Here We Go Again Meme
The here we go again meme uses Carl CJ Johnson from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and his weary line, ah shit, here we go again. It marks a bad situation starting over: the top box names the trigger, the bottom box delivers the sigh.
Make your own here we go again meme
Drag any line on the image to move it.
Where the here we go again meme comes from
The source game is easy to pin down. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was developed by Rockstar North, published by Rockstar Games and released for PlayStation 2 on 26 October 2004 in North America, with the PAL release on 29 October 2004. The protagonist is Carl Johnson, universally called CJ, voiced by the rapper Young Maylay.
The scene is the game’s opening. CJ returns to Los Santos after years away, and almost immediately runs into the corrupt officers who will shape the rest of the plot. They harass him and dump him back in the neighbourhood he left. The line lands as he takes stock of a city that has not improved in his absence. Meming Wiki describes it as the opening cutscene, delivered after the police harassment and before he encounters the state of the old neighbourhood.
Here is where we have to be careful. Players routinely attach the line to a specific mission, and different write ups place it in slightly different spots in the opening sequence. We could not find a source that names a mission with confidence, and the GTA wiki page we tried was not reachable. So this page says what is documented, which is that the line belongs to the game’s opening stretch, and does not invent a mission title to fill the gap.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 26 October 2004 | Grand Theft Auto San Andreas released for PlayStation 2 in North America. The line exists in the game from launch. |
| 29 October 2004 | PAL release. |
| Around 2016 | A clip of the line is posted to YouTube by the channel ZMOONCHILD and accumulates over 147,000 views, well before wide meme use. The date is given only relative to a 2020 article. |
| 2019 to 2020 | The phrase spreads widely as a reaction to any repeating misfortune, often as text alone. |
| Since | The line settles into general internet vocabulary, used far beyond people who have played the game. |
One thing that makes this format unusual: it crossed over completely. Most game quotes stay inside their fandom. This one is used constantly by people who have never touched a Rockstar title, because the sentiment does not need the context.
What it means and when to use it
The emotion is precise and it is not interchangeable with the ones near it. This is not shock, because shock requires surprise and the whole point is that you saw it coming. It is not anger, because anger requires energy. It is resignation: a familiar bad thing is starting again, you already know exactly how it goes, and you are going to have to go through it anyway.
That means the trigger in the top box has to be recurrent. A one off disaster is the wrong material. What works is the thing that happens every quarter, every family gathering, every deploy, every time somebody says the phrase that always precedes an hour of unnecessary work.
| Element | Right use | Wrong use |
|---|---|---|
| The trigger | Something that has happened before and will happen again. | A genuine first time event. Novelty defeats the entire sentiment. |
| The emotion | Tired recognition. You are already bracing. | Outrage or shock. Those belong to other templates. |
| Who it targets | Systems, habits, cycles, recurring nonsense. | A named person. That turns weary resignation into a public accusation. |
| The bottom box | The line, near enough as spoken. | A heavy paraphrase. The exact wording is what people recognise. |
| Stakes | Irritating, tedious, wearing. | Actual tragedy. Resignation about real suffering reads as callousness. |
Captions that work
Two boxes. The bottom is essentially fixed, so all the craft goes into naming a trigger the reader has personally suffered.
- workPrinter decides it is offline again Ah shit, here we go again
- workSomeone in the meeting says quick question Ah shit, here we go again
- The group chat starts planning a trip nobody will take Ah shit, here we go again
- devUpdate available, restart required Ah shit, here we go again
- A relative asks what exactly it is you do for a living Ah shit, here we go again
- The flat pack instructions reveal a second bag of screws Ah shit, here we go again
- devPassed locally, failed in CI Ah shit, here we go again
- The landlord uses the phrase minor works Ah shit, here we go again
- Unexpected item in the bagging area Ah shit, here we go again
- January, and the gym has a queue again Ah shit, here we go again
- travelThe airline app sends a notification at 4am Ah shit, here we go again
- workSomeone suggests we circle back on this Ah shit, here we go again
Variants and close relatives
| Format | Source | How it differs |
|---|---|---|
| Follow the damn train, CJ | The San Andreas mission Wrong Side of the Tracks | Frustration aimed at another person for failing at something simple. Not resignation. |
| Text only here we go again | The phrase without the image | Now fully detached from the game. Works as a reply anywhere. |
| This Is Fine | A 2013 webcomic panel | Denial while things burn, rather than clear eyed acceptance that they are burning again. |
| Groundhog Day references | The 1993 film | Literal repetition of the same day. Broader and gentler than one weary sigh. |
| First time? style reaction images | Various | Aimed outward at somebody newly suffering, rather than inward at your own cycle. |
Common mistakes
- Using it for something new. The word again is doing all the work. A first occurrence has nothing to be resigned about.
- Confusing it with the train line. Both are San Andreas quotes and people mix them constantly. One is exhausted acceptance, the other is exasperation at somebody else.
- Rewriting the quote. Paraphrasing the bottom box costs the recognition that makes the format work at a glance.
- Aiming it at a named person. A public sigh with somebody’s name attached is a callout, not a shrug.
- Attaching it to real tragedy. Resignation about serious harm reads as indifference to it, which is almost never what the poster means.
- A vague top box. Monday is not a trigger. The printer saying it is offline for the third time this week is a trigger.
- Inventing a mission name. Plenty of posts confidently cite a specific mission for the line. The documented answer is the opening sequence, and no more than that.
Limits and etiquette
Honest assessment: the format peaked around 2019 and 2020 and is well past novelty. It survives because the emotion is permanent and because the line escaped its source entirely. Most people using it have never played San Andreas, which is both why it lasts and why the image itself now adds less than the words do.
Two real limits. The phrase contains a mild profanity, which rules it out for a lot of workplace, school and brand contexts without editing. And it comes from a game with a specific setting and a specific cultural register, so lifting a Black protagonist’s line as a generic reaction is worth a moment of thought about tone, particularly when the trigger you are complaining about is trivial by comparison.
The template frame reproduced here is third-party material, hosted for captioning only; rights holders can use the takedown policy at /dmca/.
Frequently asked questions
What is the here we go again meme?
It is a reaction format built on Carl CJ Johnson from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and his weary line, ah shit, here we go again. The top box names a trigger and the bottom box delivers the sigh.
Who says here we go again?
Carl CJ Johnson, the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, voiced by Young Maylay. The game was developed by Rockstar North and released for PlayStation 2 on 26 October 2004.
Where in the game does the line happen?
In the opening sequence, after corrupt police officers harass CJ and leave him in his old neighbourhood. Sources describe it as the opening cutscene, and we found no source naming a specific mission, so this page does not name one.
How many text boxes does the template have?
Two. The top box is the recurring situation and the bottom box is the line itself, which people usually leave close to the original wording.
What does ah shit here we go again mean?
It means resigned recognition. Not shock and not anger, but the specific tiredness of watching a familiar bad situation start up for the second or fifth or fiftieth time.
Is it the same as the all we had to do was follow the damn train line?
No. That is a separate San Andreas quote, from the mission Wrong Side of the Tracks, and it expresses frustration at somebody else rather than resignation about a repeating cycle.
Can I change the bottom line?
You can, but it costs you. The wording is the recognisable part, so paraphrasing it loses the instant read while gaining very little.
Is the here we go again meme still used in 2026?
Yes. It peaked around 2019 and 2020 and is well past novelty, but resignation is a permanently useful emotion and the line has settled into general internet vocabulary.