The Bee Movie Script
The Bee Movie is an animated children’s movie released in 2007 whose script was resurrected on the Internet in the mid-2010s, plaguing users on both Facebook and Tumblr. The copypasta typically appears in two forms. At first, the entire script was being copy and pasted, but once that became popular, users would try to fake each other out by posting just the first line of the movie.
Full text:
I cannot in good conscience post the full script of The Bee Movie into this paper, but I can provide a link for one’s viewing pleasure.
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The aftermath of a Tumblr blog posting the entire script on all of their followers’ dashboards.
The actual script is noted for being incredibly long for a Facebook comment or a blog post (60 pages single-spaced in Times New Roman 12pt font). Additionally, the content of the script and the movie itself were both received lukewarmly at release and are considered absurd by the general population.
The conversation surrounding this copypasta and its purpose have been interesting. One of the movie’s script writers assumes that the use of the script as a copypasta is Gen Z’s response to reexamining a movie about the relationship between a bee and a woman with a critical lens. Internet users have a more practical reason for using the copypasta. It’s very long, serving as a good method of antagonizing readers or followers who, especially on mobile devices, would often have to restart their apps or entire phone as the hardware attempted to load the entire script at once. Additionally, through conversation with my roommates about their relationship to the copypasta, I discovered the additional use of utilizing the length of the piece to essentially bury not safe for work (NSFW) messages, making the viewing of them more difficult for people not meant to see.
This specific copypasta demonstrates how folklore can transfer across medium, moving from being a passive experience to being an active one. Additionally, I believe the Bee Movie example demonstrates how an artifact can be adopted by a community and given a new meaning. The writer of the script believes that it’s being used because of its absurdity mixing with the nostalgia of the movie for Gen Z, but Gen Z themselves apply a different meaning to it than the writer ever intended.