Book memes: The most hilarious jokes about men’s bookshelves
Twitter loves hot takes. A quick, usually thoughtless, opinion that is considered to be unusual and is, therefore “groundbreaking”. (Please note our ardent use of air quotes.) Usually, they’re just crappy opinions disguised as some kind of break from herd mentality & therefore “deserving” of praise. Generally, they’re posted just to get social media interaction – whether positive or negative is irrelevant to the poster.
Sometimes hot takes can be silly or inconsequential, like saying a movie most people hate is good. Other times they can be more problematic – throwing around thoughtless political ideologies isn’t great. And then there’s the sweet spot right in the middle – a hot take that isn’t really important in the long run, but gets people fired up anyway.
A few days ago one Twitter user decided to post a tweet informing people of the “top seven warning signs on a man’s bookshelf”, because, apparently, we aren’t allowed to judge books by their covers, but we sure can judge a man by his books. The memes became priceless.
Top 7 Warning Signs In a Man's Bookshelf:
1. A Dog-eared copy of Infinite Jest
2. Too Much Hemingway
3. Any amount of Bukowski
4. AYN. RAND.
5. Goethe
6. "Lolita is my favorite book."
7. "'Fathers and Sons' Is my favorite book."— Jess McHugh (@MchughJess) August 24, 2020
Original tweet
While for the most part, we can see the kind of assumptions this person is making about the theoretical people owning these books, this person could also just be an English major who was asked to read these books for classes.
Some people got defensive in the replies and explained why the books were on their shelves. Others lamented they wished they had known the warning signs in college, and then everyone else turned it into a meme with parody tweets to make fun of it.
How many warning signs does this cover pic.twitter.com/r99HFNc7tM
— OddSosu (@odd_winters) August 24, 2020
The warning signs on your own shelf
Poor @0dd_winters decided to just go ahead and take on the self burn in order to elicit some laughter on the internet he’d never actually hear.
wrong. first of all, men don’t have bookshelves. what we actually have:
1. clearly unread copy of Infinite Jest
2. Chapo (to terrorize women with)
3. Wings of Desire and MGS to cry to
4. Baldwin and Borges to seem smart
5. Pynchon for when you’re high and wanna see funny words pic.twitter.com/HByJePUyvb— Mohammad (@WongKarWax) August 24, 2020
No bookshelves
We cannot stop staring at this seemingly gravity-defying image. Why does it look like the books are just floating there? What kind of wizardry is this?!
TOP 4 WARNING SIGNS ABT A MAN'S BOOKS!!
1. They love infinite jest. in fact, they own a copy
2. a copy of lolita with "NOTE TO SELF: DO THIS" written on the inside cover
3. owns a bookshelf instead of just keeping their books in a pile on the floor
4. Second copy of infinite jest— g0m (@g0m) August 24, 2020
Making fun
This tweet delightfully pokes fun at the presumptive nature of the original tweet, but also then does the thing where you imply men who are bachelors are disaster people who live in messy homes. The irony is perfect, and we’ll assume it’s intentional to drive their point home.
Top 7 Warning Signs in a Man's Bookshelf:
1. Don't
2. Judge
3. People
4. By
5. Their
6. Bookshelves
7. Necronomicon https://t.co/kOSRAElQoZ— Marius Roodt (@MariusCRoodt) August 25, 2020
Don’t judge
Okay, you know what? If someone has a magical book of the dead, then we’ll allow you to judge a man based on his bookshelf.
Top 7 Warning Signs in a Man’s Bookshelf:
1. “If I Did It” by OJ Simpson
2. Encyclopaedia of Knots and Ropework
3. The Expert Carver
4. The Organically Clean Home
5. A map of 25 Secret Outback Natural Parks— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) August 25, 2020
Serial killer in the making
Ah, much like the meme where you buy a shovel, garbage bags, and rope at Walmart for a reaction – what books could you put together to actually freak someone out? This one takes the gold medal.
The biggest red flag on a man's bookshelf is a hollowed-out book that contains evidence of his dastardly schemes
— SparkNotes (@SparkNotes) August 24, 2020
Spark Notes coming in hot
Spark Notes saved you in high school and now they’re here again to save the day on social media – this time with sarcasm and wit.
Let’s reveal our own person literary red flags on our bookshelves:
1. Two editions of The Silmarillion
2. Three Hemingway books
3. Pride & Prejudice but *not* Emma
4. Mishima
5. Moby-Dick with all instances of “sperm“ underlined
6. Game of Thrones maps book
7. The Bloody Chamber— Austin Gilkeson (@osutein) August 24, 2020
Self burns becoming less rare these days
Hey Austin, we have questions. Please, we’re so curious.
i'm shocked that, out of all the books we consider "red flags" on mens' bookshelves, "the book shaped monsters from video games that pop out and surprise attack you" didn't make the cut. seems like a pretty egregious oversight
— Ape/Machine Interface (@chimponsey) August 25, 2020
Man-eating books
That would be a pretty terrible way for a date to end.
The only red flags on anyone’s bookshelves are no books at all.
— OkCupid (@okcupid) August 25, 2020
OkCupid
Popular dating site OkCupid says don’t date men who don’t read. OkCupid took the meme and gave some pretty sound advice.
