Shaq Reading

About

Shaq Reading is an image macro featuring retired professional basketball player and sports analyst Shaquille O'Neal smugly smiling while looking into the camera with a book in his hands as part of the American Library Association’s 1990s "READ" campaign. The reaction image is typically used to express how something makes one feel happy or pleased with themselves upon an outcome described in the caption above, especially pertaining to reading.

Origin

The original scene that the meme is pulled from comes from a poster with the text “Read” on the top of the image of Shaq that was originally a part of the American Library Association’s "READ" campaign, circa mid-1990s, found in various libraries and schools around the U.S. alongside other celebrities promoting the reading of books (seen below).

The exact first time the image is used as a meme is unknown, but it appears as a format as early as 2015. One such example comes from a post by an anonymous Imgur^[1] user on January 3rd, 2015, which received over 99,500 views, 9,600 upvotes and 239 comments in roughly five years (shown below).

Spread

On January 6th, 2015, Redditor^[2] Mazzocchi posted an early version to the /r/BlackPeopleTwitter subreddit where it accumulated more than 11,200 upvotes and 109 comments in six months (seen below, left). Another variant was posted on October 18th, 2018, by Imgur^[3] user Queenjoy89 (seen below, right), accumulating more than 77,600 views, 1,200 upvotes and 63 comments in roughly two years.

On July 18th, 2019, Redditor^[4] justacrocoanda posted another example to the /r/memes sub (shown below, left), receiving over 32,800 upvotes and 156 comments in six months. On January 25th, 2020, Redditor^[5] coded_bro posted a variant to the /r/memes sub (shown below, right), receiving over 34,100 upvotes, 155 comments and two Reddit awards.

On August 18th, 2020, Redditor^[6] justkindafloating posted another version of the meme to the /r/memes sub (seen below, left), receiving over 131,000 upvotes, 717 comments and several Reddit awards in 29 days. The following day, Redditor^[7] WaffleEnema post a variant to the /r/dankmemes sub (seen below, right), receiving over 32,700 upvotes, 171 comments and one Reddit award in 28 days.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References