I don't like to make our readers feel the weight of the passing years—but I'm afraid I have to inform you that Leeroy Jenkins, one of the internet's oldest memes, turned 20 years old yesterday. I know, I know. I'm not sure how to feel about it either.
The meme (which is one year away from being able to drink in the US, and has already been slamming pints for two years in the UK) was released on May 11, 2005 to Warcraftmovies—you know, back when you could still have websites dedicated to the machinima of a single game. Also, back when 'Machinima' was still a word people used.
The video, recorded by the charmingly-named guild Pals for Life, features the titular Leeroy Jenkins just absolutely screwing up an entire raid pull in the Rookery of Blackrock Spire.
It's a perfect comedy routine: A set of exasperated, tired gamers talking about their chances of successfully pulling off a good fight. One player saying, with full knowledge that the number's a complete asspull, how the group has a "32.33 (repeating of course) percentage" of victory.
Then Leeroy, belting his own name like a battlecry to the gods, springs out of his AFK state, fuelled by some animating spirit of the skalds of legend, and barrels inside, quickly killing everybody in a swarm of dial-up internet lag and bad decisions. As the dust settles, he's called "stupid as hell", to which he replies "at least I have chicken".
Two decades later, we're still making Leeroy jokes. In 2023, US House representative Jared Huffmann belted his name with the same intonation after three days of arduous voting. Sweep back through the past, and you'll be pelted with Leeroy Jenkins. How I Met Your Mother even referenced it, doubtless leaving plenty of sitcom watchers confused.
Turns out, we even wrote about it back then—and with a little bit of hunting in our archives by our own Dave Jones, we were able to dredge up some excerpts from "The Ballad of Leeroy Jenkins" by former PCG writer Craig Pearson. It gives a nice window into the 2005-era internet. An era I fear we've now well and truly lost.
"A legend has been born," Pearson wrote. "Leeroy's guild forum is littered with fans clamouring to bask in the man's presence." He goes on to cite a post from the Pals for Life site, which stated: "All day today my local radio station was pranking people with the Leeroy Jenkins yell, and my local tobacco and liquor shop was giving away free drinks and radio station T-shirts to people who came in and yelled 'Hell yea it's Friday, LEEROY JENKINS!!!!'. All damn day they were doing this."
According to that article, Leeroy's player endured no small amount of internet stardom, for good or for ill, with routine messages and "increased attention from enemy players, horde gangs queuing up to snuff him out the minute he shows up in enemy territory."
Rewatching the video itself, I can't help but feel nostalgic. Even if Kotaku would later break my heart and reveal it was staged—although re-reading Pearson's article from 2005, it turns out most people knew all along:
"Of course, it's a setup. Made to parody nerdy guilds," he wrote, before also adding that Pals for Life themselves told PCG directly that: "With MMOs, a lot of people treat the game as a job, and with our guild that is exactly what we're trying to avoid". Pearson also elaborates that "Stunts like naked raids on enemy settlements are an integral part of their manifesto". Hardly the type to have a mathemagician spin percentiles out of thin air.
It's a symbol of a simpler time, where videogame memes could crop up pure, unfiltered, and spread because they were gut-bustingly funny. It also reflects a goofier era in MMOs in general—perhaps I was simply too much of a greenhorn noob in my youth, but in the modern era of instantly-solved raid mechanics and mandatory UI mods, I'm not sure something like Leeroy Jenkins could exist.
Honestly, looking at Pearson's conclusion to the phenomenon nowadays gives me a sense dramatic irony: "For too long we've suffered under the folk who take games too seriously, who call us 'noobs' for dying, or killing them when they weren't expecting it, or not following their perfectly laid plans.
"Leeroy shows us the way. A simple act of (staged) idiocy has freed us all and reminded us what gaming's about: Fun." Anyone who's done Mythic+ dungeon runs in WoW can tell you this liberation did not last. I'm sorry, Leeroy. We've lost our way. We no longer know how to cry "times up, let's do this!". We may not even have chicken.
Sweaty, high-DPS min-maxers are now the expected norm, rather than the butt of a joke. Leeroy's brand of hooliganry now has to manifest in terms of service-violating nonsense—and while I'll still have a good-old chuckle, it's all far less wholesome. They just don't make memes like they used to, and none of us can just run in without fearing the wrath of strangers. The folks who take games too seriously won.
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