He Is a Man of Focus, Commitment and Sheer Fucking Will

About

“He Is a Man of Focus, Commitment and Sheer Fucking Will” is a memorable quote uttered by Abram Tarasov (played by Peter Stormare) in the 2017 neo-noir action film John Wick Chapter 2. The quote is used alongside a still from the scene as a reaction image to an above caption or image to express how the actions of someone or something requires dedication and is noteworthy of praise. Usually it is genuine but can sometimes be sarcastic.

Origin

Though the line is used similarly in the first John Wick movie, the meme comes from a scene in the second film, John Wick: Chapter 2, released February 10th, 2017. The specific part this quote occurs happens in a scene with Abram Tarasov (the leader of the Tarasov Mob after John killed his brother Viggo in the first movie) as he’s discussing John Wick’s backstory with one of his men. In this clip (seen below), Abram tells his henchman that John Wick’s car is in possession of their chop shop and that they will inevitably face his wrath as a result of slighting him. The henchman then says, “Sir, he’s one man. Why don’t we just eliminate him.” To which Abram replies, “John Wick … is a man of focus, commitment and sheer fucking will.”

Though the original creator of the template is unknown, one of the first uses of the scene in meme format comes from a post to r/JohnWick by Redditor^[1] FoltyCZ on June 7th, 2019. The meme, seen below, was upvoted 532 times.

Spread

After making the rounds on the r/JohnWick sub, the template was spread around Reddit to other subs as users began creating new variants of the meme. On October 16th, 2019, Redditor mama_banano uploaded a version to r/Memes^[2] and received nearly 40,000 upvotes for his post about a text conversation between a man and a woman waiting until she was of legal age.

Outside Reddit, the meme was used on Twitter^[3] as a frequently seen reaction to tweets from various users. One such example was posted on June 18th, 2019, when Cyranek (an American musician) tweeted a video of him alongside a sarcastic news article. In the replies, user ValTheViolet posted the template as a reply, seen below.

Versions of the meme continued to spread around the internet, eventually making their way to iFunny where numerous examples can be found. One of these was uploaded to iFunny^[4] on October 9th, 2019, featuring a news article about a man shoving climate protesters out of his way as he’s “determined to get a burger.” The post was awarded over 110,000 points and commented on over 2,000 times.

On February 1st, 2020, another example (shown below) made the front page of r/Memes^[5] when Redditor Saaie posted a meme about two brothers recreating Toy Story 3 with real toys over the course of 8 years. This post was then upvoted over 62,000 times, also receiving a Reddit award.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References