About

Sudo I Love You is a commonly used joke structure, using the linux command "sudo," which forces the program to do what is commanded. The joke is typically structured a conversation between a man and a woman. It reads:

Boy: I love you.
Girl: I have a boyfriend.
Boy: Sudo I love you.
Girl: I love too

Origin

Sudo was creted by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer in 1980 at the Department of Computer Science at SUNY/Buffalo.^[1]

The earliest known usage online of the "Sudo" command used in a joke was posted in a comic by XKCD on August 28th, 2006.^[3] The comic features two stick figures. One says to the other "Make me a sandwich." When the request is denied, the one seated says, "Sudo make me a sandwich," and the other obliges (shown below).

Spread

On December 11th, 2006 by Urban Dictionary ^[2] user Rave4Simon. They defined the command as "Put in front of any word, spoken or writen, and it will command anyone to do anything you want them to do." The post (shown below) received more than 440 upvotes in 11 years.

On May 26th, 2015, Twitter user @swapblue tweeted (shown below, left), "#Engineer me: i love you she: how dare you! You have NO RIGHT to say so!! me: sudo i love you *blocked*"

On February 8th 2016, the Facebook account for the Linux website TecMint posted an ASCII Art image of a boy holding a sign that reads "Me: Will you be my Valentine? Girl: No way Me: sudo will you be my valentine? Girl: Yes…yes…yes! Let's go!" The post (shown below, center) received more than 5,600 reactions and 10,000 shares in two years.^[4]

Several months later, on October 22nd, Twitter ^[5] user @kavi_nikhurpa tweeted, 'Me: I love you 💜 Girl: I have a boyfriend Me: sudo I love you Girl: I love you too 💜" (shown below, right)

On February 5th, 2017, Facebook^[6] account techworm.in posted an image of the joke "Me: I love you Girl: I have a boyfriend Me: Sudo I love you Girl: I love you too. The post (shown below) received more than 400 reactions and 50 shares in one year.

The following year, Twitter^[7] user @addelindh posted a screen capture of the Facebook account Programming Jokes advertising a shirt with the joke on it. They captioned the joke "Sexism, the tech edition." The post (shown below, left) received more than 255 retweets and 850 likes in two days.

The next day, Twitter^[8] user @0xMatt retweeted @addelindh and added the caption, "Boy: I LOVE YOU Girl: I HAVE A BOYFRIEND Boy: SUDO I LOVE YOU Girl: BOY IS NOT IN THE SUDOERS FILE. THIS INCIDENT WILL BE REPORTED." The post (shown below, center) received more tahn 2,400 retweets and 6,800 likes in 24 hours.

Among the people to respond 0xMatt's tweet was Bob Coggeshall,^[9] the author of sudo. He said, "sudo you are welcome." The post (shown below, right) received more than 10 retweets and 130 likes in 24 hours.

Search Interest

External References