Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for There Will Be Blood; read at your own caution.

About

I Drink Your Milkshake is a phrase spoken by Daniel Plainview to Eli Sunday at the end of There Will Be Blood, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. In the film, the phrase was intentionally used as a metaphor: sucking milkshake from someone else to demonstrate not only oil drainage from prized land but the harsh nature of how cruelty often trumps meekness. The line spread online for years after the film's release in remixes and parodies due to the absurdity of the line.

Origin

In the final scene of There Will Be Blood, released to critics in late 2007 and to wider audiences on January 25th, 2008,^[1] pastor Eli Sunday approaches his ideological rival, oil baron Daniel Plainview, with an offer to sell Daniel the final piece of land in Little Boston unowned by Plainview, the Bandy Tract. After humiliating Eli, Daniel rejects his offer, explaining that the area had been "drilled" because the oil there had drained into the areas around it, which Plainview owned. Explaining this, Plainview says, "If you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw, my straw reaches across the room and starts to drink your milkshake. I. Drink. Your. Milkshake! I drink it up!"

Spread

Before "There Will Be Blood" expanded its release, on January 18th, 2008, YouTuber KevinKoonz uploaded a music video YouTube, titled There Will Be Milkshakes, a montage of scenes from the original There Will Be Blood trailer clipped together to the song "Milkshake" by Kelis (shown below).

On February 2nd, 2008, YouTube user ShawnRay9 uploaded a music video of the same title and song. This time, the video was much longer and focused on the infamous "Milkshake" scene. ShawnRay9 had later on moved to a new account and reposted the video. This time it was titled I Drink Your Milkshake!!! Other users started making their own "Milkshake" music videos, such as users Controversiolae (shown below, left) and weareactualsize (shown below, right).

The scene was also widely parodied and impersonated on YouTube. Examples include videos by Brock Baker, who posted "I Drink Your Juicebox!" on May 30th, 2009, gaining over 40,000 views (shown below, left) and a reenactment posted by UndoTube which gained over 200,000 views (shown below, right).

The scene also had a significant presence on YTMND, with multiple pages devoted to "I Drink Your Milkshake" parodies, including "There Will Be Picard"^[2] and "There Will Be Connery."^[3]

The scene also was popularly referenced in image macros from the era, appearing in Demotivational Posters and "I Can Haz Cheezeburger?" edits (examples shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References