About

You're Now Listening To, also known as Radio Intro Parodies, refers to a series of greentexts and other memes parodying loud intros with noisy sound effects with that can often be heard on radio stations. This is then followed by a popular music track, often Radioactive by Imagine Dragons – a song often in complete dissonance with the previously stated genre of the radio station, adding to the joke. The format was spawned by a viral 4chan greentext in March 2022 and became popularized with voiced video versions throughout the following months.

Origin

On March 29th, 2022, an anonymous 4chan /mu/^[1] user posted a greentext parodying loud intros with noisy sound effects such as car crashes and explosions that can be heard on rock radio stations, juxtaposing it with a mainstream song that failed to fulfill the promise of "REAL ROCK" (shown below). A screenshot of the post subsequently found viral spread online. On March 29th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user @nano_pone posted it, with the tweet gaining over 18,900 retweets and 133,800 likes prior to being deleted.

The joke is parodying local American radio stations, which will often have interludes advertising the station alongside an overload of sound effects. The cliche has often been parodied, notably by Family Guy (shown below).

Spread

On March 30th, 2022, Twitter^[3] user @greeli_ posted a voiced version of the meme that gained over 28,400 retweets and 127,700 likes in one year (shown below).

this is real rock pic.twitter.com/UwrXCQoBeY

— Eli 🎣 (@greeli_) March 30, 2022

On April 1st, 2022, voice actor Gianni Matragrano posted his version of the meme to Twitter^[4] and YouTube.^[5] The uploads accrued over 3,300 retweets and 14,000 likes and 2.4 million views in one year, respectively.

The post inspired more similar greentexts and other posts making fun of radio stations in the following year. For example, on February 2nd, 2023, iFunny^[6] and YouTube^[7] user LocalExtremist posted a version about country music radio stations. The post gained over 9,100 smiles on iFunny and 462,000 views on YouTube in five months (shown below, left). In March 2023, a version referencing the Russian Invasion of Ukraine based on a now-deleted tweet by @Nike_yeast went viral (shown below, right).^[8][9]

Twitter Resurgence

The joke began seeing a resurgence on Twitter in the fall of 2023. For example, on October 5th, Twitter user @slobodanchudjak^[10] posted an example after reading the phrase "Hitler frequency," replacing the sounds with sounds from the Third Reich. The tweet gained over 230 retweets and 2,000 likes in six weeks (shown below, left). On October 11th, user @pyroghetti^[11] posted an example with pirate lingo, gaining over 950 retweets and 4,000 likes in a similar time frame (shown below, right).

On November 18th, 2023, user @SladesBrother^[12] did an example with Super Smash Brothers Melee sounds, gaining over 850 retweets and 5,800 likes in four days (shown below). This kicked off a wave of video game parodies on the platform.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References