This Entire City Must Be Purged

Submission 41,146

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About

This Entire City Must Be Purged, also known as Arthas' "Purge" is a memorable quote from the 2002 strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos said by the character Arthas Menethil. First gaining popularity as a reaction image on 4chan in the early 2010s, the format saw mainstream popularity starting in early 2019.

Origin

On July 3rd, 2002, real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos was released by Blizzard Entertainment. ^[1] In chapter six "The Culling" of the Human Campaign of the game character Arthas Menethil insists on killing the entire populace of the city of Stratholme, who are infected with the Plague.

- Oh, no. We're too late. These people have all been infected! They may look fine now, but it's just a matter of time before they turn into the undead!
- What?
- This entire city must be purged.

The quote received the initial spread on 4chan as a Tony Kornheiser's 'Why' – style reaction image. The earliest discovered post^[2] was made by an anonymous 4chan user in /fit/ board on September 30th, 2012 (post and image shown below, left and right).

Spread

Starting in September 2012, the image has been widely circulated on 4chan, with several variations such as a Glowing Eyes edit being posted in the following years.

The earliest known use of the entire quote as the reaction image is a January 7th, 2017, post by an anonymous 4chan^[3] user in /pol/ board (post and image shown below, top and bottom).

While the reaction image saw separate instances of use on Reddit^[4]^[5] prior to January 2017, the format did not see a pronounced spread until on January 31st, 2019, Redditor^[6] Cornycash posted a Tinder meme based on the format to /r/dankmemes, where it received over 12,500 upvotes in one year (shown below).

Following Cornycash's post, the format received moderate spread in meme communities on Reddit. In early 2020, the format saw a surge in use in connection with the 2019-20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. For example, two Hazmat Suit Edits of the meme were posted in a /pol/ thread on 4chan^[7]^[8] on January 26th, 2020.