Why saying "OMG, read another book!" makes you look stupid.

You've seen it happen a thousand times. Somebody shares a Harry Potter meme, or makes a Harry Potter reference, and one of the first comments or responses is an exasperated "OMG, read another book you illiterate millennial!"

And the person making that comment is an idiot, or possibly being deliberately obtuse.

Why?

Name one book that is not by J.K. Rowling that a millennial can assume with reasonable confidence that most other millennials have already read.

That's right, you can't.

EVERYBODY in that generation, more or less, has both read the books and seen most or all of the movies. So if you make a Harry Potter reference...

...get this, because this is the point...

...YOU KNOW YOU WON'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT.

You KNOW most everybody has read it. You KNOW most everybody has seen some of the films. You can just make the reference, and not worry about "but I don't get it!"

So when some posturing jackass says "ZOMG READ ANOTHER BOOK!!!!" he's just showing how stupid he is, because he thinks making a common, and commonly-understood reference, is somehow indicative of illiteracy.

The complaint used to be "Kids never read any more." It was never true, but then an entire generation DEVOURED a long, seven book, complicated series. So now the eternal kvetchers bitch that none of them have ever read anything else.

What they're mostly doing is trying to make themselves look superior for having read other books. And they fail, because they're actually confessing that they don't get how common references work or why people make them.

Virtually ever millennial has read Harry Potter. And they're going to keep using it to make references because they would be stupid not to.

Get over it.

[Header image "Harry Potter" by Gigei from DeviantArt, 2010: https://www.deviantart.com/gigei/art/Harry-Potter-185678200 ]