Katt Williams did not read 3000 books a year

I was watching the Katt Williams interview on Club Shay Shay because I love me some celebrity gossip. He was ranting and going on about how Cedric is a joke thief and Steve Harvey and them are in a cabal of elitists. Somewhere around 33 minutes in he starts talking about how at 8-years old he was reading 3000 books a year.

Now Katt pointed out early on that he was an expert in comedy, thus we should take him seriously on the subject of funny. High key, this makes sense to me. I'm not a comedian, my opinion on comedy only matters if you want my ticket money.

I, on the other hand, do read. In 2020 I read 60 books. When you click the link and see 59, one of the books was my homie and the book wasn't listed in Goodreads. If you ask me about any one of those books, it may take a second, but I can book report you.

I'm a bit of a book reading connoisseur if I do say so myself.

Speed readers are real, I am not one.

Let's get the elephant out of the room. Speed reading is a thing. You can train yourself to read faster than the average reader. I googled it. On average we're talking a 3X gain for the supremely fastest readers.

Beyond that you are definitely taking a hit to comprehension of text. As it is speed reading is good for high-level concepts but you are likely going to miss out on details.

When stuff is overly descriptive in a paragraph I do this thing where I position the book where I can see the entire paragraph in the focus part of my vision. Then i quickly scan the entire thing looking for stuff beyond aesthetic description. If it does not exist I move on, I'm never going to remember the colour of the roof anyway.

I wanted to bring this up to preface that even is Katt Williams is a savant speed reader with the skillset of a champion, science has studied the human limits of reading speed.

Also one more thing, I can also read in two languages. Even as an 8 year old I had basic French reading skills. My dad literally made me read The Lord of the Rings in French before I could read it in English. This was at 12-years old.

At 3-years old, speaking French, English & Creole is just normal in any Hatian neighbourhood in Montreal. Speaking multiple languages as a kid is more common than not around the world. I can see how it gave Katt more opportunity to read, but that doesn't impact your speed for reading.

All that to say, even with all the time in the world, I think 300-400 books is a more realistic number for a prodigy genius kid.

Books take up a stupid amount of space

I suppose Katt could have lived at the library and read all the books there. Apparently the Dayton Metro Library Area has 200'000 books. It's realistic that if he was there all the time he could have read the books.

Keep in mind he went to Florida and read books all day when he was 13.

However now we need to take into account travel time to the library and other time-wasting factors that would make it more challenging to achieve 3000 books a year. I bring this up because where is he storing these books. We have like 500 books in the appartment and it's already turning into random piles and boxes.

Maybe his parents had access to a crazy number of books via the Jehovah's Witnesses. Still, Katt would have had to max out the library rentals daily. He would have had to have read every one of those books within a day. Then return them the next day and check out more. I suppose he could have lived in the library, sleeping overnight all illegal-like. Now I'm picturing Katt getting clipped on trespassing, being like, "Please, let me read one more page".

Maybe this whole section is a bit superfluous. So was his claim. Katt Williams was also enrolled in school at this time. I imagine this means he wasn't actually day-in & day-out at the library, where there are in fact enough books for him to read his goal. Non-fiction books can be really long and boring. I read a whole bunch of them.

Katt told me to call out the lies

I heard Katt sit on that Club Shay Shay couch and speak his truth to the world. He made it specifically clear that when someone went on that couch and told some lies, they needed to be taken to account. Then Katt proceeded to tell, what I can only excuse as, a gross exaggeration.

Now if all of a sudden there is evidence that appears of a young Katt Williams reading a book 24/7, I recant this entire blog. As Katt pointed out with the drug thing, no videos or evidence existed to support the claim he is on drugs. I imagine with this Guiness World Record feat the man is describing, there has to be at least one picture that exists of Katt, surrounded by a pile of books.

It's such a weird flex to me. Every single person who reads books on the planet can call bullshit on the claim easily. I can't say if Katt Williams was being truthful or not on the rest of his interview. Maybe Ludacris IS in the illumaniti. But I can tell you one thing, I don't believe for a second that Katt Williams read 3000 books in a year, ever.

I'm not here to chime in on the rest of the interview. I don't really care, nor is it my business. But I feel this man besmirched the reading community to make his point with hyperbolic nonsense. Had he said 300 books a year I would not have batted an eye, I believe that number.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone