About

"Gentlemen" is one of the many available voice commands for the character Spy on the online multiplayer game Team Fortress 2. Online, the quote has also been associated with an exploitable template showing the Spy with the mouth full of cigarettes.

Origin

It is unclear when the image macro of Spy with a mouthful of cigarettes first appeared online. It appears to have begun spreading as a meme in 2008. On January 26th, 2008, it was used by an anonymous user in a 4chan thread,^[1] though its likely that the image existed before the post (shown below).

Spread

On May 28th, 2009, Valve released an introductory video for the Spy character. When he enters the scene, he says, "Gentlemen…" (shown below)

Over the following years, the image would become a popular exploitable, inspiring hundreds of edits using different characters with their mouths filled with various objects (examples shown below).

On 4chan, June 5th has been declared the "Gentlemen's Holiday" which bans the use of "Gentlemen" or the starting of a "Gentlemen" thread on any day but June 5th. A section on "Gentleman" appears on the Team Fortress Wiki^[2] under the section for "Community Fads." It is also listed under Team Fortress 2 memes on TV Tropes.^[3]

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References