Books That Stayed With You

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Part of a series on Facebook / Meta. [View Related Entries]

About

Books That Stayed With You is a Facebook status update meme in which participants list 10 books that have remained relevant throughout their life while tagging several friends to list their own.

Origin

In August, Facebook users began posting a copypasta message accompanied by a custom list of 10 selected books that continued to remain pertinent or meaningful. Additionally, participants would tag 10 friends with the message to continue its circulation on the social networking site. The earliest known public update was published on August 21st.^[2]

"In your status, list 10 books that stayed with you in some way. Don't think too hard. They don't have to be the "right" books or great books of literature, just ones that affected you in some way. Tag 10 friends including me so I can see your list."

Spread

On September 4th, the Australian news site Fraser Coast Chronicle^[1] published an op-ed about the status update meme, in which the author listed several of her favorite books. On September 8th, Facebook data scientists Lada Adamic and Pinkesh Patel posted a statistical analysis of the updates, revealing the top 20 books users had ranked with Harry Potter topping the list. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about Facebook's analysis of the status updates, including The Huffington Post,^[4] Gawker,^[5] CS Monitor^[6] and Bustle.^[7]