So today i was bored enough to check official quakelive forums for the first time in ages and it was worth it.

I saw a thread in general section called "Respect the Paco": what does this mean? . I opened the thread without expecting to find out anything new or interesting (expected OpieOP and FUNgineer spam tbh), but I ended up being surprised. What i found there is a possible and very convincing origin story of the phrase we all see daily and often spam it for the lulz.

After a bunch of useless posts...

user vanne wrote:
First post here

As far as I can remember it (it's been some years now) the whole "respect the paco" thing originates from some guy spamming it in the GTV console chat back in 2004. The tournament was the Cyber X Games that was cancelled halfway through the tournaments. I think it had to do with sponsors issues not being resolved.

Anyway, venezuelan player 'elpajuo' was surprising everyone with his play during the tournament and during one of his games he made this absolutely crazy double air rocket. Some guy spammed instantly RESPECT THE PACO instead of RESPECT ELPAJUO and GTV just went mental.

For some wierd reason people have never stopped spamming that and I don't think they ever will

2 posts bellow comes the confirmation that player "elpaujo" indeed exists

SquirrlWrangler wrote:
vanne,

Thanks for the reply. Sounds as if you have the definitive answer. And elpajuo checks out:
http://www.esportsearnings.com/players/2368-e...o-gonzalez

There are a couple of YouTube videos of him playing Quake.

and then 2 posts bellow that someone posted the video of that exact frag vanne was describing earlier, the one which compelled an unknown GTV user to shout "RESPECT THE PACO". And its a frag on freaking czm

kabuto wrote:

At 6:40 - RESPECT THE PACO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG54MORVUGs



So ESR, is the secret of THE PACO finally revealed? Are we now closer to finding out the true ways of THE PACO?


RESPECT THE PACO