The Bookworm Meme Template

A reader balances on library steps with several books in hand. Give his intense research a surprisingly small or ordinary purpose.

The shelves and precarious stack of books make the search look scholarly and exhaustive. A caption about an everyday question turns that effort into the joke.

It also works as an affectionate picture of getting absorbed in reading. The caption can describe what the reader is studying, checking, or trying to remember.

The image is a crop of Carl Spitzweg’s The Bookworm, also known by its German title Der Bücherwurm. Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt dates its oil painting to around 1850 and includes it among the highlights of its collection. [1]

Use a single caption over the dark shelves near the top. Keep the reader’s face, open books, and ladder visible so the elaborate effort remains clear.

Try a small question that has led to far too much reading, or a detail you insist on checking before answering.

The reason for all this reading

Across the upper shelves, above the reader.

• Use one clear situation.
• The visual supplies the scholarly tone.
• Keep text away from the reader’s face.
• A modest question makes the effort funnier.