Where «Come to the dark side, we have cookies» comes from?

I have been spending too much time lately on internet, just reading site by site, without any goal, just clicking in each link that was under the mouse’s pointer…. and after some time I found a "strange" thing. It was a popular (sub-culture) sentence that you could find all around internet. I realize that a lot of people use it, even earn money with it, or  they just use it for the title of their website or blog. Even as a tag of a nick name in forums, and it surprised me because it was popularly used and I didn’t know where it came from.
So, as Morpheo said in the ‘Matrix’ "You feel something strange but you don’t know what is it", I felt the same about this sentence; "Come to the dark side, we have cookies". What is it? Why is it soooo famous? Where does it come from? Why people sell t-shirts with this sentence (another site)? Why there are icons, pictures, cups, etc about it? and Why it looks sooo comercial, so funny, sooo interesting,… it is totally a catch phrase. For all of these, I began to investigate…

Of course, when you hear "Come to the dark side…" the first thing that come to our mind is Star Wars so I decided to begin in this point. "Come to the dark side…" makes sense. Darth Vader told it to Luke Skywalker…. And we all know how did the story end. In fact, in order to be more precise, almost to a freaky-star-wars level, Darth Vader said as follows: "Come to the dark side,… together we will rule the galaxy". wowww, a tasty proposal, difficult to reject,… but luckly (or not) Luke didn’t accept.
Today, I wander what would had happened if Darth Vader would had said: "Come to the dark side, we have cookies". Maybe Luke would had answered "YES" without any doubt and I would had found finally the origin of the sentence. But this is not the case…

Some people in internet assure that the origin of the sentence is from a famous rock song, however anybody remember the name of the band or the title of the song, and others assure that the sentence was taken from a book, an unknown Lovecraft’s book probably, but I wouldn’t bet hard for it, although you can always find very interesting and impressive phrases in books…

Of course, you can always find the "silly" answers which I didn’t take into account (which it doesn’t mean they could not be the real origin of the sentence)… Inside this group you can find Harry Potter and Stargate stuff,…  I don’t think they are serious answers of the question because the sentence looks much older than these stuff (according the time it looks have been used since). So if the sentence appears in harry potter or Stargate is because they take it from somewhere else…

The sentence has not copyright, so the possibilities of an advertisement sentence didn’t convince me either. So, I found myself at the starting point again. Star Wars looked the most likely origin of the sentence, but in fact IT WAS NOT. Maybe it began there, in Star Wars, and then somebody added "we have cookies", but… who? Who raised the sentence at the level of the "stars"…

…….

Of course if anybody know the answer of the question, I cheer him/her up to send a comment and bring some light on this mystery. I would appreciate it a lot .

My own opinion, after all the time spent on it , is that maybe the idea was in fact taken from somewhere else (probably a movie, probably Star Wars) and it just grew up in the urban culture, mouth to mouth, because it was fresh, it was funny, it was a catch phrase.  Is like those kind of things that a friend explain you and in a bit, without to be aware of it, you are explaining it to somebody else, or just using it in any other place. Thus, it has become a popular sentence around all the world, used in every single object, made FAMOUS by all US, moreover in internet, where the impressive and powerful sentences to call the attention of everybody are very well appreciated (and not only in advertisement or business but in applications and services as Messenger, sites or forums as well).

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48 respuestas a Where «Come to the dark side, we have cookies» comes from?

  1. Unknown dijo:

    Well, in my hell of a brainbox- I thought it probably linked to the fact that lots of websites (the addictive invasive type-in my case FACEBOOK!) have "cookies". . . hmmmmm

  2. Robbie dijo:

    I had hoped that you had the answer! Sure sounds like a Monty Python on SNL line doesn\’t it?

  3. Magdalena dijo:

    I came across this site trying to find an answer, but I still don\’t know where the sentence comes from!!!! This is weird!

  4. Alvaro dijo:

    family guy star wars special. stewie-vader says it

  5. daniel dijo:

    Theres this film called Tales of a Darkside, and this witch says to this paperboy come in luring him with cookies As the witch wants to eat him. I think it originated from that but i don\’t know when the quote became famous.

  6. Nina dijo:

    I was also wandering where it came from… I imagine a group of friends hanging out and then some of them want to do one thing, others some other thing and somebody(star wars fan) says: «Come to the dark side…» ..and other friend(fat kid :D) adds: «…we have cookies» 🙂

  7. Linda B dijo:

    It originated with AOL chat rooms. Years ago (internet time-wise) AOL had Community Leaders (I was one) that would host chats on all kinds of topics. We had «cookies» that we could automatically send to the chat rooms and that happened to be one of the quotes we could send to the chats. Who actually started it is unknown but we were the ones that started it.

