The Leeroy Jenkins video was uploaded to Warcraft movies on May 11, 2005 by the guild PalsForLife. A thread was posted on Blizzard Forums by the group to ask what strategies they could utilize in their game; responses included options to download the video, paving the way for uploads on various sites. The video became increasingly popular, as it was spread throughout the Internet not only to gamers but also the mainstream community. The video consists of Leeroy’s teammates with one of the players explaining a “strategic” plan to his team moments before a raid and a player calculating a percentage of survival. Meanwhile, Ben Shultz, the creator of the character Leeroy, is supposedly away from his computer claiming chicken. All of a sudden, Leeroy returns to the game and screams “Leeeeerooooy Jenkiiiiins,” charging his character into a raid and perhaps unintentionally ruins his teammates “strategic” plan. After this incident, Ben Shultz states, “at least I have chicken.” This phrase as well as Leeroy Jenkins has become a meme.
Whether this incident was staged or not, the video has become very popular. The video has the conventional “geeks,” evident by what they were saying such as having a percentage for survival. It is Leeroy Jenkins that ruins their plan and viewers laugh at the fact that the serious and geeky gamers all die. Viewers think of Leeroy as a hero because his actions went against the geekiness of his teammates. In addition, Schulz “chicken” statement pokes even more fun at his teammate’s seriousness. Moreover, the term and how Shultz says “Leeeeeroy Jenkins” is very catchy and sticks in the viewer’s mind.
The video has attracted over 30 million views on YouTube since its first YouTube post on November 19, 2005. According to Google Insights, Leeroy Jenkins reached its peak interest in June 2005 among consumers but the public continued to show interest at high rates. High interests were also due to the mentioning of Leeroy Jenkins on College Jeopardy in November 2005, which helped break Leeroy Jenkin’s into mainstream media. It is not until the end of 2007 when interests begin to stabilize.
Due to the video’s popularity, Ben Schulz has given a keynote speech at ROFLCon, interviewed with several websites including GGL.com, and WOW even made a figurine of Leeroy with him holding a piece of chicken.
Other “memes” that emerged were reenactments of the scene, such as in the movie Year One and Monster Vs. Aliens. Year One skit:
Viewers have created parodies of Leeroy Jenkins as well as developed creative ways in using the meme, including the creation of a techno mix of the character:
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