We Shat Away All the Polymers

Origin of the phrase

The phrase "we shat away all the polymers" is linked to a recording of a production meeting at the Cherepovets Steel Mill (CSM), one of the largest ferrous metallurgy enterprises in northwestern Russia. The meeting later ended up online and was picked apart for quotes. The recording dates to 2005. The circumstances of the recording, its authenticity, and the full context of the remark have not been established, so the exact origin of the phrase remains unknown.

The remark itself sounds mundane: a manager is summing up results, and in his speech he plainly admits that an important area of work has failed. It was precisely this bureaucratic intonation that made the phrase recognizable. There is no pathos in it, no attempt to make excuses — just a statement of failure, delivered almost without emotion, and this contrast became the source of the humor.

The image and its connection to the phrase

The illustration is shot in a mundane way: on a railway platform stand four large gray tank containers, on the sides of which the word "POLYMERS" is spelled out in large letters, broken into syllables as "PO," "LY," "MERS" [in the Russian original: "PO", "LI", "ME", "RY"]. The train car shows the train's number and hazard signs, with trees and grass growing around it. The photograph is not staged, and there's nothing inherently funny about it, which is exactly why it complements the phrase so well.

The lettering on the containers literally reproduces the word from the phrase and creates a visual pun: the polymers appear to be put on display for all to see, like cargo that isn't going anywhere. This kind of visual wordplay allows the meme to be recognized even without knowing the original source.

Spread on the internet

The phrase began spreading across forums and blogs as a short quote that's convenient to drop into discussions. It fits comments on news about failures in business, government procurement, construction projects, and any undertaking that fell apart at the final stage. The three words sound like a complete formula, so the expression quickly crossed over into everyday speech and became a standalone unit.

As it spread, the phrase acquired variants. Users reworked it for their own situations: "shat away all the building materials," "shat away the whole weekend," "shat away the entire budget." This pattern, where a familiar formula gets a new noun, is typical for the Russian internet and makes the meme durable, because anyone can apply it to their own context.

Ways it's used

In modern usage the expression usually sounds ironic. The speaker notes that a plan has been definitively ruined and that a resource or opportunity has been lost with no hope of recovery. Sometimes it's applied to personal situations: after a failed exam, a deal that fell through, or a canceled trip. The joke is almost never aimed at a specific person but focuses on the absurdity of the situation itself, which is why the phrase comfortably lives on in messages and image captions.

Cultural context

The expression belongs to a group of Russian-language memes that grew out of workplace and bureaucratic jargon. Such phrases spread across the internet thanks to their deliberate literalness: the official language of enterprises easily turns into a source of humor, because it reveals a gap between formal seriousness and the real state of affairs.