I sexually identify as an attack helicopter

I sexually identify as an attack helicopter

The copypasta originated in the online first-person shooter (FPS) gaming community in March of 2014. This community has long had a vocal minority that actively opposes “political correctness,” sends death threats to developers of games that “push a political agenda,” and have boycotted games for featuring women in any role beyond eye candy. Additionally, this minority tends to not believe in transgendered people, resulting in the below.

Full text

I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I’m fucking retarded but I don’t care, I’m beautiful. I’m having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me “Apache” and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can’t accept me you’re a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.

The copypasta attempts to mimic posts popular on sites like Twitter and Tumblr wherein a trans person officially announces their identity for their followers to use as opposed to their dead identity. Like many copypastas, it features crude language and images meant to detract from the community being emulated.

The purpose of this copypasta is clearly to weaponize the vocabulary used by LGBTQ+ people, specifically trans people, against them. This is what the creator of the pasta originally intended, and this is how it is often used today. In the wild, this copypasta has been trimmed down to just be “I identify as an attack helicopter,” and it can often be found in threads revolving around gender politics.

This particular pasta reinforces the community-community aspects of copypastas. Like the Navy Seal copypasta, it is a weaponization of the perceived language of a targeted group against said group. On the other hand, it can also be used as an example of how a targeted group can adopt the stones used against them as armor. In my brief examination of Twitter, I came across several queer-identifying people using the “attack helicopter” moniker in addition to their name.