Copypasta as a Meme Genre
Launch library · evergreen read
Copypasta refers to a block of text copied and pasted repeatedly, often with small variations, until it becomes recognisable purely through sheer repetition across many different threads and comment sections. Unlike an image macro, its humour lives entirely in the words and the rhythm of how they are read aloud or silently by whoever happens to encounter it.
The genre rewards a specific kind of writing: exaggerated, rhythmic, often absurd, built to be recited or reposted rather than simply read once and forgotten about entirely. Some copypasta becomes so familiar that fragments of it get quoted long after most people have forgotten its actual original source.
Because copypasta spreads through literal repetition, it offers an unusually clear record of how meme text evolves, since small edits accumulate over each repost, gradually shifting a passage further from its original wording with every new copy that gets shared onward from that point forward, layer upon layer.