You Expect Me to Believe This Shit?

About

You Expect Me to Believe This Shit? (exact phrasing varies) refers to a catchphrase and series of memes in which users question technological processes powering various devices. Spawned by a 4chan post in which a user questioned the science behind microwaving, the meme format saw continuous presence on the imageboard in 2021 and 2022.

Origin

On March 9th, 2021, an anonymous 4chan^[1] user made a post on the /b/ thread of the imageboard in which they humorously questioned the technology behind microwaving, summarizing, "just imagine believing in microwave" (shown below).

>no fire
>spinning plate (???)
>hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
>beep beep beep beep
>food is hot
just imagine believing in microwave

Spread

On March 11th, 2021, Redditor statusremoved posted a screenshot of the post to the /r/greentext subreddit,^[2] with the post gaining over 630 upvotes in one year.

On March 11th, a similar post was made on the /r9k/ board,^[3] with a user questioning the science behind televisions (shown below, left). In the same thread, a user made a post^[4] in which they questioned the process of toasting (shown below, right).

On March 13th, 2021, an unknown Redditor posted a screenshot of the first post to /r/greentext,^[5] where it received over 9,200 upvotes in one year.

Throughout 2021, more similar threads were created on 4chan, primarily on its /b/ and /r9k/ boards. For example, on April 17th, a 4chan^[6] user made a post about lawnmowers (shown below, left). On July 20th, 2021, a user made a post about elevators in /r9k/^[7] (shown below, right), with two users replying with similarly-structured posts about planes and cars.

Many "you expect me to believe this shit" posts received viral spread outside of 4chan through reposts.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References