They Took Our Jobs! — South Park Goobacks demotivational poster captioned 'They took our jerbs!'

They Took Our Jobs!

2004catchphraseclassic

Published October 2, 2026

They Took Our Jobs! is a catchphrase from the April 2004 South Park episode 'Goobacks,' where construction worker Darryl Weathers rages about time-traveling future immigrants undercutting wages2. The slurred, panicked delivery turned the line into shorthand for mocking xenophobic anti-immigration talking points, spawning YTMND sites, soundboards, and image macros across the late 2000s and early 2010s3.

south park memes catchphrase memes ytmnd memes political satire memes mid 2000s memes

Overview

They Took Our Jobs! is a line yelled by construction worker Darryl Weathers in the South Park episode 'Goobacks,' which satirizes populist panic about immigrants stealing American labor2. The gag's humor hinges on the escalation: townspeople start repeating the phrase after Weathers, each delivery more mush-mouthed than the last, until it devolves into 'Dey turk er jerbs' and finally the unintelligible 'Durka durr'1.

Online, the quote detached from the specific plot about time-travelers from the year 3045 and became a reaction catchphrase anytime someone complained about outsourcing, migrants, or automation. The meme typically appears as a soundboard clip, a YTMND page, or an image macro of Weathers mid-shout with escalating phonetic spellings in the caption3. The joke punches at the speaker, not the subject, since the garbled dialect reads as a parody of the xenophobe rather than endorsement.

Origin & Background

Platform
South Park (TV) / YTMND (viral spread)
Creator
Trey Parker and Matt Stone
Date
2004

The phrase comes from 'Goobacks,' Season 8 Episode 7 of South Park, which aired on Comedy Central on April 28th, 20046. In the episode, time-traveling laborers from a resource-depleted future flood South Park's job market by working for pennies, prompting a town hall where Darryl Weathers delivers the original 'They took our jobs' meltdown that the rest of the townspeople then parrot back in increasingly degraded English2.

Urban Dictionary user Bob logged the phrase the very next day, April 29th, 2004, citing the South Park episode as the source1. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote and directed the episode, which parodies the standard American immigration debate by swapping the usual nationalities for English-speaking descendants of all races from the future6.

How It Spread

The catchphrase moved from quoted dialogue to meme on August 25th, 2005, when YTMND user blingShyne2 built a 'They Took Our Jobs!' page looping Darryl Weathers' soundbites, one of the earliest dedicated web artifacts for the quote6. YouTube picked up the baton in 2007 and 2008: user yellowbrickplanet uploaded a montage of the line on October 13th, 2007, which pulled over 350,000 views, and TPEERproductions followed on July 30th, 2008, with a second montage that cleared 1.33 million views34.

Mashups kept extending the joke. On November 23rd, 2009, YouTuber Phatxam posted a Garry's Mod remake of the town hall scene that gathered more than 82,000 views in its first four years5. A Facebook page titled 'They Took Our Jobs, Dey Turk Er Jurbs, Durkur Duur' launched on February 4th, 2010, and racked up more than 102,000 likes6.

Single-serving sites arrived on January 20th, 2011, when TheyTookOurJobs.com went live with the embedded clip plus a soundboard, and Goobacks.com appeared the same day with a demotivational poster of the future immigrants6. A Quickmeme page later cataloged still frames of Darryl Weathers captioned with phonetic variants of the line, cementing the image-macro form6.

Timeline

2004-04-28

South Park airs 'Goobacks' (S8E7), introducing the 'They took our jobs' town-hall scene[6].

2004-04-29

Urban Dictionary user Bob submits the first dictionary entry for the phrase[1].

2005-08-25

YTMND user blingShyne2 publishes a 'They Took Our Jobs!' soundboard page[6].

2007-10-13

YouTuber yellowbrickplanet uploads a montage of the line that passes 350,000 views[3].

2008-07-30

YouTuber TPEERproductions posts a second montage that reaches 1.33 million views[4].

2009-11-23

YouTuber Phatxam releases a Garry's Mod recreation of the scene[5].

2010-02-04

A Facebook fan page for the phrase is created and grows past 102,000 likes[6].

2011-01-20

TheyTookOurJobs.com and Goobacks.com single-serving sites launch[6].

Frequently Asked Questions