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Origin

‘Endure it on spite and grit’ comes from an account of working a parcel-loading job posted on DCInside in 2016. The writer digresses into his time in the Marine Corps, and the line belongs to a senior serviceman he names as Hwang Geun-chul.

The passage describes being force-fed as a form of hazing and learning ‘the Marine spirit’ from it, with phrases like ‘eat it on spite; you chose to be a Marine; eat it on spite’ repeated throughout. Two fragments broke off and took on lives of their own: ‘you chose this X’ and ‘endure it on spite and grit’.

Spread

The post dates from 2016, but it became a meme in 2021, when the vogue for ‘Marine literature’ — writing that exaggerates and caricatures Marine Corps culture — brought the account back into circulation. It moved through several DCInside galleries and out into the wider internet.

Its meaning inverted along the way. In the original it referred to a corps the writer had volunteered for; online it is applied above all to things nobody chose — the country you happened to be born in, for instance. The absurdity of assigning responsibility for conditions one never selected is exactly where the joke sits.

Usage

• Paired with ‘you chose this X’ as a set phrase
• Mock consolation over something already done: a crashed share price, a failure
• Self-deprecation, aimed at oneself

It is rarely offered as sincere encouragement. It has the shape of comfort but functions closer to ‘you brought this on yourself, so deal with it’.

Sources

• Namuwiki, on the phrase — the 2016 DCInside parcel-loading account as the source; the senior serviceman’s line; the 2021 rediscovery through the Marine-literature vogue; the extension to things one did not choose