About

"RT If You Can Hear This Image' (or "RT If You Can Hear This Picture") is a popular caption for images that Twitter use to describe photographs that are heavily associated with a specific sound. People are then encouraged to "retweet" or share the image if they recognize the sound.

Origin

The earliest known iteration of the caption was posted on July 29th, 2014 by Twitter^[1] user @beywithjoon. The image in the tweet (shown below), however, has since been deleted.

Spread

Several months later, on October 21st, 2014, Twitter^[2] user @_Dutch tweeted a picture of rapper Meek Mill with the caption. The post (shown below, left) received more than 65 retweets and 10 likes.

About one year later, on October 15th, 2015 Twitter^[3] user @nellychillin tweeted the "THX" logo with the caption. The post (shown below, center) received more than 25 retweets and 10 likes in two and a half years.

Four months later, on February 29th, 2016, Twitter^[4] user @Hloni_CR7 tweeted a screen capture from the Tyler Perry film Maedea's Big Happy Family. The post (shown below, right) received more than 695 retweets and 120 likes in two years.

On March 15th, 2018, Twitter^[5] user @LJB_FGC posted an image of Chris Tucker from the The Fifth Element with the caption. The post (shown below) received more than 8,400 retweets and 11,000 likes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References