About

Psychic: Reads My Mind refers to a snowclone meme based on a dialogue format in which a psychic tries to read the poster's mind, only to be baffled or shocked by the unusual nature of the findings, such as copypastas, ASCII art and other odd meme references on Tumblr.

Origin

The earliest known usage was by Tumblr user c-a-k-e on May 23rd, 2015,^[1] which gathered over 350,000 notes in the following eight months.

psychic: reads my mind
me: only endless screaming
psychic: what the fuck

Spread

After c-a-k-e's initial post, the meme slowly spread through Tumblr, accumulating several posts in the format with relatively small reaches. Some, like mushroom-cookie-bear's August 10th post, which received 83 notes, integrated photographs of popular characters, like My Little Ponies., while others, like actuary-tattoo's July 2nd post, integrated distinct fandoms – in this case, the fandom for the musical Hamilton which acquired 60 notes.

On August 20th, Tumblr user Skyawalker posted a dialogue featuring a reference to the Wii main menu theme, accumulating nearly 134,000 notes.^[6]

psychic: reads my mind
my mind: continuous Wii music
psychic: what the fucK

On August 27th, 2015, Tumblr user Koivern posted an instance of meme with a reference to the theme song of the Nickelodeon teen sitcom iCarly, which was subsequently picked up by Meme Documentation that same day.^[2]

psychic: reads my mind
me: only the icarly theme song
psychic: what the fuck

As of February 2016, Koivern's post as acquired more than 138,000 notes.^[5] Also on August 27th, Tumblr user TheDigitalPen posted a version which referenced Monty Python, accumulating more than 1,100 notes,^[7] followed by Tumblr user MilkTeaBobaFett's post, which garnered over 85,000 notes after incorporating a reference to the YouTube advertising structure.^[8]

psychic: (reads my mind)
my mind: THIS PERSON'S THOUGHTS WILL APPEAR AFTER THIS AD
psychic: what the fuck
me: want ad-free thoughts? subscribe to My Thoughts Premium™ for just only $4.99 a month

The next day, Tumblr user Madamarlert posted an instance of the meme with a reference to Nintendo's "Squid Kid" commercial for the 2015 third-person-shooter game Splatoon, racking up over 1,800 notes.^[11]

psychic: reads my mind
my mind: YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID YOU’RE A SQUID YOU’RE A KID
psychic: what the fuck

On August 29th, Tumblr user Traeken posted a version that referenced the Good Shit / Sign Me the Fuck Up Meme; this version received over 49,800 notes.^[12]

On August 30th, Tumblr user Alycyn posted a version featuring a wall of the Lenny Face emoticon, which accrued over 24,400 notes,^[13] followed by Tumblr user Birdystark's post featuring an image of a screaming bird , which has more than 228,500 notes.^[14]

The keywords "Psychic reads my mind" produces thousands of examples of the meme;^[3] results can also be searched for with the term "mind reading meme."^[4]

Various Examples

External References