  8. Cyberstorm dijo:

    Well the «darkside» is slang for the hackers world. Blackhat vs whitehat.

    So the geek meaning and use of that expression in the hacker community means that come to the evil side of the internet and we serve you cookies (for hacking taking over your browser) like internet browser cookies.

    cyberstorm – the back door to the darkside!

  9. It hails from a Veggie Tales Spoof of pop-culture movies called «Lord of the Beans». There are these Keebler Elf-type figures that are trying to convince them to «come to the dark side, we have cookies». I can’t believe no one knows this. It’s on Netflix.

    • twhit dijo:

      Really, you think a phrase in Veggie Tales movie that came out in 2005 spawned this phrase? I can’t believe any one thinks this.

  10. Philip Sears dijo:

    It is from the classic Spaceballs duh!!!!!!!!!!! anybody know good old movies anymore?

  11. lucekchuck dijo:

    Memes just happen. lily it was a spontaneous comment from some schmuck and it caught on.

  12. badu777 dijo:

    It’s all over the place, in severely movies and shows but none of these (to my knowledge) started it. I also know that a comic shop in Sarasota, FL called The Darkside, Had a commercial that in the end said «Come to the Darkside, we have cookies» and they actually hand out cookies on Saturdays to people. And the owner said he hadn’t heard of it when he came up with the idea. But could be coincidence or he heard it just hadn’t really thought about it.

  13. badu777 dijo:

    Oops,wrong one, there was a newer one with it, but I can’t seem to find it.

  14. Anonymous dijo:

    Actually, it originates from exactly what cyberstorm said. It is haxor jargon. It means the haxor side of the internets and 4chan made it famous. Cookies is the cookies from browsing web sites. It became famous when the phrase was coined to bring Anonymous people to bear against Church of Scientology. Thus Come to teh Darkside we haz Cookies. Lots and lots of Cookies Nom, nom, nom. You’ll never find who actually coined it as they are and always shall be Anonymous.

  15. Luis dijo:

    haxor… nonsense! explanation is much more simple:
    Pepperidge Farms Star Wars Cookies

  16. Its actually a fan parody of Darth Vader’s line. The line was made to sound funnier on forums. I don’t know who actually started it but its a parody of the line said above.

  17. hart dijo:

    si. me gusta coma queso con mi tio.

  18. Brian Frang dijo:

    So… you wrote an entire article. An article that could be summed up in one sentence. «I do not know where the phrase ‘Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies’ comes from, but I think it’s Star Wars.»

    Why bother with the article at all?

  19. asfsdasdsad dijo:

    I find your theory very probable. Someone just wanted to laugh at the serious moment, and this happened~

  20. Tyjana dijo:

    cookies arefor goodies and its making the darkside sound sweet and nice i want whoever made it to make more cant stop laughing!!!

  21. raduhi dijo:

    i made it when i was smoking weed, about 10 years ago…it just caught on for no apparent reason

  22. AJ dijo:

    Today in World of Warcraft… someone was offering 500 G for the one who can tell him where it comes from. He told us: «500 G for myself. The answer is: Duke Nukem»

  23. mbv dijo:

    It’s from russian tail malchish-kibalchish

    • ComicBookGoddesd dijo:

      Hiya – Don’t know if you care, but the English word for story you are using is spelled «tale». We use «tail» for the appendage on animals, and figuratively to mean «end», as a tail is on an animal’s rear end. 🙂

  24. Jason dijo:

    I started this. I’ve been sure for a long time so it started bugging me (since people are making money off of it for an incredibly long time) so I started to see if I wasn’t delusional and subconciously stole it from somewhere else.

    Long story short, I used to play Starcraft with a friend of mine from 97 till about 99, 2 v 2 online matches. Back then, around my first year of university in 98/99 I began saying this in a mocking way when we’d demolish other pairs and tried to convince the lesser of the 2 partners to switch alliances and join our team, only to screw them both over in the long run.

    Being as popular as Starcraft is/was and how much it’s played the world over I can only assume that’s how it caught on. It’s pretty catchy and I’m all for the whole «great minds think alike» deal – so I’m sure I’m not the only one that pieced those 2 lines together oh so cleverly. BUT! The closest online reference I can find to my phrase is 2004 which means I have it beat by 5 years at least. So I’m sticking to my theory that it spawned from my obsessive compulsive playing of Starcraft on my ol’ 33.6 kbps modem.

