About

I'm Rick Harrison and This Is My Pawn Shop is a copypasta and video remix series based on the opening scene from the reality television series Pawn Stars, which is often altered to include a variety of other contexts using the phrasal template "I'm X and this is my Y."

Origin

The American reality television series Pawn Stars was originally released in July 2009 on the History channel. During the show's opening sequence, pawn shop owner Rick Harrison introduces the store and his family. A copypasta of the opening is rumored to have originated on 4chan sometime in February 2010, though the archived thread is no longer available.^[6] On May 6th, 2011, YouTuber Adfx0225 uploaded the intro (shown below).

"I'm Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. Everything in here has a story and a price. One thing I've learned after 21 years – you never know WHAT is gonna come through that door."

Spread

On August 25th, 2011, BodyBuilding Forums^[1] member ftown submitted a thread quoting Harrison's opening monologue. On September 22nd, 2013, Steam user Dslyexiac submitted the copypasta to the LazyPurple's Fantastically Phenomenal Fellas Steam Group.^[4] The copypasta remained relatively dormant until mid 2016, when it began appearing ironically on various platforms online. On June 3rd, 2016, the original opening monologue was submitted by Redditor Crowww to /r/copypasta^[5] subreddit. On August 8th, a compilation of notable Vine remixes featuring the Pawn Stars opening was uploaded to YouTube (shown below).

On August 13th, Redditor CKlandSHARK submitted a screenshot of an phone's autocorrect programmed to switch the word "fine" with the Rick Harrison copypasta (shown below).

The same day, Redditor Wizardingg submitted Harambe the Gorilla-themed version of the copypasta to the /r/copypasta^[2] subreddit (shown below).

"I'm Harambe, and this is my zoo enclosure. I work here with my zoo keeper and my friend, Cecil the lion. Everything in here has a story and a price. One thing I've learned after 21 years – you never know WHO is gonna come over that fence."

On August 15th, a version of the Harambe copypasta with added emojis was posted on the /r/emojipasta^[3] subreddit (shown below). The same day, Redditor hasib_xiv submitted a post asking about the copypasta's resurgence in popularity to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[7] where some speculated that /r/me_irl subreddit or ironic meme Facebook pages were responsible.

Search Interest

External References