About

I'm From Buenos Aires and I Say Kill Them All or I'm From Buenos Aires and I Say Kill 'Em All is a line said by Starship Troopers character Johnny Rico (played by actor Casper Van Dien), who interrupts a live news report to state his opinion on the war with the aliens during a scene from the 1997 movie adaptation. Online, a still image of the character has been used as a reaction image and caption format in memes, with users altering the line to reference various real and fictional events.

Origin

On November 7th, 1997, the science fiction action film Starship Troopers, based on a 1959 novel of the same name, premiered.^[1] In one scene of the film, a TV correspondent is reporting on the upcoming invasion of an alien planet near a group of Mobile Infantry troopers. As the correspondent is talking about how some think that a "live-and-let-live" would be preferable to war, protagonist Johnny Rico interrupts him and says that he comes from the recently destroyed city of Buenos Aires and he thinks that all alien bugs should be killed (scene shown below).

Let me tell you something. I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say kill 'em all!

Prior to February 2024, the scene saw limited use in memes online, occasionally used as a format. For example, on March 17th, 2020, X^[2] / Twitter user @hereliesthighs posted a meme about the COVID-19 pandemic based on a still image of Johnny Rico speaking to the camera that received over 50 reposts and 370 likes in five years (shown below).

Spread

On August 25th, 2022, Redditor vietmin posted a history meme based on the format that received over 1,600 upvotes in the /r/HistoryMemes^[3] subreddit in three years (shown below).

The post was widely circulated online through reposts in the following years. For example, on February 18th, 2024, X^[4] user @PancreasNo made a repost that accumulated over 90 reposts and 1,900 likes in one year.

Later on February 18th, 2024, X^[5] user @VNanon_ posted a Halo meme based on the format that garnered over 520 reposts and 5,400 likes in one year (shown below).

On February 28th, 2024, X^[6] user @wenchhaver posted a meme about the Grinch based on the meme format that received over 4,800 reposts and 29,000 likes in one year (shown below).

In 2024 and 2025, multiple memes based on the format were posted on X, Reddit and other platforms.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References