[Ads-l] "copypasta' -- new to me

Joel Berson berson at ATT.NET
Mon Jun 13 14:18:57 UTC 2016


" "Anti-Racist is Code for Anti-White," a slogan that was lifted from an early-2000s pro-segregationist tract called "The Mantra," has proliferated online as a piece of white supremacist copypasta -- text that's obsessively copied and pasted across internet forums."


Amanda Hess [frequent contributor to the Sunday "First Words" column], "They Punctuate Their Messages With Subtle Symbols of Hatred," New York Times, Saturday, June 11, 2016, C4/2 (New England Edition).  An extremely disturbing article on the "echo" -- surrounding a name taken to be Jewish with three parentheses -- used by anti-Semitic and white nationalist hate groups.  Hess discusses the encouragement such groups are taking from Donald Trump's candicacy.



A very superficial search shows an Urban Dictionary submission it dates April 20, 2006; in Google News I find uses from 2010, including once again the NYTimes:


"Bored at Work? Try Creepypasta, or Web Scares," By AUSTIN CONSIDINE, NOV. 12, 2010:  



"Mike Rugnetta, who is a researcher for KnowYourMeme.com, a Manhattan-based project devoted to tracking and documenting bits of viral Web ephemera — or memes — explained that creepypasta derives from a term called “copypasta,” which described any piece of text that was endlessly “copy-pasted” across the Internet. Creepypasta probably arose as a creepy form of copypasta around 2007, Mr. Rugnetta said, though it’s only recently become really popular."


A usage also appearing in 2010 denotes copied computer code.


P.S.  I don't find "creepypasta" in the OED either.



Joel

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