Keanu Reeves has taken the Internet meme, 'Keanu is sad' and created a book. The meme began as a simple photo of the actor sitting quietly on a bench munching a sandwich, looking at the ground. He appeared sad, almost like a homeless man with his scruffy hair, full beard and plastic bags on the bench next to him. He didn't exactly look gleeful.
Anyway, the meme went viral, and variations of a sad-looking Keanu popped up everywhere. Photoshoppers put his seated image in unlikely places, creating mirthful chuckles in those who saw the finished pieces. Examples include a sad Keanu surrounded by a horde of hungry cats, a sad Keanu alone in a canoe on a lake. The possibilities are endless!
the Internet meme had nothing to do with his book, "Ode to Happiness," but folks don't buy it. Inside the book are inkblots and depressing poems, the likes of which would kill any semblance of joy upon reading the first few lines. How is that an ode to happiness? Keanu explained that it was meant to be absurd and farcical.
He said, "I was in my kitchen hanging out with my friend Janey, and the radio was on - and this station was playing, like, an orgy of depressing, self-pitying, nostalgic music. You know: 'I'm so lonely and I've been left and my heart is broken.' It was so voluptuously horrible. And I just started to write on this piece of paper, because I had this image of, you know, that moment when you take that bath, you light that candle, and you're really just kind of depressed. And it was making Janey laugh so hard, I just kept going, piling on the self-pity."
So now we know. Keanu is sad. But, but in a voluptuously horrible way, and he wants to make you laugh.