# Soldiers Holding Up Society Soldiers Holding Up Society refers to "The Price of Peace," a painting by Cornish artist Brian Jay showing fallen British soldiers raising a peaceful seaside town on their shoulders. Circulated on remembrance posts since 2012, the image hit object labeling meme status in March 2018 on /r/dankmemes with a _Freedom2020 post that drew over 36,500 upvotes. ## Origin Cornish artist Brian Jay finished the unnamed canvas before June 2012, with the scene taken from the seaside town of St Ives[5]. After a November 13, 2014 YouTube remembrance video for St Ives soldiers set the painting to music, Jay titled it "The Price of Peace"[1]. The earliest documented online appearance traces to Tumblr user pestenkerani before June 29, 2012, followed the same day by a write-up on the Turkish blog Blog Arti[2]. - **Platform:** Tumblr (early spread) / Reddit (meme format) - **Creator:** Brian Jay (painting); earliest object label meme posted by Redditor _Freedom2020 - **Date:** 2012 ## Overview Soldiers Holding Up Society works as an object label template where the ghostly soldiers get tagged with one entity that props up a second entity, labeled on the town above[4]. The format reads as earnest or ironic depending on the swap, with early 2018 Reddit uses crediting figures like Reddit moderators for holding a community together[6]. Jay's painting shows the Cornish seaside town of St Ives, so the "society" half of the composition stays visually tied to small-town British life even when the labels reference global pop culture[5]. Tone sits between tribute and bathos. Earnest uses still appear on Memorial Day and Armistice Day posts with hashtags like #LestWeForget[10], while the dankmemes version plays it for absurd credit assignment, pairing invisible labor with trivial beneficiaries[7]. ## How to Use Typical posts caption the soldiers with one unseen support (teachers, open-source maintainers, a specific game character, delivery drivers) and caption the town with the beneficiary (students, tech companies, the wider game, the economy). Earnest versions keep the painting's original sobriety; ironic versions assign absurd labels to make the sincerity land as a joke[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Soldiers Holding Up Society? It is an object labeling meme based on Brian Jay's painting "The Price of Peace," which depicts fallen British soldiers raising a peaceful seaside town above them[5]. ### Where did Soldiers Holding Up Society come from? Cornish artist Brian Jay painted the image before June 2012 using St Ives as the scene; the earliest known online post was by Tumblr user pestenkerani before June 29, 2012, with a Blog Arti entry appearing the same day[2]. ### What does Soldiers Holding Up Society mean? In the object label use, it credits an unseen contributor who keeps something running, with the soldiers tagged as the unsung force and the town tagged as the beneficiary[4]. ### How do you use Soldiers Holding Up Society? Label the soldiers with whoever quietly props something up and label the town with whatever benefits; /r/dankmemes examples from March 2018 set the pattern[4]. ### Is Soldiers Holding Up Society still popular? Peak Reddit use came in late November 2018, when a /r/dankmemes post gathered 9,400 upvotes[8], while earnest uses of the painting still appear around Armistice and Memorial Day posts[10]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNeJVPt4QhQ]() 2. [https://www.blogarti.com/bir-resim-bazen-cok-sey-anlatir.html]() 3. [https://9gag.com/gag/6590041/what-soldiers-think-is-sacrifice]() 4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/86ug9d/press_f_to_pay_respect/]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/soldiers-holding-up-society]() 6. [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/871h2r/reddit_in_a_nutshell/]() 7. [https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/9xyr9e/ok_this_is_epic/]() 8. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/a1v28n/thanks_for_your_work_mah_nibba/]() 9. [https://www.reddit.com/r/MURICA/comments/1f4yxe/this_picture_really_gets_to_me_happy_memorial_day/]() 10. [https://twitter.com/kierenmcmahon/status/664390761136439296]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/soldiers-holding-up-society Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library