I Can't Go to Yemen

About

I Can't Go to Yemen is a quote from Amazon Prime Video's original series, Jack Ryan. The full line, "I can't go to Yemen. I'm an analyst!" is said by John Krasinski playing the titular character. The line was joked about after the trailer for the series was played often during the 2018 World Cup and other sporting events.

Origin

The first trailer for the series was posted to YouTube on October 7th, 2017 by JoBlo TV Show Trailers (shown below, left). However, the official trailer which aired during the World Cup was uploaded to YouTube on June 11th, 2018 by Amazon Prime Video. This trailer notably features the song "Human" by Rag'n'Bone man and has gained over 16 million views (shown below, right).

Spread

The line immediately caught the attention of those covering the trailer. The day after the trailer aired, Comic Book Resources^[1] shared their story about the trailer on Facebook with the quote (shown below, left). Many publications writing about the trailer included the quote in their articles, including Paste,^[2] Rolling Stone^[3] and Variety.^[4] Meanwhile, the commercial began to air on television, particularly during the 2018 World Cup, leading some to complain about the frequency of the ad using the quote. For example, Twitter user @Nymn_HS posted a picture of a distressed Pepe with quotes from the ad, expressing his frustration (shown below, right).

Additionally, the trailer became a meme on Twitch as it was played before many streams. This led Twitch users to troll streamers and create memes about the line. For example, Twitch users spammed streamer Pokelawls' stream with the trailer (shown below, left). A Say the Line, Bart meme about the ubiquity of the ad was posted to /r/OfflineTV on September 23rd, 2018, gaining over 220 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References