By: Max Yang

The “Little Miss [Blank]” memes are going viral on social media these days. The memes featured little blobby characters. Each has a name either Little Miss [Blank] or Mr. [Blank]. The “[Blank]” part of the name represents a characteristic or something about the creator. These popular memes were inspired by the Little Miss and Mr. Men children’s book series.

The Little Miss along with Mr. Men series was created in 1971. The creator, Roger Hargreaves, was inspired by his eldest son Adam. At that year, Adam was 8 and he asked Mr. Hargreaves “What is a tickle?”. This inspired Roger to create a character named Mr. Tickle. The creation of Mr. Tickle marked the start of making of more little blobby characters.

The Little Miss series was created a decade later, in 1981. The series featured Little Miss Neat, Little Miss Sunshine, Little Miss Shy, etc. Each character’s name represents a different trait. For instance, Little Miss Shy is introverted, hence the name.

Fasting forward to recent years, the children’s book series is read by fewer people than it once was. If it weren’t for people on social media, this series might have already gone into oblivion. Starting from last year, some people on social media posted memes about Little Miss and Mr. Men books but these were quickly buried by other posts. Then, in the April of this year, an influencer posted a meme of Little Miss Weed Psychosis. It was posted on 4/20—a day for celebrating the smoking of marijuana.

The meme went viral. Soon, many other influencers made memes inspired by Little Miss Week Psychosis. Furthermore, influencers even created a template for making these memes. They all praised the influencer who created the original meme. Her account name is “juulpuppy”.

“juulpuppy” lives in Brooklyn and already made remix memes for “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”, “Don’t Let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus”, and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. Remixes of her meme for Little Miss are all talking about the personalities of the creator. “We get to see cute imaginary versions of ourselves and laugh together at the messy nature of our flawed personalities, which I think is very genuine and sweet,” “juulpuppy” viewed.

Now, the “Little Miss” hashtag on many social media sites has millions of views. On Tiktok, for example, it has over 140 million. Even sports stars are joining in. People from the Chicago Bears, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Philadelphia 76’ers, etc. are making their own memes and posting them on social media. The almost forgotten Little Miss and Mr. Men book series has returned to the spotlight.