Fuck the Police

About

“Fuck The Police” (sometimes spelled Fuck Tha Police) is a catchphrase commonly used in times of contempt for authority figures and/or general disregard for public opinion in similar vein to the expression Haters Gonna Hate.

Origin

The phrase “Fuck tha Police” was originally introduced in a gangster rap song by the group N.W.A with the 1988 release of the critically acclaimed album “Straight outta Compton.” Upon its release, the song came under the media spotlight for its controversial and violent lyrics about maiming and killing police officers.

Throughout the 90s, N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police” was covered by a number of other well-known hip hop artists and the expression gradually came to represent the tension between the law enforcement and urban area residents fueled by accusations of racial profiling. The phrase also rose to prominence after it was adapted as a popular fashion statement in t-shirts worn by counterculture musicians and celebrities.

Spread

The earliest Urban Dictionary^[1] definition was submitted on August 11th, 2003:

a term used by people that deal with the police and just really dont like them.

In the early 2000s, The phrase was largely reiterated through text-based comments, street graffiti art and merchandise items like bumper stickers and t-shirt slogans. In 2005, artist Dash Snow^[2] put together a gallery exhibition titled “Fuck the Police,” featuring 45 clippings of newspaper articles reporting on various episodes of police brutality. On September 26th, 2006, YouTuber pizzim13 uploaded a music video featuring various footage from the children’s show The Muppets set to N.W.A’s “Fuck Tha Police,” which has been viewed over 110,000 times.

Circa early 2007, dozens of Facebook groups^[3] and Interest pages surfaced under the titles like “Fuck the Police” and “Fuck tha Police.” The largest Facebook group^[4] associated with the phrase has over 48,000 followers as of November 2011. In 2009, single topic Tumblr Fuck the Police^[5] was launched to track the latest news stories on police brutality and civil rights abuse.

Notable Examples

In between 2008 and 2009, the phrase took on the medium of image macros with the cover illustration of 1972 children’s book Frog and Toad Together accompanied by the caption “Fuck the Police.” This particular instance led to dozens of other image macros and animated GIFs featuring characters riding bikes with the “Fuck the Police” caption. Derivatives can be found on Tumblr^[7], FunnyJunk^[8] and 9gag.^[9]

Search Interest

Search queries have been predominantly centered around the N.W.A song and it has remained steady over recent years.

External References