Copypasta: Explained
Copypasta: Explained
Let's talk about viral copy-paste text chains
Welcome to Gen Z Translator, where I break down trending topics on Fridays. If you’re new, you can subscribe here and follow me on Threads, Instagram, or X. Views are my own. Happy reading!
I have two general rules of thumb for this newsletter: One, no politics. Two, no vulgarity. This topic blurs the line on both. But, my duty is to inform and I was asked about this (shoutout, you know who you are), so here goes.
What is copypasta?
A certain big news event occurred last week that involved a former president and a couple felony charges. Where there is news, there are memes.
Cries went up around the internet for the “Donald Trump copypasta.”
It might not be immediately clear what that is if you’ve never heard of the term.
In its essence, copypasta is text or images copied from one person to the next, often resulting in diminished quality or diluted messaging. Copypasta originated from online forum and email chain days. It involved phrases like “Share with ten people or bad luck for ten years.”
Copypasta has an element of peer pressure – do this, or else. It’s groupthink at its finest. In case you’re not familiar, groupthink is the “practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility” according to the Oxford dictionary.
While copypasta used to be taken seriously (by yungins who believed they’d actually receive bad luck), nowadays it’s mostly used ironically and inappropriately. It’s cousins with something I’ve covered before called creepypasta.
“Copypasta is internet slang for any block of text that gets copied and pasted over and over again, typically disseminated by individuals through online discussion forums and social networking sites. The term is an English portmanteau of ‘copy,’ ‘paste’ and ‘pasta.’ Although it shares some characteristics with spam in the sense they're both unsolicited (and often considered a nuisance), copypastas are mainly spread through human operators whereas the latter is automatically generated by electronic messaging systems.”
Another example of copypasta is stackable Snapchat/Instagram Story screenshots, like this:
“The biggest factor behind the ‘memeability’ of a copypasta is how easy it is to edit based on the context, similar to image meme templates,” Vann Vicente wrote for How to Geek. “These are essentially inside jokes on a massive scale – people in the know will find them funny, while those who are unaware may consider them incomprehensible and annoying.”
“ALL EYES ON RAFAH”
The concept of copypasta can expand beyond emoji-littered texts. A good example is the viral “ALL EYES ON RAFAH” post, meant to show solidarity with Palestine. Over 30 million people shared it. (
wrote a fleshed-out piece about it here).X user @SvddenRezzbian pointed out how easy it is to fall prey to content with questionable origins.
“Instead of us spreading knowledge in this time, we’re spreading a fake AI image,” Salma Shawa said on Instagram in a video explaining the phenomenon.
Like Vann Vicente said, copypasta’s desirability comes from its ease of use. We might view modern-day copypasta as all fun and games, but its potential for dangerous messaging still exists. Just like a young child resharing a message due to superstitious fears, online audiences can propagate copy-paste information, no questions asked.
Copypasta thrives on peer pressure, even when it’s in a joking way. Remember “FOMO?”1 People are quick to repost something when they think they’re going to be left out, whether that’s left out of the joke or left out of the moment. It has an element of consequence, too – what “bad luck,” so to speak, will happen to you if you don’t jump on the bandwagon? Copypasta is rooted in coercion.
“Organizations in which dissent is discouraged or openly punished are similarly likely to engage in groupthink when making decisions. High stress is another root cause, as is time pressure that demands a fast decision,” Psychology Today staff wrote. “Even in minor cases, groupthink triggers decisions that aren’t ideal or that ignore critical information.”
Didn’t expect there to be a moral to copypasta, huh? Me neither.
Curious about what creepypasta is? You can read more about it here
My weekly roundup:
✈️ What I’m Doing: Preparing to go on vacation! You’ll be seeing an abbreviated version of my weekly roundup since my upcoming posts will be scheduled in advance
🎶 What I’m Listening To: The End by Halsey 🥺
🎞️ What I’m Watching: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
📱 What I’m Scrolling: New Hunger Games book AND movie announced!! This describes how I feel
⚠️ What’s On My Radar: This meme about the Backrooms
Read the full Gen Z Dictionary here.
FOMO: Fear of Missing Out