I Told Her It Was Mozart

Submission 22,398

About

Shhh…I Told Her It Was Mozart refers to a series of photoshop memes that feature someone playing music from their phone through a pair of headphones suctioned to a pregnant woman's stomach with the caption "shhh…I told her it was Mozart." The meme plays on the myth that playing the music of classical around an unborn or infant child will make them smarter. Online, users have photoshopped different images on the phone, altering what the phone is playing.

Origin

On December 24th, 2014, Instagram user turangalila_^[1] posted the earliest known iteration of the meme: An iPhone playing the Kanye West album Yeezus into a pair of headphones connected to a pregnant woman's stomach (shown below). The user captioned the photograph "Shhh. I told her it was Mozart. #yeezytaughtme #hypedad." Within 126 weeks, the post has received more than 1,300 likes.

The Mozart Effect

The meme's caption, "I told her it was Mozart," refers to a myth known as "The Mozart Effect," wherein playing classical music for a baby will make them smarter. This myth, based on a controversial study that saw a temporary increase in test-taking skills among college students, has been debunked.^[6]

Spread

About a week after the initial post, on January 6th, 2015, the Twitter account @TheMeninist^[2] shared a screenshot of the full Instagram post with their own caption, “Parenting done right.” The post received more than 1,100 retweets and 1,700 likes as of May 2017.

On August 20th, 2015, Tumblr user rontheronin^[3] posted one of the most popular variations of the meme, which replaced the Kanye album with a YouTube video playing wrestler John Cena’s entrance music (shown below). The post received more than 169,000 notes as of May 2017. Redditor Nighthawk7397^[4] shared the same image on the /r/me_irl subreddit on September 2nd, receiving more than 4,900 points (92% upvoted) and 80 comments. 10 days later, the UNILAD^[5] Facebook page shared the image to more than 130,000 reactions, 14,000 shares and 17,000 comments.

Since then, people online have begun not only using music in their photoshops, but also videos, including speeches by political figures, athletes, other YouTube memes and video games.