Tom Haverford's 5-Hour Painting Scene Became a Lasting Reaction Meme

A scene from season two, episode nine of Parks and Recreation, titled "The Camel" and aired Nov. 12, 2009, produced one of the web's longer-running reaction images.

Actor Aziz Ansari's character Tom Haverford sits gazing at an abstract painting and delivers the line, "It's beautiful. I've looked at this for five hours now."

The earliest documented use as a meme traces to a May 2015 TinEye record, with a confirmed Imgur gallery post by user ExoticHatred on Sept. 7, 2015. A Tumblr post by punkrockgrantaire on Dec. 5, 2016 used it as a reaction to a Fake Ah Crew poster.

A tweet by OverwatchTXT on Aug. 8, 2017 drew more than 4,600 likes and 1,700 retweets. An Imgur post by Daqonium on June 13, 2018, using the image as a reaction to The Elder Scrolls VI announcement trailer, reached more than 110,000 views and 1,700 points. A Reddit post by datastar763 in r/dankmemes on Sept. 17, 2019 collected more than 54,000 upvotes.

A scene from season two, episode nine of Parks and Recreation, titled "The Camel" and aired Nov. 12, 2009, produced one of the web's longer-running reaction images.

Actor Aziz Ansari's character Tom Haverford sits gazing at an abstract painting and delivers the line, "It's beautiful. I've looked at this for five hours now."