Read This in My Voice — Professor Farnsworth from Futurama pointing upward with mouth open

Read This in My Voice

2009image macroclassic

Published September 24, 2026

Read This in My Voice is a 4chan image macro format in which a picture of a well-known character carries the caption 'READ THIS IN MY VOICE,' prompting viewers to mentally hear the text spoken in that character's distinctive voice. The format first surfaced in a May 2009 4chan thread started by site founder moot, and it grew into a recurring imageboard bit through the end of that year.

image macro memes 4chan memes late 2000s memes catchphrase memes internet meta memes

Overview

Read This in My Voice, sometimes posted as 'You Are Reading This in My Voice,' is a captioned character portrait that plays a mental trick on whoever sees it 2. The image pairs an iconic character with a line of text asking the viewer to read it in that character's voice, and readers familiar with the source almost always hear the caption spoken in the right cadence without meaning to 2.

The joke sits at the intersection of image macros and inner speech. Subjects tend to be characters or celebrities with unmistakable vocal signatures, like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cast 1, so the reader's memory does most of the work. Longer captions amplify the effect because the mental voice sticks around for several sentences 2.

Origin & Background

Platform
4chan
Date
2009

The earliest documented Read This in My Voice image was posted to 4chan on May 29, 2009, in thread #138566834 started by site founder moot 2. The picture featured Boxy Brown, the cardboard-box imaginary friend character voiced by Dave Willis on Aqua Teen Hunger Force 1. moot posted the thread; the underlying character art belongs to the show's creators, so the meme's first uploader is documented but the original captioner is not separately identified 2.

How It Spread

The format took root on 4chan through the summer and fall of 2009. Google's indexing timeline showed the largest spikes of pages containing 'read this in my voice' during July and September 2009 2. By January 2010, at least 14 threads referencing 'in my voice' had been saved on 4chanarchive.org, with most of them created between October 2009 and January 2010 2.

From 4chan the joke drifted outward to general-interest forums and 'random' or 'just for fun' boards on sites like Ebaum's World, the Escapist Magazine forums, SodaHead, and the Steam Forums 2. It also picked up on Tumblr in early 2010 and gathered a dedicated Facebook group as the format aged into a familiar imageboard staple 2.

Timeline

2009-05-29

First known 'You Are Reading This in My Voice' image posted in 4chan thread #138566834 by moot, featuring Boxy Brown from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

2009-07

First peak of Google search indexing for 'read this in my voice' material.

2009-09

Second peak of Google search indexing during the meme's most active period on 4chan.

2010-01-08

Format documented on Tumblr as the meme spreads beyond imageboards.

2010-01-09

Thread using the format appears on the Steam Forums.

2010-01

4chanarchive.org catalog totals at least 14 archived threads containing the phrase 'in my voice.'

Frequently Asked Questions