About

Fuck 12 is a slang expression used as an alternative to Fuck the Police which sometimes refers specifically to narcotics officers or the DEA. The phrase saw a significant resurgence in protests and online discussions surrounding the riots and protests that occurred following the death of George Floyd in late May 2020 and can be commonly seen on signs carried by protesters, graffiti or hashtags on social media.

Origin

The use of this expression appears online as early as 2014, though the exact origins are unknown. Some attribute the origins of this term to Atlanta, Georgia or Oakland, California. “Fuck 12” also frequently appears in a number of hip-hop songs, both in titles and lyrics. On June 13th, 2013, hip-hop trio Migos released the song “Fuck 12” on their mixtape YRN (seen below), which contains the lyrics “Aye throw that shit, throw that shit 12 outside” and “12 kickin’ in my front door,” which refers to disposing of narcotics as police/DEA arrive.

Spread

On December 21st, 2014 vocativ^[1] published an article discussing the term’s use following the police shootings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The article contains several examples of #fuck12 on Twitter.

On October 13th, 2016, rapper Gucci Mane uploaded his song “Intro: Fuck 12” to his YouTube^[2] channel (shown below), containing the use of the slang, which received over 3 million views, 27,000 likes and 800 comments.

Redditor^[3] DaddyDankSack posted the question, “Why do people (usually gangsters) say "Fuck 12" when yelling at cops?” to the r/OutOfTheLoop sub on January 3rd, 2017, which received several replies from users. The top answer from Redditor YES Im Taco read, “Because 12 is slang for the police, simply put. Songs like Vic Mensa's 16 Shots is a nice example of this.”

On July 20th, 2018, the term was added to Urban Dictionary^[4] by user Jellyfiish (seen below), receiving over 1440 likes.

On February 27th, 2020, The New Wave uploaded the music video for RMR's song “Rascal” to their YouTube^[5] channel, which contains the use of "Fuck 12" in the lyrics. The video (shown below) received over 2.6 million views, 66,000 likes and 6,300 comments.

During the George Floyd protests in late May 2020, several media outlets discussed the use of the phrase by protesters, including Miami New Times,^[6] Indiana Daily Student,^[7] and Washingtonian.^[8]

Also during these protests, the hashtag “#fuck12” could be seen frequently on social media posts, particularly on Twitter^[9] and Instagram.^[10] One such example could be seen on May 31st, 2020, by Twitter^[11] user mikes_dead, who used the hashtag alongside a video during the protests in NYC (shown below), receiving over 1,900 likes and 310 retweets.

On May 31st, 2020, Twitter^[12] user iliana_thoe14 tweeted a photo depicting a protester carrying a sign with the expression, as well as using the hashtag. The post (seen below) received over 500 likes and 150 retweets.

Search Interest

External References