About
Just Little Things[1] is the name of a single topic blog that launched in December 2010 posting sharable image macros containing text describing small things or actions that make people in general happy. The fad has led to many spinoff blogs which either stick with the original plain text on a colored background format or use superimposed text on artistic-looking “hipster” photographs. Some of these blogs have also inspired parody blogs themselves.
Origin
Just Little Things launched on December 31st, 2010, posting 34 image macros utilizing plain black text on different colored backgrounds to describe a number of simple pleasures in life. The blog was the brainchild of Californian student Nancy Vu, who launched the blog during her sophomore year of high school. As of October 2012, Just Little Things had more than 500,000 followers and saw 25,000 page views per day.[2] As of March 2013, there are more than 880 image macros on the site.
Spread
By April 2012, dozens of blogs dedicated to specific people, fandoms, objects or subcultures with the snowclone title “Little X Things” began popping up on Tumblr. As early as April 20th, 2011[3] some of these blogs began transitioning away from the colored background format, superimposing their text on to photos illustrating the subject at hand.
Notable Blogs
Just Girly Things
Just Girly Things[4] was created by three female Tumblr users in November 2011, highlighting some of their personal favorite things, ranging from different types of makeup and clothing brands to celebrities and television shows using the inspirational photo quote text and image style popularized by blogs like Kushandwizdom[5] earlier that year.
On June 7th, 2012, a parody blog titled Juzt Gurly Thingz[6] launched taking similar imagery and adding buzzkilling text describing strange or disturbing behavior disguised as a “girly” thing. As of March 2013, both Just Girly Things and its parody blog are still active.
Things Boys Do We Love
Things Boys Do We Love launched in December 2011 with posts very similar to Just Girly Things, only focusing on meaningful or cute moments in relationships.
As early as January 16th, 2013, these images were parodied in a post on the Metal Memes subreddit[7] comparing an image macro from the blog captioned “When boys have curly hair” with a photo of musicians Kirk Hammett Dave Mustaine (shown below, left). Between February and March, similar buzzkilling parodies were shared on MemeCenter[8], the Lolbrary[9], FunnyJunk[10], WeKnowMemes[11] and 9gag.[12] On March 10th, the blog owner posted a response[13] saying that she did not care if her posts were being parodied and was tired of receiving hate mail about her images.
Search Interest
External References
[1]Tumblr – Just Little Things
[2]Presentation Voice – Pres Senior’s Blog Will Soon be a Book
[3]Tumblr – Little-MJ-Things: Lip Biting
[4]Tumblr – Just Girly Things
[5]Tumblr – Kushandwizdom
[6]Tumblr – JuztGurlyThingz
[7]Reddit – /r/MetalMemes
[8]MemeCenter – Posts tagged “thingsboysdowelove”
[9]Lolbrary – *thingsboysdowelove*
[10]FunnyJunk – Search results for “thingsboysdowelove”
[11]We Know Memes – Best Of The Things Boys Do We Love Meme
[12]9gag – thingsboysdowelove
[13]Things Boys Do We Love – I’m just tired of this hate.