Copypasta

The name comes from copy and paste. A copypasta is a fixed lump of text that spreads by people reposting it word for word: an absurd monologue, a mock outrage rant, a running in-joke a community has adopted. Some are years old and travel across platforms, mutating slightly with each generation.

In a live chat or under a video it reads as affectionate or hostile depending on who is pasting. Communities use them as shared shorthand, and the same mechanic makes them an easy tool for brigading, where identical text arrives hundreds of times to bury an actual conversation. Chat filters and comment moderation catch the well-known ones, and a fresh one gets through until somebody adds it.