About

Professor X's Mind Rays refers to a reaction image macros of Marvel superhero Professor X touch his temples and scowling in pain as red circles emanate from his forehead. The image has been used online as a joke about people exerting effort when thinking.

Origin

On September 20th, 1997, the episode "Graduation Day" of X-Men: The Animated Series aired in the United States.^[1] In the episode, a remote control involuntarily triggers Professor X's mutant powers, causing red circles to shoot from his forehead, representing his pain (shown below).

Spread

On September 15th, 2015, Imgur ^[5] Belheir posted the image with the caption "When bae's phone dies during 'girls night out' and you can already sense niggas coming at her" (shown below). However, the image was likely originally posted Twitter given its inclusion in a "Black Twitter Dump."

On June 6th, 2016, an anonymous 4chan ^[2] user posted the image in the /co/ forum with the caption "Can't wait for Wade to make this face" (shown below).

On June 25th, 2018, Twitter ^[4] user @hopkinsharlee tweeted the image with the caption "me thinking of ways to make money without actually getting a job." The post received more than 50,000 likes and 20,000 retweets in one year (shown below, left).

On June 16th, 2019 Redditor ^[3] Kaede_Kurosawa posted the image with the caption "Me trying to remember Obama's last name like." The post received more than 62,000 points (94% upvoted) and 700 comments in 24 hours (shown below, center).

The following day, Redditor^[6] DozoAnimations posted an animated variation with the caption "Me trying to remember how to animate memes." The post received more than 23,000 points (94% upvoted) and 100 comments (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References