It's Been 10 Years Since A 'World Of Warcraft' Player Immortalised Two Little Words

Up until about 2010 or so, when World Of Warcraft launched its third expansion, Cataclysm, the planet-beating massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) was a legitimate commitment.

Although Cataclysm and consequent expansions have decidedly steered the game towards a more casual-friendly outlook, "back in the day" — for World Of Warcraft and first two expansions The Burning Crusade and Wrath Of The Lich King — it was not uncommon for your average Guild member to be spending double-figure hours holed up in virtual dungeons with 24 (or, at one time, 39) other humans all hell-bent on taking down bosses to score hard-to-come-by loot.

For serious players, it was tantamount to a second job — the long hours grinding materials and attunement quests, getting familiar with the mechanics of boss fights and wider raid experience, squabbles over gear, squabbles over strategy, and — above all — a tangible sense of team achievement when the group managed to pull it together enough to actually down an enemy for once instead of simply adding to the wipeout pile.

Despite the fact the game has changed so much since its 2004 launch, and especially in the past couple of expansions, the heady days of seriously painful group dungeons, or raids, of yore still live on through infamous tales and videos, such as an immortal wipe in Onyxia's Lair from 2007, and, more importantly for our purposes here, the clip that introduced us to Leeroy Jenkins, which somewhat unbelievably turned 10 years old on 11 May.

If you're unfamiliar, the original Leeroy Jenkins video was uploaded to WoW fansite Warcraft Movies on 11 May, 2005, rocketing to pop-cultural immortality within a matter of weeks for its depiction of a raid going horribly wrong after one of the players — the eponymous Leeroy — ignores pre-encounter guidance from the rest of his group and charges into a dungeon room while screaming his own name, consequently killing his entire, very perplexed, team.

The reason it became so popular so quickly is because, in a time when all too many WoW players knew the pain of spending hours in a raid only to have it blow up in their faces, the Leeroy Jenkins clip — which was later revealed to be a work by in-game guild PALS FOR LIFE — so perfectly captured the kind of boorish, anal-retentive, pedantic strategising that plagued raid groups during the game's nascent years, as well as the sheer horror that washes across them — not to mention the unchecked chaos and death — after Leeroy, apparently bored of their pontificating, makes his now-immortal move.

Of course, the downside of the whole thing is that it also led to a bunch of copycat players deliberately wiping raid groups for kicks while screaming, "LEEEEROOOOOOYYYY JEEEENNKINSSSSSS!" as though that should excuse it, well past the joke's use-by date, so… y'know. It wasn't all sunshine and roses.

Relive the original event for posterity below.

(Note for non-gamers wondering what the hell they're looking for: the moment of truth hits at about 1.20.)

The impact that Leeroy's cry of his own name as he rushes to certain doom, to the shock of his groupmates, cannot be overstated in cultural terms - not only did game-makers Blizzard introduce an achievement that allows players to have the surname "Jenkins" added to their characters' names (by recreating the Paladin's ill-fated suicide rush), but Leeroy Jenkins himself became an actual character in the World Of Warcraft trading-card set and, consequently, card game Hearthstone: Heroes Of Warcraft, as well as being a recent introduction, via latest expansion Warlords Of Draenor, as a non-playable character.

In the wider world, Leeroy was also mentioned in a deleted scene from terrible Jack Black/Michael Cera film Year One, as well as Monsters Vs Aliens, enjoyed a mention on Jeopardy!, and has been referenced on so many TV shows that TV Tropes even has an entire page dedicated to the character.

Thank you, PALS FOR LIFE, and Leeroy Jenkins himself, for 10 years of gaming-comedy magic. We hope you still have chicken.