Proceed

Origin

This catchphrase is tied to the actor Lee Kyoung-young, and its peculiarity is that there was no original line. Lee has spent decades playing corrupt politicians, prosecutors and executives in Korean commercial cinema, and appears in so many films that he earned the nickname "Ddo-Kyoung-young" — roughly "Kyoung-young again" — the joke being that whichever Korean film you watch, he is in it.

Once that image set, Korean communities took up a game of inventing fake screenplays: casting lists and dialogue for films that do not exist. Every one of them included a scene where Lee appears as the corrupt higher-up issuing orders to a subordinate, and the line he delivers is "Proceed." The line did not come from any film; it was manufactured by a collective sense of what Lee Kyoung-young would say.

The line becomes real

After the meme had spread widely, something notable happened. In episode 14 of the drama Again My Life, broadcast on 21 May 2022, Lee actually said "Proceed." A line that had never existed was invented by the audience first, and the production supplied it afterward.

Following the show's run, the writer acknowledged in an interview that the scene was deliberately written with the meme in mind. It is a rare case of an internet meme retroactively manufacturing its own source, and after that broadcast the meme spread again carrying the added note that it had finally become a real line.

Usage

Telling someone to get started — a short, decisive order
Approving a plan — with the sense of pushing it through without review
In meetings and group chats — signaling that the decision is made, so execute
Playing at gravitas — attached to something trivial for exaggeration

Variants and derivatives

"Ddo-Kyoung-young" is the companion expression, meaning Lee has turned up in yet another production. The two are frequently used together.

The fake-screenplay game itself survives as a genre: fixed casting for each actor, with synopses and dialogue written for films that do not exist. "Proceed" is the most successful line to have broken loose from that game and survived on its own without a source.