The Navy Seal Copypasta
Original posting was made to internet image-board 4chan in 2010. Two rumored sources of genesis. The first, more commonly accepted, is that it was created on 4chan’s weapons board in response to an anonymous comment. The second is that the story was originally created on 4chan’s /pasta/ board, which is where internet copypastas would be posted. The below collection of the text is taken from a Reddit post that appeared on Reddit’s Copypasta subreddit in 2013, where links to the archived originals and variations could be found. Unfortunately, many of the links are now broken.
Full text
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little shit? Ill have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and Ive been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and Im the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. Youre fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and thats just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little clever comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldnt, you didnt, and now youre paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. Youre fucking dead, kiddo.
The two most identifiable features of composition for this copypasta are the tone and the spelling errors. The abundance of swearing and threats creates an over-the-top aura of aggression meant to mimic the average poster on 4chan’s weapons board. Additionally, the multiple spelling errors, most notably “gorilla warfare,” play into the stereotype that gun-nuts were thick-skulled macho men that didn’t care for the small details.
The likely purpose of this, and many less famous copypastas, was to intentionally misrepresent the group of people the pasta was trying to emulate. Similar but smaller in scale to the role reversal of celebrations like Mardi Gras, copypastas demonstrate how the creator community views its relationship with the emulated community. Given the often crude, negative portrayals, copypastas such as this can be weaponized tactics for either destroying the credibility of the emulated community or dismissing said community’s points/concerns. The latter is the most common use on forums like YouTube’s comments section, where this copypasta is posted in response to someone attempting to appear tough online.
This particular copypasta is of interest for two reasons. Firstly, it is one of the most famous copypastas online, spawning numerous spin-offs that involved either cleaning the language up, such as replacing the swears with “heck,” or revolving around particular images presented in the pasta, like gorillas engaging in warfare. Secondly, it and its ilk show community-community antagonism and how it might appear in an online setting. The fact that this copypasta was created with the intent of appearing just close enough to real to fool naïve users demonstrates the creator’s knowledge of their own community and what they are willing to believe.