Keep calm and carry on shirt3/18/2024 ![]() At this critical juncture in Britain's history, these T-shirts are perhaps the most pertinent symbol of the crisis in which we find ourselves. It's as though, with the discovery that Solid Gold Bomb has been automatically generating Keep Calm slogans, my whole world has gone topsy-turvy.īecause the thing is, we need these T-shirts. Mustn't they? MUSTN'T THEY? Can the products possibly be bought by algorithms too? I'm confused. Real human beings with a real sense of humour must actually choose some of these T-shirts, pay for them, and wear them. But at least I can take comfort in the fact that it can't possibly be an algorithm manufacturing desire for this cutting edge sartorial satire. Right now I feel as those watching Deep Blue computer beat chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997 must have felt. Each and every one of these products displays such ingenuity, such parodic wit, that it's difficult to believe anything but human intelligence might have created them. I must confess shock, however, that these T-shirts – and indeed any of the 442,000 Keep Calm products available to buy on Amazon – could truly have been sporting algorithm-generated slogans. On reflection, I always suspected that LadBible and the Shamebar had a touch of the automated about them. And the Daily Hate Mail's sidebar of shame is, interestingly, automatically generated using a similar computer process running against entrenched societal prejudice and media-led objectification of women. For example, LadBible is automatically generated using a scripted computer process running against hundreds of thousands of stupid sexist assholes. I found that algorithms are responsible for approximately 97% of outrageously misogynistic crap on the internet. Intrigued by this fictitious conversation, I went away and did some research, with fascinating results. Me: But didn't an employee have to create the algorithm? ME: Isn't someone employed to read the slogans before the T-shirts are put on sale? ME: Doesn't such a high degree of automatically generated misogynistic content seem a bit, um, coincidental? Solid Gold Bomb, which until last weekend was manufacturing and selling T-shirts with the slogans "Keep Calm and Rape A Lot,", "Keep Calm and Hit Her", "Keep Calm and Punch Her", and "Keep Calm and Knife Her", have explained that these T-shirts, along with 41 pages of other Keep Calm products were "automatically generated using a scripted computer process running against thousands of dictionary words." Amazing! Due to my awesome journalistic skills, today I managed to secure an imaginary interview with a company spokesperson, transcribed below in full: ![]() Used the phrase "it was like that when I got here" once too often? Need a new way to abdicate responsibility for your complicity in unpleasant phenomena, such as rape culture, social deprivation or the ills of economic globalisation? Well, look no further, because Solid Gold Bomb, an American clothing company, have created – wait, sorry, not created, no one creates any more – Solid Gold Bomb has automatically generated the perfect excuse: for you, for me, and for everyone caught up in the kitsch post-modern headspin of late capitalism. ![]()
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