Leeroy Jenkins

File:Leeroy card.jpg

Leeroy Jenkins as he appears on a card in the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game

This article is about the Internet meme, game character, and World of Warcraft player. For the jazz musician, see Leroy Jenkins.

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Leeroy Jenkins, sometimes mis-spelled Leroy Jenkins and often elongated with numerous additional letters, is an Internet phenomenon named for a character created by World of Warcraft player Ben Schulz in Blizzard Entertainment's popular MMORPG. The character has become popular thanks to a video of the game that circulated around the Internet. The phenomenon has since spread well beyond the boundaries of the WoW community into other online games and media.

Leeroy Jenkins was mentioned as part of a clue on the November 16, 2005 episode of the game show Jeopardy! as part of their college week tournament. A presentation at the 2005 "Aesthetics of Play" conference at the University of Bergen described Leeroy as the "one icon of the WoW player, one movie from the game that most people have seen."

The Phenomenon

This Internet phenomenon started with the release of a video clip online to the World of Warcraft forums. The video was released by the World of Warcraft Alliance player guild PALS FOR LIFE on the Laughing Skull PvP realm.

The video clip is a machinima recording of the game World of Warcraft. The clip begins with ten players, including Leeroy the Paladin, planning a raid on part of a dragon-filled dungeon. The players are heard discussing tactics (Abduhl notes, "We have a 32.33, repeating, of course, percent chance of survival", another remarks that it's better than they usually do.) before they enter, however, Leeroy remains quiet. In real life, Ben Schulz was away from his keyboard and was not paying attention to the discussion. Just as the team begins discussing the final plan for its assault, Leeroy suddenly springs to life, shouting his battle cry of "Alright thumbs up, let's do this! LEEEROY JENNNNNKINS!". He then charges fearlessly (or perhaps idiotically) into battle, to the complete and utter incredulity of his teammates. Attempting to rescue their comrade, the team charges in and attempts to execute their plan but they are quickly overwhelmed. At the end, Leeroy is chided by his allies for leading them to their deaths, and he responds with the famous line "At least I got chicken." Referring to his activity away from keyboard.

Rise in popularity

Leeroy was given a substantial boost in notoriety by the publication of an article in the August 2005 issue of PC Gamer UK, entitled "The Ballad of Leeroy Jenkins". The article claims that the original video was designed as a negative commentary on the kind of "nerd-guilds" that meticulously and statistically plan out raids the way Leeroy's guild was apparently doing. Leeroy is in fact the hero of the piece, acting against the geekiness of his guild.

Those familiar with gameplay have noted that the "plans" his guildmates were making are so flawed that the video must have been staged. There is abundant evidence for this, including:

• A line of text in the chat window (lower left corner) of the video shows that one of the raid members had typed "WIPE TIME!" just before the group began filming. "Wipe" is slang for the death of all members of a party.
• While the "Devout Mantle" Shoulders item mentioned does require this engagement, it is considerably easier to kill the required enemies a few at a time. A plan to activate all the enemies and fight them all at once would be a rather unlikely occurrence among experienced players.
• The overwhelming majority of paladins in the game wear plate armor, not cloth armor such as the Devout Shoulders, which have a much lower armor rating. This was perhaps a tongue-in-cheek reference to the perceived inability of paladins to effectively do anything but heal at the time that the video was made. However the narrator does question the idea of Leeroy needing Devout shoulders due to the fact that he is a paladin only to be told that the Devout shoulders will "give him more mana so he can heal better...". This is probably because healing is generally expected of classes who possess the ability, instead of being able to fulfill other roles. Many end-game guild paladins are known to use cloth for its healing attributes.
• Various other players and guilds on the same server have asserted the video was staged: they state that Leeroy's guild, "Pals for Life", had beaten encounters much more difficult than the Rookery. This is supported by the fact that several group members prominently display equipment from subsequent encounters in the same instance and how the survival percentage was "better than [they] usually do".
• The phrase "Divine Intervention" is a skill used by a Paladin to sacrifice himself to save another player. The player who is "D.I.ed" is unable to perform any action, but is removed from combat. The group's plan revolves around using the ability to protect active casters, and they seem surprised when they are unable to cast spells under the ability's influence.
• The player that is filming the movie, who is not Leeroy, goes on to hatch as many dragon eggs as possible and then runs to the second floor, aggroing all of the monsters up there before jumping back down. However, one can argue that he did this out of an attempt to "stick to the plan" as the raid leader told everyone to do immediately after Leeroy ran into the room.
• The warlocks put soulstones on each other. In an instance group, a soulstone is best used on a party member with a reusable resurrection ability, such as a priest. If all party members die, the priest can use the soulstone to come back to life and then resurrect the rest of the party. Putting a soulstone on a warlock would not help to recover from a wipe, as warlocks have no reusable resurrection abilities. However, one could also argue that because warlocks pull far more aggro than most other classes they chose to allow the warlocks to resurrect easily with the soulstones knowing that they may pull the most aggro and die the quickest.

