The Impact of Diary of a Wimpy Kid

"...and worst of all, he's a SIMP." Comedy gold

I feel like the bigger the nose, the more Greg hates the person

The cheese touch was so powerfully influential that it made it's way into my school and we didn't even have the cheese

the "you pissed me off" line from the regular show had me convinced as a kid that it was a show for like. teens or adults. it only blew my mind years later lmao

Hot take: Fregley's just a time-traveling Manny

It was that book that's always occupied during school Library.

I'm a 2004 kid. This honestly explains so much. I grew up on diary of a wimpy kid, Calvin and Hobbes, the misadventure of flapjack, courage the cowardly dog, chowder, regular show, adventure time, and so on. It's kinda insane looking back and realizing that my generation actually has an explanation for our broken humor lol

i read this entire series and dork diaries through and through- i feel like the thing about these books is that although they’re physically larger books compared to others for children, they seemed easier to read and i finished these “big” books so fast LMAOO it made me feel so good about myself

The fact that Greg doesn’t even complete a character arch by becoming a person is a bold move for a children’s book.

Let's be real though, looking back at the books, Greg was a jerk

I don't get the whole "Greg is a sociopath thing" Sure, he might have sociopathic traits, but he's 13. To me he just seems like a misguided middle schooler more than anything. Now, the movies are a different story (Greg isn't a static character in them, but goes through change). Throughout most of the first movie Greg is almost a spitting image of his book-self. He is a terrible friend to Rowley. But in the movie universe these actions actually have consequences, and Rowley eventually figures out Greg's true nature and starts hanging out with another kid. Greg realizes what a good friend Rowley was, and how stupid it is to try to impress others or trying to become popular, and instead realizes that what really matters is a good friend. These actions actually carry onto the next two films where Greg is noticeabley a way better friend to Rowley than his original movie-self/book-self. The same applies with the other two movie story arcs with Greg and Roderick and Greg and Frank.

As a school librarian, circa 2008-2012 I had to keep our copies of these books behind the circulation desk and only check them out upon request. They were constantly being “jacked” as the kids would say back then. There was one 4th grade teacher about 8-10 years ago who banned her students from checked them out because they kept bullying one girl with “cheese touch.” It really was a cultural phenomenon for a little while. DoaWK is still popular but graphic novels, like Dog Man, are higher on the radar these days.

I literally just learned that the same man who wrote Diary of A Wimpy kid also created Poptropica. Amazing. My whole childhood off one man's creations

Growing up is when Greg was older than you when you started reading and now he is younger than you

i also loved how the font really mimicked a kids' writing. Its all these small things that makes it the best book ever

I was not the target audience for these books, my brothers owned them. But even though I was a girl and too old, I still found them entertaining. It was relieving to see a protagonist do and say what every kid is thinking.

That "the girls he finds attractive have his face" thing blew my MIND I never noticed it!

for me, i just loved the humor of the book as a kid. i didn’t idolize greg or use him as a role model, i just thought the situations and characters were absolutely hilarious.

Personally I was very fond of these books as a child. Growing up with dyslexia graphic novels and books with smaller blocks of text were so much more accessible to me.

I find it amusing how you drew in your books, because I actually drew inside of my Diary Of A Wimpy Kid books when I was growing up myself. But I was obsessed with giving all the characters super powers. I drew Greg to have flame powers, I drew Rodrick covered in spikes, I gave the dad stone skin, Manny had weird energy and laser eye powers, and the mom, for some reason lost to my child mind, had rope nose hairs.