Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas turned a brief line from its opening scene into one of gaming’s most recognisable reaction memes. More than two decades after the game’s 2004 release, “Ah shit, here we go again” still captures the frustration of facing the same problem all over again.
The game was a major cultural event in 2004, helping push the Grand Theft Auto series into the mainstream. San Andreas has since sold more than 27 million copies, although few first-time players could have predicted that one sentence would eventually outlive countless missions, characters and set pieces.
The scene behind the famous GTA quote
The story begins with Carl “CJ” Johnson returning to Los Santos after spending five years on the East Coast. His homecoming quickly takes a turn when corrupt police officers arrest him and leave him in territory controlled by a rival gang.
Just before the game properly begins, CJ responds with the now-famous line:
“Ah shit, here we go again.”
In context, it is a compact expression of resignation. Away from the game, its blunt wording and endlessly reusable meaning made it a natural caption for recurring disasters, tedious routines and video-game setbacks.
How the line became a reaction image
The quote remained part of San Andreas for years before finding a much larger audience online. In 2015, YouTube user ZMOONCHILD posted a three-second video featuring the moment. It attracted more than 80,000 likes and over 4,000 comments.
Viewers soon began pairing the clip with familiar frustrations. Examples included “me every Monday at school” and “When Luigi enters the mansion for the 3rd time”. Later that year, Sentinel Driver shared a screenshot from the video in a thread on the GTA Forums. That is regarded as the first reported use of the image as a reaction picture.
From there, the screenshot spread across Reddit and Instagram, with users adding their own captions. The phrase became a quick way to acknowledge an unwelcome repeat occurrence, whether that meant another difficult boss fight or a familiar real-world headache.
The green-screen edit that changed its reach
The meme expanded significantly on April 3, 2019, when X user @ChaoticGeekCG shared a green-screen version of the San Andreas opening. With CJ isolated against a removable background, other creators could place the reaction over almost any image or video.
The post collected more than 1,700 retweets and 5,200 likes within a week, while similar templates moved onto TikTok. One version was used in more than 10,000 videos. The meme’s continued spread is also documented by Know Your Meme.
From recurring joke to current events
Its connection to Grand Theft Auto never disappeared. On Reddit, fans used the line to express their frustration with the repeated delays affecting Grand Theft Auto 6, giving the old reaction image another obvious use within the series’ community.
In March 2026, the phrase reached an even broader and more controversial setting when White House officials used the San Andreas line in a video posted to X. Titled “OPERATION EPIC FURY”, the video combined game footage with material related to the war in Iran and received widespread criticism both online and outside social media.
That journey explains the quote’s staying power. It is short, instantly recognisable and flexible enough to describe everything from a repeated mission failure to a major public controversy. For an arcade audience, it is also a reminder that a memorable line can become part of gaming culture long after the original hardware generation has passed.
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