# ???? PROFIT!!!!
The '???? PROFIT!!!!' format traces back to a 1998 South Park episode where a colony of underpants-stealing gnomes revealed a business plan that skipped its middle step entirely. Within a few years, the joke drifted from a cartoon gag into a template posters used to mock any strategy whose path from action to money was suspiciously vague, and it became one of the longest-running business-plan burns on the internet.
## Origin
The gag comes from the South Park episode 'Gnomes,' which Comedy Central aired on December 16, 1998[4]. In the plot, tiny gnomes sneak into houses at night to steal underpants and insist the operation will be lucrative. Pressed for details, one gnome points to a chart reading 'Phase 1: Collect underpants. Phase 2: ?. Phase 3: Profit,' unable to explain what phase two actually is[4].
The scene did not spawn an online template overnight. The earliest documented reference came almost six years later, when a user posting as Emkorial on the Ars Technica forums asked on April 21, 2004 where the '1., 2., 3.?, 4. PROFIT!!' joke had come from and admitted they already used it themselves for laughs[3].
- **Platform:** Comedy Central / Ars Technica forums (viral spread)
- **Creator:** Unknown
- **Date:** 1998
## Overview
Every version of the joke follows the same skeleton. A short numbered list starts with a concrete action, ends with 'Profit!' or the shouted 'PROFIT!!!!', and swaps the middle step for one or more question marks[1]. Longer strings of question marks signal a bigger logical leap, so '1. Collect underpants 2. ??? 3. Profit' reads as a wider hole than one with a single '?'.
The template picked up two flavors over the years. One is the earnest business burn, favored by bloggers who used it to skewer dot-com and Web 2.0 era startups whose only real plan was 'get users' and hope revenue turned up later[1]. The other is playful trivia and fandom use, plugging real biographies or fictional villains into the same three-step shape[3].
## How to Use
Pick something concrete for step one, type one or more question marks for the middle step, and finish with 'Profit!' The bigger the perceived leap between the starting action and the payoff, the more question marks the middle step typically gets. The format works whether the target is a real business plan, a sports strategy, or a fictional villain's scheme.
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is ???? PROFIT!!!!?
It is a numbered-list joke that mocks any plan whose middle step is replaced by question marks and whose final step is simply 'Profit!', coined by a 1998 South Park episode about profit-seeking underpants gnomes[4].
### Where did ???? PROFIT!!!! come from?
The joke comes from the South Park episode 'Gnomes,' which aired on Comedy Central on December 16, 1998, in which the gnomes describe their business as 'Collect underpants... Profit'[4].
### What does ???? PROFIT!!!! mean?
The format calls out plans that skip the actual work of turning a starting action into a payoff, and is most often used against business ideas whose middle step is basically missing[1].
### How do you use ???? PROFIT!!!!?
Post a short numbered list where step one is a concrete action, the middle step is one or more question marks, and the last step is 'Profit!'; more question marks typically flag a wider logical leap[1].
### Is ???? PROFIT!!!! still popular?
The format was heavily used through the mid-2000s to mock Web 2.0 startups[1] and still turned up in trivia and fandom writing later that decade, including a full MIT Mystery Hunt puzzle in 2008[2].
## References
1. [https://www.conversionrater.com/2006/04/10/web-20-underpants-gnomes-business-models/]()
2. [https://www.mit.edu/~puzzle/2008/these_aint_no_underpants_gnomes/]()
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/profit]()
4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ih_TQWqCA]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/profit
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