Regardless of the sketchy plans, a key fact that almost proves it was staged is that to "activate" the hatchling dragonlings, the player must click on them or walk over them. The video indicates that his error was in running in too early, before his team expected it, but it was not implied that he also clicked on the eggs or walked over them. Either way, it would require a further presumption that he went as far as clicking on them for what would seem a completely absent purpose, other than perhaps to stage a show.

On another note, the criticisms of PC Gamer UK are themselves a little sketchy: The plan was to attack using spells such as "Intimidating Shout" and "Fear," both of which would substantially reduce the effect of attacking numerous foes. In addition, the "Soulstone" issue was actually brought about in confusion: "Who's soulstoned?", "We do have a soulstone out don't we?", "I don't think we brought a Warlock."

Expansion as an internet meme

Leeroy's popularity has spread to other Internet venues as well. In the popular MMORPG Guild Wars, a dwarven character named Kilroy Stonekin relates the death of his family and calls the players to battle with a similar shout of his own name. Unlike Leeroy, Kilroy's shout conveys benefit to his players rather than spelling their demise. He does, however, have a tendency to aggro groups of enemies, while continuing to run towards his family's murderer. The players must then fight these enemies, but must also keep following Kilroy, since his death means the defeat of the entire party. This might very well be a reference to the desperate attempt that Leeroy's teammates made to support him.

In NCSoft's City of Villains, there is a recurring Arachnos soldier NPC by the name of "Jenkins" (who typically has to be rescued because he keeps getting himself captured.) City of Villains developer Positron recently announced to players that the character "...was definitely inspired by a certain Internet movie."

Leeroy appears as a direct tribute in Artix Entertainment's popular Web game Adventure Quest where he travels with the players to battle at "Vamprook Spyre", where players, Leeroy, Grodd, and Amani are planning the raid of the dungeon filled with "Vampragons", a telekinetic dragon/vampire bat hybrid. The dialogue is copied nearly word for word from the movie. In Artix Entertainment's "DragonFable", warriors can sometimes perform the Jenkins shout when the spell "Battle Cry" is utilized.

The website community YTMND has served to extensively promote and to expand the Leeroy Jenkins meme among the viewers of its various websites and has a number of sites dealing with him including one documenting his supposed suicide. In particular the community has extensively promoted his battle cry. They have also had substantial effect on the meme in the form of artwork that was originally used on its Leeroy tribute site. The artwork, which has subsequently been replaced with a still from the original video, is a digitally edited picture from the film Black Knight, featuring the hero standing on a bucket of KFC, instead of a rock. This image has been widely distributed and is in fact utilized by Uncyclopedia in their parody article regarding the meme.

A reference to Leeroy has also appeared in the April 24, 2006 installment of the popular webcomic, Ctrl+Alt+Del. A character supposedly belonging to "The Center for Crimes Against MMOs", is given the name L. Jenkins, obviously a reference to Leeroy.

Outside the Internet

File:Leeroy Jenkins Jeopardy clue.jpg

Jeopardy! clue on November 16, 2005 mentioning Leeroy Jenkins. Correct response: What is World of Warcraft?

A strip of the comic FoxTrot showcased Jason Fox about to receive an incredibly powerful item (which anyone who plays World of Warcraft will recognize to be almost 300 times more powerful than the actual most powerful item in the game), but is disconnected from the server. It cuts to Blizzard's headquarters where one character asks "Jenkins" if he had tripped over a wire again. On a side note, the weapon that he was about to receive was called 'Doomulus Prime', which was later added to the game (albeit much weaker than the version that was in the strip).

