Death To The Mpla
Also known as: Stop Watching This Brother We Must Fight the MPLA · Fight My Brothers
"Death to the MPLA" is a bait-and-switch meme based on a scene from *Call of Duty: Black Ops 2* where the character Jonas Savimbi rallies his troops against the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The format took off in late 2018 on iFunny, where users began splicing Savimbi's battle cry into sexually suggestive videos as a comedic interruption. While it never broke into mainstream viral territory, the meme built a dedicated following on iFunny and Instagram through 2019 and 2020.
Overview
The meme draws from the opening mission of *Call of Duty: Black Ops 2*, where players fight alongside Jonas Savimbi, an Angolan military leader based on the real historical figure2. During the mission, Savimbi shouts battle cries like "Death to the MPLA!" and "Fight, my brothers!" while charging into combat1. The most common meme format uses a still image of Savimbi holding a grenade launcher, captioned "Stop Watching This Brother, We Must Fight the MPLA" in Impact font4. This image gets spliced into videos, particularly ones with suggestive or risqué content, as a bait-and-switch punchline that redirects the viewer from whatever they were watching toward Savimbi's righteous cause.
The humor works on a simple premise: you think you're about to see something titillating, and instead you get a fictional African warlord telling you to focus on what really matters. The format taps into a broader tradition of "stop watching this" interruption memes that were popular across iFunny, with similar clips from *Halo* and other military shooters serving the same role4.
*Call of Duty: Black Ops 2* launched on November 13, 20122. The game's very first mission drops players into the Angolan Bush War, fighting under the command of Jonas Savimbi against MPLA forces. Savimbi's voice lines during this opening sequence are loud, dramatic, and quotable. "Death to the MPLA!" "Here they come, here they come my brothers!" and "Our journey to victory has begun!" all became memorable moments for players6.
The scene sat dormant as meme material for six years. On October 24, 2018, iFunny user Khorshow created a bait-and-switch edit that interrupted the then-viral "Hit or Miss" TikTok with a still frame of Savimbi and the caption "Stop Watching This Brother, We Must Fight the MPLA"4. The post picked up over 460 smiles on iFunny1. That same day, YouTuber Big Head ET reposted the video, where it eventually reached over 203,000 views4.
Origin & Background
How It Spread
How to Use This Meme
The standard approach involves creating a video that starts with seemingly suggestive or attention-grabbing content, then cuts abruptly to either:
The still image of Savimbi with the "Stop Watching This Brother, We Must Fight the MPLA" caption
Actual gameplay footage from the first mission of *Black Ops 2*, usually the charge sequence
Cultural Impact
Fun Facts
The "Hit or Miss" video that Khorshow originally interrupted was itself a viral TikTok moment from 2018, making the meme a collision of two completely different internet trends.
One of the most popular iFunny versions, by user phantom115, earned over 32,500 smiles, dwarfing the original post's 460.
Multiple commenters noted that the mission opens with a soldier burning alive in a truck, making the tonal whiplash between the game's violence and Savimbi's enthusiasm part of the meme's appeal.
Urban Dictionary's entry for "Death to the MPLA" is essentially a full transcription of the mission's opening dialogue, treated as a definition.
Derivatives & Variations
Master Chief variants:
Similar bait-and-switch memes using *Halo*'s Master Chief, often appearing in the same comment sections and video compilations as the Savimbi version[7].
Boys Locker Room edits:
Multiple creators adapted the Savimbi footage into the "Girls Locker Room vs. Boys Locker Room" template during May 2019, using different clips from the same mission[4].
Mission dialogue copypasta:
Comment sections frequently spawned full recreations of the mission's dialogue, from Savimbi's battle cries to Hudson's lines about the helicopter, functioning as a communal copypasta[9].
Frequently Asked Questions
References (11)
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- 2
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- 4Death to the MPLA - Know Your Memeencyclopedia
- 5Henry Kissingerencyclopedia
- 6Death to the MPLA - Urban Dictionarydictionary
- 7Call of Duty: Black Ops IIencyclopedia
- 8Call of Duty: Black Ops II - Wikipediaencyclopedia
- 9
- 10
- 11