???? PROFIT!!!! | Know Your Meme

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References to the meme began almost as soon as the episode aired. One of the earliest available references to the scene appeared on the ArsTechnica.com forums on April 21st, 2004. The user Emkorial wrote, “You know, you see posts around that give 4 steps to somehting, 3 being “?” and 4 being “PROFIT!!!”. I use them myself, for some reason, I find them freakin hilarious. Just got me thinking, where/how did that originate?”

The phrase “underpants gnomes” and variations of the format continued to see usage over the next two decades, using the format to mock illogical or incomplete business ideas. On April 10th, 2006, the website ConversionRater published the article, “Web 2.0: Underpants Gnomes Business Models.” The article features a number of internet marketing plans from the mid-2000s that follow the South Park model. They wrote, “Most of us lived through it and saw what happened to companies with poor business models during the bubble, and it seems like a lot of the new web companies out there are spending less money, technology is cheap or free, and they are doing it with fewer employees. However, I still see way too many companies that are using the ‘Underpants Gnomes Business Model.'”

Later that year, on December 18th, 2006, the blog crackedrabbitgaming published a post entitled “GameStop’s Business Strategy.” The post features a GameStop item for sale with two prices visible (shown below, left). They wrote, “Step 1: Buy cheap games from GameCrazy Step 2: Don’t bother to change the packaging Step 3: Raise the price, but don’t remove the old stickers, so customers can see themselves getting screwed Step 4: Profit!”

Two years later, an MIT blog published a series of variations of the format as part of a trivia game. The author posted clues in the form of the meme and asked participants to guess the answer based on the clues.

The criticism also extended to fictional business. On August 1st, 2010, Cracked posted a variation about Weyland-Yutani Corp., the fictional company from the Alien films. They wrote, “1. Capture the universe’s most dangerous, uncontrollable creature. 2. ??? 3. Profit” (shown below).

The meme dipped in popularity in the 2010s, but still occasionally resurfaced when a plan appeared difficult to parse. For example, on October 8th, 2016, Twitter user @CollegeGameDay tweeted a person holding a sign that reads, “Tennessee Game Plan: 1. Half Time 2. ? 3. Miracle.” The post received more than 1,200 likes and 570 retweets in less than five years (shown below).

Various Examples