guides
What Are These 'Little Miss' Memes About? How The Children's Books Became Viral Meme Material
The virality of the Little Miss meme template has been palpable this month. Creator after creator is re-editing the classic children's books, and it's showing how nostalgic both the Little Miss and Mr. Men series are for Gen Z.
It's not hard to explain where these memes came from and who started them. It's even easier to explain how to make them yourself.
However, let's just say you've never even read a Little Miss book. Let's just say you're childhood was ruined. You can still create "Little Miss Ruined Childhood" and feel like you're a part of the trend! So c'mon, let's explain.
What Are The "Little Miss" Memes?
Little Miss memes, also known as "Little Miss Parodies," refer to the exploiting and recaptioning of the covers of Little Miss children's books. If you've never heard of these children's books, they began publication in 1981, written by British author Roger Hargreaves.
However, as Zoomers grew older, the adjectives used to describe the Little Misses became dated. Therefore, the replacement of the adjectives in Little Miss memes highlights a new generation finding modern predicaments and red flags in themselves then mirroring them back onto a nostalgic, highly remixable meme template.
What Are The "Mister Men" Memes?
Mr. Men memes involve the same type of recaptioning and re-editing, however, they exploit the male side of the book series titled Mr. Men. In contrast to the Little Misses books, the Mr. Men series started 10 years prior in the year 1971, still written by Roger Hargreaves. As of 2022, there are 92 different Mr. Men and Little Misses characters.
Who Started Little Miss Memes?
The first ever Little Miss meme was shared on Tumblr in June 2021 by the blog notyourgaybestie. It depicted "Little Miss Smokes Too Much Weed," and to many, it rang true. In fact, it rang so true that it earned a lot of cross-platform reposts that'd later accumulate into the 2022 trend.
Who Started Little Miss Memes On Instagram?
Despite a 2021 origin, many liken the popularity of Little Miss memes to an Instagram user named @juulpuppy who uploaded three carousel posts in mid-April 2022 that included most of Little Miss memes popular today.
How To Make The Little Miss Memes
Oh, so you want to make a Little Miss meme now? That's easy. All you need is Photoshop or MS Paint and a black line tool. Then, once you've outlined a silly character, use the paint bucket tool to fill in the colors you want. Also, we can start you off with some templates:
For the full history of the "Little Miss Memes," be sure to check out our entry on it here for even more information.
