Leeroy Jenkins, sometimes misspelled Leroy Jenkins and often elongated with numerous additional letters, is an Internet phenomenon named for a player character

Player character

A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...

 created by Ben Schulz in Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...

's MMORPG

MMORPG

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

, World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

. The character became popular due to a video of the game that circulated around the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. The phenomenon has since spread beyond the boundaries of the gaming community into other online and mainstream media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

.

Video

The video was released by the World of Warcraft player guild "PALS FOR LIFE". It features a group of players discussing a detailed battle strategy for the next encounter while one of their party members, Leeroy, is away from his computer. Their plan is ruined when Leeroy returns and, ignorant of the strategy, immediately charges headlong into battle shouting his own name in a stylized battle cry. His companions rush to help, but Leeroy's actions ruin the meticulous plan, and all of the group members are killed.

The Internet phenomenon started with the release of the video clip to the World of Warcraft game forum in a thread titled "UBRS (vid) ROOKERY OVERPOWERED! blue please.", which jokingly presented the video in a serious context. The thread requested that other players provide help with strategy and that Blizzard reduce the difficulty of the encounter. The video spread as an internet meme

Internet meme

The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...

, and Leeroy's response to the other players' chastisements, "at least I have chicken", was also much parodied.

When asked about his actions in the video by National Public Radio, Ben Schulz said the players "were drinking 40s and just yelling at each other." The video prompted some debate over whether it was staged.

Merchandise

The character's popularity resulted in his inclusion in the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game

World of Warcraft Trading Card Game

The World of Warcraft Trading Card Game is a collectible card game based on Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG, World of Warcraft. The game was announced by Upper Deck Entertainment on August 18, 2005, and released on October 25, 2006...

with art by Mike Krahulik

Mike Krahulik

Mike Krahulik is the artist for the popular webcomic Penny Arcade and co-founder with Jerry Holkins of Child's Play, a multimillion dollar charity that organizes toy drives for children's hospitals. He goes by the online moniker "Jon Gabriel" or "Gabe"...

. Reflecting the video in which he appears, Leeroy is a detriment to the rest of the player's team, exhausting them for the current and following turns. For gameplay reasons, his effects are not entirely negative: although no one else can attack, Leeroy can attack instantly should the player repeat Leeroy's famous shout, and his attack is unusually high compared to the cost of playing him. However, his health is such that opponents should deal with him easily on subsequent turns. Upper Deck Entertainment

Upper Deck Company

The Upper Deck Company, LLC , founded in 1988, is a private company primarily known for producing trading cards...

 released a World of Warcraft Miniatures game in late 2008, which included a Leeroy Jenkins figurine. As a reference to Leeroy's famous claim, the figure is seen holding a chicken leg in his left hand.

Reaction

The August 2005 issue of PC Gamer UK

PC Gamer

PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...

featured an article on the video, titled "The Ballad of Leeroy Jenkins". The article took the position that the video was designed as a negative commentary on the kind of "nerd-guilds" that meticulously and statistically plan out raids with all the seriousness of actual military tactics

Military tactics

Military tactics, the science and art of organizing an army or an air force, are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In...

. They added that they felt Leeroy is in fact the hero of the piece, acting against the geek

Geek

The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...

iness of his guild.

Tanner Higgin, doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside as of 2009, began to use the Leeroy Jenkins video and subsequent discourse to "teach game analysis, more specifically the analysis of gamic race".

In popular culture

Leeroy Jenkins was mentioned as part of a clue on the November 16, 2005 episode of the game show Jeopardy!

Jeopardy!

Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

as part of their college week tournament, though no contestant rang in.

The South Park

South Park

South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...

episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft

Make Love, Not Warcraft

"Make Love, Not Warcraft" is the eighth episode of the tenth season of the animated television series South Park, and the 147th episode overall. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on October 4, 2006. In the episode, Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny enjoy playing the popular...

" was a parody of the World of Warcraft series as a whole, with the episode's antagonist a griefer

Griefer

A griefer is a player in a multiplayer video game that deliberately irritates and harasses other players.-History:The term was applied to online, multiplayer computer games by the year 2000 or earlier, as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group.-Overview:A...

 named Jenkins.

World of Warcraft awards title of "Jenkins" to players who could kill 50 of the famous rookery whelps from the video within 15 seconds, with the achievement

Achievement (video gaming)

In video gaming parlance, an achievement, also sometimes known as a trophy or challenge, is a meta-goal defined outside of a game's parameters...

 "Leeeeeeeeeeeeeroy!" being attained for the same feat.

In 2009, the military publication Armed Forces Journal

Armed Forces Journal

Armed Forces Journal is a monthly journal for American military officers and leaders in government and industry.Founded in 1863 as a weekly newspaper, AFJ is published today by Gannett Government Media, part of Gannett Company ....

published an article titled "Let's Do This!: Leeroy Jenkins and the American Way of Advising". The article, by Capt. Robert M Chamberlain, links Jenkins to the American approach to advising Iraq.

In the October 19, 2011 episode of Psych

Psych

Psych is an American detective comedy-drama television series created by Steve Franks and broadcast on USA Network. It stars James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a young crime consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department whose "heightened observational skills" and impressive detective instincts...

, "Last Night Gus", a character shares the name of Leroy Jenkins, in which Shawn

Shawn Spencer

Shawn Spencer is a fictional character on the American television dramedy Psych played by American actor James Roday. Taking advantage of his eidetic memory, he poses as a psychic and works as a private detective who often consults with the Santa Barbara Police Department...

introduces him with the infamous battle cry.

External links

• The Legend of Leeroy Jenkins, article at Denver Westword News