The phrase comes from a declaration by Carles Puigdemont, then president of the Catalan government, made the day after Catalonia's general strike on 3 October 2017, which followed the independence referendum on 1 October. Addressing King Felipe VI, Puigdemont told the monarch “així no”, a direct rebuke of the king's response to the referendum crisis. The two words were quickly clipped from the speech and shared in Catalan political discussion online, where their brevity made them easy to reuse. They have since become shorthand for a calm but firm rejection, especially in debates about Catalonia and Spanish politics.