About

My Goals Are Beyond Your Understanding is a memorable quote uttered by the character Reverse Flash on the American superhero television series The Flash. Online, a screenshot of the character has been used as a reaction image macro used to describe one's strength and confidence.

Origin

On December 9th, 2014, the episode of The Flash "The Man in the Yellow Suit" aired in the United States.^[1] In the episode, the character Reverse Flash (portrayed by Tom Cavanagh) tells others, "My goals are beyond your understanding" (clip below).

The earliest known usage of the image as a meme was published on July 14th, 2018 on the /r/FlashTV^[2] subreddit with the caption, "When I'm asked why I laser eye with every picture" (shown below).

Spread

Over the next two years, the format experienced sporadic usage. One of the most popular examples, posted by Redditor^[3] Dazza1910 on May 22nd, 2019, depicted the characters "Polish man," using it to react to a number headlines referencing "Polish man." The post received more than 14,000 points (98% upvoted) and 245 comments in less than one year (shown below, left).

Toward the end of the year, people continued to use the format. On August 30th, 2019, Redditor^[4] Rotsec used the image as a description for Bill Gates. The post received more than 22,000 points (90% upvoted) and 150 comments in less than six months (shown below, center).

The memes continued into the following year. On January 1st, 2020, Redditor^[5] CalmProfit shared a variation about Firepods. Within one month, the post received more than 39,000 points (95% upvoted) and 215 comments (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References