Revenge of the rail passengers
A QUEENSLAND Rail train etiquette campaign has become an online hit, but for all the wrong reasons.
The original series of 15 Train Etiquette: Super Simple Stuff posters, intended to give tips on catching trains and appropriate passenger behaviour, have multiplied into hundreds of spoof posters.
The joke posters feature altered text to give the cartoons unintended and often crude meanings, which some creators say mocks the patronising nature of the campaign.
The Ipswich train line has been the target of some of these 'memes'.
A poster that originally praised a character for making room for other passengers was re-captioned "George is small and weak. He accidentally got on the Ipswich line and won't make it past Goodna alive".
A Facebook page titled QR memes has gained more than 58,000 likes since it launched a week ago, 10 times as many fans as QR's Facebook page.
Stand-up comedian Rhys Parry created a light-hearted Staying Alive-inspired meme (pictured).
Mr Parry found the original posters "patronising and almost condescending" and sometimes funnier than the memes
He said the posters were easy to parody, but the biggest problem with the trend was the high rate of discriminatory memes.
"I made the (Staying Alive) meme because I thought it was inoffensive," he said.
Mr Parry said the etiquette campaign had definitely backfired on Queensland Rail.
""It's ironic - it was intended to show people how to behave well and now it's being used to belittle groups."
