We Left The Percs

About

We Left The Percs, also known as Fuck You Mean We Left The Percs, refers to a catchphrase used in memes to demonstrate anger and confusion regarding the misplacement of the pain-relieving drug "Percocet" in a faraway, unreachable region or location. It's often used to reference catastrophes and crises that limit the average human's travel. It's also used most prominently to caption image macros of world leaders like Joe Biden and George W. Bush, who are often informed by intelligence that they "left the percs" in such memes. The catchphrase was first coined on iFunny in late 2019 before spreading to other platforms.

Origin

Although the original post is unknown, the concept of "we left the percs" started with a video meme on iFunny that reversed a video of a space shuttle taking off with the top and bottom captions, written in Impact font, reading, "Fuck You Mean We Left The Percs." A timestamp of September 28th, 2019, serves as the origin date because of a tweet posted on the 28th by Twitter^[1] user MrSpike420. A spike in Google searches of "we left the percs" can also be observed in Google trends,^[2] starting on the 29th.

The earliest known repost of the original video was uploaded to YouTube by the channel Straight up Just cheefin on October 2nd, 2019, gaining roughly 16,000 views over the course of three years (shown below). Additionally, the video was reposted to Instagram^[3] on October 2nd by the page i_paint_liquor_cabinets, earning over 90 likes.

Spread

On October 2nd, 2019, Redditor Forsaken_EGG posted the first known variant of the meme to /r/HistoryMemes,^[4] attaching a link to a YouTube video meme they created that used the catchphrase. However, the post only received one upvote because the YouTube video was removed regarding community guidelines.

On October 4th, 2019, Redditor hisvalkyrie reposted the original video to /r/PlayboiCarti,^[5] earning roughly 2,400 upvotes over the course of three years.

On October 13th, 2019, Instagram^[6] meme page chocobleach posted a We Left The Perks meme, captioning a video of a cruise ship crashing into a port with the catchphrase and receiving roughly 3,200 likes over the course of three years (shown below, left). Chocobleach posted another meme^[7] using the catchphrase the next day, October 14th, earning roughly 2,300 likes in the same amount of time (shown below, right). This time, they used a video of soldiers deploying out of an aircraft.

On January 29th, 2020, Instagram^[8] page original4ofus posted a meme that referenced the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, making a joke about having left the percs in Wuhan and using a clip of Walter White from Breaking Bad running in a hazmat suit. The meme (shown below, left) earned roughly 9,300 likes over the course of two years. On June 20th, 2020, iFunnier^[8] DirtyHispanic posted We Left The Percs meme using a video of a Chinese bus doing a k-turn in the middle of a busy highway, earning roughly 4,400 smiles over the course of two years (shown below, right).

More memes appeared going into 2021 and 2022 regarding other world crises and controversies like the Suez Canal Jam in March 2021. For instance, on March 24th, 2021, iFunnier^[10] Huzlip posted a meme referencing the jam, earning roughly 2,000 smiles in one year (shown below, left). On August 15th, 2021, iFunnier^[11] Bodark referenced the 2021 Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, earning roughly 1,200 smiles in six months (shown below, right).

The catchphrase received increased usage again in early 2022 amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. For instance, Twitter^[12] user peetsahboy posted a tweet on February 12th, 2022, captioning a photo of U.S. President Joe Biden on the phone with, "FUCK YOU MEAN WE LEFT THE PERCS IN KIEV?!” earning roughly 30,500 likes over the course of two weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References