About

His Ass Is Not X or His Ass Is Not Reading is a catchphrase used in a series of ironic memes where a person, animal or character is shown where it looks like they might be reading or doing another action. The meme originates from a 2019 Twitter video of a man pretending to read a book on the subway, captioned, "his ass is not reading" and the caption spread as a phrasal template the following years, mostly used in image macros.

Origin

On May 4th, 2019, Twitter^[1] user @babyitsmb posted a video of a man tracing his finger along a book extremely fast as if he's reading with the on-screen caption, "His ass is not reading 📖😩😭😂😂😂" garnering over 20,000 likes and 6.9 million views in three years (shown below).

I know his ass isn’t reading this fast pic.twitter.com/gl2NNWL4SL

— MB (@babyitsmb) May 4, 2019

The video gained viral spread over the following months, inspiring memers to take the caption and attach it to new images and videos. On October 12th, 2020, iFunny^[2] user Bobwashere8 posted an image macro of a monkey reading a book with the caption "his ass is not reading," garnering around eight smiles in two years. It was reposted to Instagram^[3] page juccatonic on June 26th, 2021, garnering over 500 likes in a year. This is the earliest known meme using the caption outside of the original video.

Spread

On August 13th, 2021, Instagram^[4] user kazakhstan_bureau_of_laughter posted an image of a rabbit reading a book with the caption, garnering over 10 likes in a year. It was reposted by Instagram^[5] page scoobydoofruitsnacks that day, garnering over 53,000 likes in the same span of time (shown below). It was also posted to /r/OkBuddyRetard^[6] on the 16th, garnering over 760 upvotes in a year.

On October 31st, Instagram^[7] user frogseatingass posted a version of the meme using an image of an alligator reading, garnering over 11,400 likes in a year (shown below, left). The meme also started to expand past jokes about reading. On May 6th, 2022, Twitter^[8] user @stickybm posted a version of the meme about a cat not driving, garnering over 1,000 likes in six months (shown below, right). On June 22nd, it was reposted to /r/notinteresting,^[9] garnering over 8,100 upvotes in five months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References