Leeroy Jenkins! (English, internet): the battle cry of whoever charges in without waiting for the group’s plan, and wrecks it for everyone. Any reckless, impulsive dive gets the name.
It comes from a World of Warcraft video posted on 11 May 2005 by the guild “Pals for Life”. The group spends ages planning, in painful detail, how to clear a room full of dragon eggs. Leeroy (a paladin played by Ben Schulz) has been away from the keyboard. He comes back, yells his own name and runs in alone. Everybody dies. His defence: “At least I have chicken.”
Was it real? Almost certainly staged. Schulz never confirmed or denied it, and in 2017 they showed an earlier take and said it looked so obviously like satire they never expected anyone to believe it.
Everyone believed it. Blizzard put him in its games, and he made it to Jeopardy!, South Park and even the US Congress, quoted during the 2023 Speaker election.
The digital cousin of The Charge of the Light Brigade, except here nobody gave the order.