  25. tif dijo:

    i kno where it came from. a year or two ago at bayshore camp we were playing a game called amoeba tag. my sis was on the chain and she randomly sed COME TO THE DARKSIDE!!! WE HAVE COOKIES!!! it was completely random. so i guess all the campers went and posted it. we had kno idea it had gotten famous. how weird. but yeah believe it or not. we think its jilarious that it got so huge! and yeah it did originate from the star wars quote. she just added the cookie part. we had cookies for snack that day.

  26. ComicBookGoddesd dijo:

    It is a reference to the Joss Whedon television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the season where they are seniors, the Mayor, who is a Big Bad guy for the season, causes another Slayer, Faith, to switch sides and help him, because he treats her like his daughter. In one scene, he offers her cookies. Someone mixed it with the Star Wars and hacker slang that was so similar because many Whedon fans like that type of genre-smashup. I first saw it on LJ in a Whedon group, where the origin was clear.

  27. Shay2013 dijo:

    welcome to the dark side we have… harry styles.
    welcome to the dark side we have…justin bieber
    welcome to the dark side we have… education

  28. Santa Muerte dijo:

    Well, I heard the origin was in fact Star Wars, although the sentence doesn’t appear there, and I think it’s quite probable, because I know it as ‘Come to the dark side, Luke! We have cookies.’. In Star Wars Episode 5 Darth Vader said to Luke: ‘Come to the dark side, Luke! Together we will rule the galaxy.’ And as you might know, the quote/scene got quite famous, because it’s so impressive.
    And then some guys started joking about it and thus is how of ‘Together we will rule the galaxy.’ got ‘We have cookies.’ Just because it’s parodizing the whole drama and impressiveness, because it doesn’t make any sense to switch sides in a war for cookies.

  29. Mini Sky dijo:

    Hi, I was looking to the answer for tihs question and I found this post.
    I´m from Argentina and I use this sentence as well (I say it in english, not in spanish). I believe that it was a sentence that grew mouth to mouth.
    Anyway, I heard it first in 2005 in my country, I remember the date because I heard it from a college friend while we were studying for an exam. I do not know where it came from, but it has been around the world for some time now.

  30. scott dijo:

    the phrase originated from a baldwin county ymca group project in 1999. the children where split in 4 groups and had to make a funny parody to starwars that lasted ten minutes. the lead groups skit involved finding out that darthvador was actually cookie monster. he said «all undercover sesame street jedi, come to the dark side. we have cookies!» location-daphne al ymca on wispering pines road
    i was there

  31. Marta dijo:

    OMG! I just learned about this sentence and was happy to find a place where I could read about its origin. Just got a headache!

  32. john dijo:

    in my opinion it is an incorrect recreation of a saying on a shirt i saw as a kid. the shirt said come to the light side we have cookies come to the dark side we have pie. on the light side was yoda with a plate of cookies and on the dark side was darth vader with a plate of pie if I remember correctly.

  33. Kizzy Anel dijo:

    I swear to God I came up with this phrase. I used to say it all the time when I was young and joked I should copyright it before it became a thing…. ah well. It was my catch phrase on my first Deviantart page, my email signature and everything for so long.

  34. random user dijo:

    It starts to make sense, when you study computer security or web development and you learn about cookies and cross-site-scripting hacks xD

  35. Francesca dijo:

    Si es el máximo pujador, ¡enhorabuena!, va a recibir una comunicación electrónica con todos detalles para la
    adquisición del vehículo. http://www.getjealous.com/bryantbilyvwcicn/journal/5106046/aprenda-los-trucos-para-triunfar-en-las.html

  36. Radu Luncasu dijo:

    There is no debate over this. The phrase was created by a frustrated web developer who had to work with cookies. Cookies ARE the direct descendant of the Dark Side.

  37. John Abbott dijo:

    The first time I heard the phrase was on «That 70s Show» during the first season in 1999 when they had a Star Wars themed episode. During a dream sequence, Jackie and Fez show up as Stormtroopers. Jackie says «you guys have totally gotta come over to the Dark Side», to which Fez adds «They have cookies!»

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  39. B dijo:

    Dean Koontz
    Derply Odd
    Page 67
    Nor likely the origin but a nice play on the words
    «…they would likely wind up on the Dark Side of the Other Side where you never get any cookies…»

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