'Murica

About

’Murica or ’Murika is a slang term for America which is used to denote extreme patriotism, coupled with aspects of a redneck or southern American stereotype similar those featured in the advice animals Redneck Randal or Almost Politically Correct Redneck. It can also be found on image macros to either support or criticize American stereotypes.

Origin

The term “Murica” was used as early as September 1st, 2003 on the Democratic Underground^[1] in a post asserting that “murica” would not hurt another country after after an earlier poster suggested^[2] that the government was funding car bombs and building fires overseas.

Spread

“’Murica” was used again on a personal democratic blog in November 2004^[3] to describe the red states that voted for George Bush’s reelection. The term was first added to Urban Dictionary^[7] on April 8th, 2006. In January 2011, a Facebook fan page^[10] for the word was established, gaining 1130 likes in less than two years. That September, a thread on Lurker FAQs^[12] suggested the term originated from the Comedy Central animated series South Park, however the term does not appear anywhere on their Wikia page, South Park Archives.^[13]

In October 2011, the single topic Tumblr Fuck Yeah Murica^[8] launched, which continues to be updated as of December 2012. There is also a Memegenerator page for Murica Man^[9], showing a bearded male in a cowboy hat wrapped in an American flag, which has more than 130 submissions as of December 2012. In May 2012, a subreddit^[11] titled “’Murica! Fuck Yeah!” was created, featuring both ironic patriotism and humorous instances of serious patriotism, gaining nearly 18,000 subscribers in seven months. ‘Murica is often used on Twitter^[4] and Tumblr^[5] as commentary on stereotypical American practices as well as to emphasize a user’s iron patriotism. On Instagram, there are nearly 40,000 images tagged #murica.^[6]