About

Samuel Johnson Reading, also known as Man Looking At Book, is a reaction image format and classical art meme featuring a 1775 painting of English writer Samuel Johnson reading a rolled folded-up book with a confused look on his face. The picture has been used since the early 2010s as part of the What the Fuck Am I Reading? and Dafuq Did I Just Read? memes, which focus on people and characters who appear disturbed or perplexed by the contents of something they just read about, ranging from social media comments and news articles to lore and other media. Samuel Johnson's meme has also been parodied, redrawn and turned into other memetic formats over the years.

Origin

On March 17th, 2012, FunnyJunk^[1] user mugglemasher uploaded a picture of a 1775 painting of English writer Samuel Johnson reading with a confused look on his face, along with the caption, "Dafuq did I just read?" (shown below). The post received just seven upvotes in 12 years but is the earliest known example still discoverable online.

Spread

Many other edited variations of the painting have circulated online over the years since it became a meme, typically used as reaction images to express disgust or bewilderment.

For example, on September 20th, 2020, X^[2] user @extra_vertebrae posted the Samuel Johnson Reading painting as a reaction meme to express how they felt about learning Space Marine anatomy from the Warhammer 40K universe (seen below). The tweet amassed roughly 76 likes in four years.

On September 18th, 2017, Google released an animated^[3] Google Doodle in honor of Johnson's 308th birthday, featuring the iconic painting of Johnson reading a book (shown below).

On October 22nd, 2023, Redditor IllustriousDudeIDK posted a variant of the meme specifically about Samuel Johnson himself during the Revolutionary War to the /r/HistoryMemes^[4] subreddit, receiving over 4,900 upvotes and 140 comments in roughly a year (seen below).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References