Sorry To Burst The Bubble, But Viral Harold Is From A Book

The 'Refocus Form' that looks like it's from a teacher asking student Harold H. to...refocus...is actually from the children's book Dog Man by Dav Pilkey, and the form has been circulating around social media since at least 2017 when it took off on Reddit. That's right, Harold is a fictional character making fictional copies of Dog Man 'comix,' and he didn't actually cause the teacher to freak out in real life.

Again, this IS NOT real life. You're looking at a page from a book. There's a very good chance it'll be back two years from now, and a whole new batch of people will side with Harold here.

That said, if you're a Harold, keep drawing those doodles on your paper. Dav Pilkey's work on Dog Man series and the Captain Underpants series made him Publishers Weekly's Person of the Year in 2019. "Pilkey is doing more to excite kids about reading than any author since J.K. Rowling," Publishers Weekly wrote about the author in 2019.

At one point in 2019, Pilkey owned the top spot as the top bookseller in the United States with Dog Man No. 8, which was 200,000 units ahead of its nearest competitor. He followed up No. 8 with No. 9 in 2020. That book sold 1.25 million units in four months.