Breaking news is pointless. Turn off CNN. The best way to get breaking news is through over-the-top texts full of eggplant emojis calling you a slut.
This piece of writing is called a copypasta, and if you’re part of the online sect of Americans, you probably received this when President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race. It’s obviously NSFW, but here’s a screenshot of what it looked like:
Sounds good!
Credit: Screenshot
Once you receive a copypasta, you copy and paste it (hence the name) and send it to more of your contacts. This is a type of chain letter that first started appearing on 4chan around 2006. It was added to the dictionary in May 2021.
Many of us remember this message from middle school (“If you don’t send this to 10 people, I won’t kiss you”), and of course, this fun text format is used in many other ways (e.g., spreading misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic). In 2018, this chain message made a modern comeback, but it seemed more relevant to the messages we received in middle school. Eventually, it made its way into the holiday season and became more naughty (e.g., Santa is going to slide down your hot 🔥 hot 🔥 chimney tonight). It became more political and sexually explicit than ever before. And today, they are synonymous with breaking news.
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There are many reasons for this evolution. Copy-paste writers are less concerned with accuracy, so they can break news faster. The political world is constantly disappointing us in new and more frightening ways, and copy-paste is a way to add some brightness to a system that is making us sick of it. As several copy-paste writers told CT Jones: Rolling Stone In 2018, “The meme form isn’t just for laughs. It’s a way for people to use humor to cope with an increasingly dystopian world.”
But for fans of Copypasta, there is one thing that worries me: the end of Copypasta may be near.
There’s a cycle that memes tend to fall into that sets them apart from other things that are ingrained in popular culture: origin, niche spread, viral spread, peak popularity, adapt and change, decline, fall out of fashion, and then optional resurgence. Copypastas have definitely entered a second life, the “adapt and change” phase. The texts have gone from holiday texts and middle school-friendly messages to the naughtiest NSFW texts you’ll ever receive. I got a ton of naughty copypastas for the anniversary of the riots, when former President Trump was convicted, when someone tried to assassinate former President Trump, and one about Biden’s withdrawal.
The tweet may have been deleted
The tweet may have been deleted
The sexual twist on the meme helped it remain trending for a long time, but it can’t stave off the decline forever. Its prevalence will eventually tire it out, as it’s largely copypasta-based. Shock factor has been replaced by predictability, a sure sign of doom for any hope of maintaining comedic value. Comedian and After Midnight staff writer Skylar Higley posted on X: “Now it’s all the same. Joe Biden drops out. I get a long message with emojis. Someone posts a meme from the future that says ‘Biden dropping out reminds me of when I broke up with you.’ People post fake messages between themselves and Biden. Etc. I feel hollow.”
Peak copypasta is approaching, I predict. We’re just a few months away from everyone deciding that copypasta was lame all along and experiencing a new meme resurgence. Start preparing your obituary.
