Terry, Are You Reading a Book?

Submission 12,995

About

Terry, Are You Reading a Book refers to a line of dialogue from a series of exploitables based on the "Safely Endangered" webcomic by artist Chris McCoy.^[1] In the comic, a bird reads a book and uses that information to request sex from another bird. The memes, however, change the name of the book and/or the information used.

Origin

On June 10th, 2016, the Safely Endangered^[2] posted a four-panel webcomic entitled "The Art of Seduction. The comic features two birds, one of whom reads a book called "The Art of Seduction." In the following panels, the bird sees another bird and says, "Hey, fancy a shag?" That day, Redditor ^[4] jungle-boogie posted the comic in the /r/comics subreddit, recieved more than 680 points (90% upvoted). When posted on the Safely Endangered Facebook, ^[3] the post (shown below) received more than 5,300 reactions, 830 shares and 300 comments in less than a month.

Spread

On December 10th, 2016, an anonymous 2chan user posted a variation of the comic in the /b/^[5] messageboard (shown below, left). The following week, on December 23rd, the Facebook account sassysocialistmemes posted a variation that changes the book to "The Communist Manifesto." The bird then asks the third-panel bird if they "wanna seize the means of production?" The post (shown below, right) received more than 9,500 reactions, 1,000 shares and 580 comments.

On July 29th, 2017, Redditor^[6] dudewithlettuce posted the comic in the /r/indianpeoplefacebook subreddit. The post (shown below) received more than 600 points (98% upvoted).

Two weeks later, on August 15th, Redditor^[7] jyfnljk posted a variation of the comic in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit, receiving more than 470 points (93% upvoted).