itself doesn't need to be funny.
A funny image that would do even without any text usually isn't a Demotivational Poster, guys.
Britton Yeatter
@blablablabla
It's already confirmed, dumb fucking ass shit.
Mastercrowe
In 2003 SomethingAwful ran a Photoshop Friday that helped to spread the popularity of Demotivational Posters, which followed the true base format with a caption that related to the heading with demotivational results.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/photoshop-phriday/motivational-posters.php
Cancerrific Bakery
@ blablablabla: I know that feel bro.
blablablabla
SRSLY you guys are like Stupid this never amounted to anything
So insignificant
For The Record
9000+ D-E-A-D-P-O-O-L
Lamest thing EVER!
Newfags!
the2FacedAngel
HOW HAVE YOU NOT LINKED TO VeryDemotivational IN YOUR ARTICLE!?!??