Leeroy has recently been added to the Upper Deck World of Warcraft Trading Card Game (TCG). The card was drawn by Mike Krahulik, the artist who draws the webcomic Penny Arcade. The card has a special ability that comes into play if the player calls out Leeroy's battle cry.

The Marvel Comics series Runaways, Vol. 3 #18, Victor Mancha applies the name to Chase Stein as he charges head long into a burning building.

In Mega Man Battle Network 6, a man looking at a jellyfish tank in the aquarium states "The right jellyfish is Leeroy. The left is Jenkins."

In the South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft", some of the words that Cartman uses when they start the final battle are quotes from the video, said in the same matter-of-fact tone of the video's narrator. In the same episode a character appears named Jenkins. Lastly, at the end of the credits, the Leeroy Jenkins voice is heard saying "it's not my fault!"

In the The Real World: Denver episode "Davis vs. Tyrie", Tyrie states that one of his alter-egos is named Leeroy Jenkins.

Various commercials for Spike TV's promotion of their Video Game Awards had an office employee named "Leeroy" sit at a meeting plan not paying attention. The leader of the group assigns tasks as in the video, and one of the members "Crunches some numbers" giving a "Repeating, of course" percentage. Leeroy then becomes alert, yells "LEEEERROOOY!!" and throws papers into the air. He jumps across the table and knocks someone on to the ground as he runs out of the room. He reappears without a shirt, but with a battle axe, and smashes a chair and runs off. The leader then says the famous "Damn it, Leeroy."

Another commercial, with the same office characters shows the four characters about to embark on a journey down the elevator. They state which floors they will go to, and another "Number Crunch" is given with "Repeating, of course" percentage. Leeroy then says "Time's up, LEEEERRRROOOY!!" Presses all the buttons on the elevator, and kisses one of his female co-workers. Then he yells and runs away.

On February 13, 2007, Howard Stern found and played audio from the YouTube video on his radio show. Artie Lange would continue throughout the show to use the line "Lemme get a quick number crunch..."

Number of downloads

As of December 2005 the Warcraft Movies website reports well over 1,500,000 downloads of the original Leeroy Jenkins video. However it is difficult to estimate the total number of people who have seen the original video largely because it has appeared on numerous other websites, file sharing networks, and has been sent extensively by email as well. Leeroy's large public exposure likely heavily depended on word of mouth.

Merchandise

Numerous sites have sprung up offering everything from underclothing to coffee mugs sporting Leeroy or related information. Many of these are offered as part of CafePress.com and it is difficult to estimate what success, if any, these retailers have had with said merchandise.

Derivative works

Numerous works derived from and based on Leeroy Jenkins have appeared on the net. Several remixes and spinoff videos have parodied the phenomena. The number of such derivative works is not clear but tribute sites contain numerous examples and actively encourage the submission of new material.

In general, these videos are not controversial. However, a video posted at whatisdeepfried.com combines the original machinima with U.S. Army footage and references to Casey Sheehan, the deceased son of anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan. In the video "Leeroy" is reputedly the cause of Casey's death in Iraq, though it likewise names President George W. Bush as culpable. Some videos use the Leeroy Jenkins scream. Many of these videos are cataloged at LeeroyJenkins.net, a fansite which features movies, sounds and other Leeroy related materials.

What was Leeroy saying?

In the video Ben Schulz's voice is distorted, and suffers from a drop-out during his famous speech as Leeroy Jenkins. This has given rise to various interpretations as to what he actually said, with most of the arguments concerning his first and last lines. In an interview given to www.gamespot.com, Schulz stated that he said "Alright, chums, let's do this!". At the end of the video Schulz is heard to say "at least I have chicken"; in real life he had been reheating some fried chicken during his hiatus.

External links

• The Actual Video
• Leeroy Jenkins WOW TCG Card
• Leeroy Jenkins Tribute Site.
• An interview with Leeroy Jenkins
• Interview with Ben "Leeroy Jenkins" Schulz
• A transcript of the dialogue

• Home of PALS FOR LIFE - original site for Leeroy Jenkins's guild.
• Leeroy's Thottbot profile
• The Leeroy Jenkins Parable