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That's Okay Buddy We're From the Union
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About
That's Okay Buddy We're From The Union is a line from a scene in the 2004 Dreamworks film Shrek 2. The scene has inspired several fan art pieces, as well as use as an exploitable image macro in memes. The format also uses an alternative line with the phrasal template They Don't Even Have X from the same Shrek scene in similar memes.
Origin
In the original scene, Shrek, Donkey and Puss in Boots travel to Fairy Godmother's factory to find something to help make Princess Fiona happy. At the entrance, they speak to an elf named Jerome at the front counter, who says that she isn't seeing any clients that day. Shrek then replies, "That's okay, buddy. We're with the union," and asks Jerome if he felt at all degraded or oppressed. This causes Jerome to turn the intercom away from him to speak with Shrek more privately. He then mentions that they don't even have dental. Shrek, snarkily, says to Donkey, "They don't even have dental," as he proceeds to go investigate the back of the factory and tells Jerome it would be best if Fairy Godmother didn't know they were there.
The scene was uploaded to YouTube by the channel ProfessorDerpington[1] on November 23rd, 2015, where it received over 200,000 views in seven years (shown below).
It is unknown who first used the format in a meme, but an early example was posted on January 19th, 2019, by Redditor CyanideSandwich7,[2] who uploaded a meme to the /r/prequelmemes subreddit using the line as a punchline, earning 300 upvotes in three years (shown below).
Spread
Throughout the remainder of 2019, the meme template continued to spread and was later used in an Infinity War meme contrasted against Doctor Strange by Redditor[3] hichemce on March 17th, 2019, earning 1,400 upvotes in two years (shown below).
They Don't Even Have X Derivative
The line "They Don't Even Have X" became an exploitable snowclone meme on sites such as Tumblr following the spread of That's Okay Buddy We're From The Union, which uses Photoshop to alter the scene and about different topics or things that are missing or lacking. For example, Tumblr[4] user Woodrider uploaded a version of this meme but replaced the word "dental" in the original quote with "manga" to make a common complaint from people who watch anime-only viewers talk about their favorite shows (shown below).
Various Examples
