Do Androids Dream of Electric Memes?
Memes mutate like cultural viruses, copypastas remix text into absurdity—and now, let's accelerate this using LLMs, blending the Navy Seal, Sherlock Holmes, Tintin, Gru, and Terry Pratchett into endless mashups.
Do you know about memes and copypastas? Memes are viral ideas, pieces of culture, that become memes by spreading. Cultural viruses that survive, mutate, and evolve by passing from one person's mind to another's. There's an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to internet memes if you're curious about those.
Copypastas are a specific kind of meme. Blocks of texts copied and pasted into conversations, on forums, reddit, or social media. They can famous monologues from movies or tv shows, such as the Chicanery Copypasta, someone's lengthy rant that somehow became viral like Gru's Height Copypasta, and people usually like to post them, or variants, around as an inside joke. One of the most famous ones is the Navy Seal Copypasta.
I, for one, enjoy memes. What I like even more though, is combining things in ridiculous and unexpected ways. Such as a 21st copypasta and an obscure reference to fictitious fanatics zealots from a 1992 by one of my favourite wistful, humours, playful, satirical, and most irreverent and memorable authors: Sir Terry Pratchett.
But I'm also lazy. Writing is an iterative process, and getting to a satisfying results, although pleasant, takes time. Often a lot of time. But nowadays, we can quickly sketch out such ideas using the shamelessly derivative soulless plagiarism engines endlessly remixing our collective originality we call LLMs (and yes, that specific tirade was indeed just as shamelessly outsourced to exactly such an engine—irony duly noted and appreciated).
A few riffs
The Omnian Exquisitor
What in the name of the Prophet did you just blaspheme, you heretical dungheap?
I’ll have you know I’m a fully anointed Exquisitor of the Most Holy Omnian Church, personally blessed by the Cenobiarch himself, and I have overseen over three hundred successful purifications. I am trained in theological combat and I’m the top inquisitor in the entire Quisition. You are nothing to me but another soul in dire need of absolution through fire.
I will smite you with such righteous fury the Prophet himself will feel it. Not only am I extensively trained in the Holy Laws, but I have direct access to the finest racks, hot irons, and comfy chairs this side of Ephebe. If only you knew the divine retribution your little sacrilegious comment was about to bring down upon you, you would have held your tongue and prostrated yourself before Om. But you didn’t, and now you will pay the price, you godless cur.
I will descend upon you like an eagle of retribution, my robes billowing in the wind of justice, and you won’t even have time to cry out for clemency before you are judged unworthy in the eyes of the One True God. If you think you can escape, you are more foolish than an Ephebian philosopher trying to explain “free will” to a hot poker. I have spies in every village, every temple, and every shadow. The Quisition is eternal. We do not forget. We do not forgive. And we do not tolerate heresy.
May Om have mercy on your soul—because I certainly won’t.
— Anonymous Omnian Exquisitor, pre-Brutha era
That Man’s Name – Sherlock Holmes
A professor of criminology stood before his class, eager to demonstrate the fallacy of so-called “deduction.”
“Does crime exist?” the professor asked.
“Obviously,” a student replied. “The newspapers are full of it.”
“And do detectives solve crimes through deduction?” the professor continued.
“Yes, of course,” the student answered.
The professor smirked. “Then tell me, if deduction were truly infallible, why do so many cases remain unsolved? If crime can always be deduced, then no mystery should remain. Therefore, deduction is a myth, a mere parlor trick, and so-called detectives—mere charlatans.”
A man in a deerstalker hat stood up in the back of the room. He lit his pipe with casual precision and spoke.
“Professor, may I ask you a question?”
“Certainly,” the professor said.
“Does darkness exist?” Holmes inquired.
The professor frowned. “Of course. Darkness is the absence of light.”
“And cold?” Holmes continued.
“Cold is the absence of heat,” the professor said, impatiently.
“Indeed,” Holmes nodded. “And crime, Professor—does it exist as an entity of its own, or is it merely the absence of reason, order, and justice?”
The professor hesitated.
“You see, crime is not some independent force,” Holmes explained. “It is merely the inevitable result of ignorance, passion, and greed unchecked by rationality. Likewise, deduction is not a trick, but a method—one which allows the mind to illuminate the darkness of uncertainty. Just as a single candle can banish the night, a single deduction can unravel the most confounding mystery.”
Holmes took a slow puff of his pipe and narrowed his keen eyes.
“And you, Professor, have clay on your boots from Whitechapel, ink on your left cuff from grading papers late at night, and a faint scent of expensive perfume not worn by your wife. If deduction were a myth, I should not be able to tell you that you were at the docks this morning, spoke with a man about an overdue payment, and are now concealing an affair from your spouse.”
The professor turned pale and sat down.
The young man's name — Sherlock Holmes
Tintin’s True Power – The Journalist’s Mythos
There is a lot of debate surrounding Tintin’s abilities, but after extensive research, I have come to some truly shocking conclusions.
First, Tintin’s height. It is well-documented that he appears small compared to other characters, but this is misleading. Based on scale comparisons with Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus, and factoring in Snowy’s approximate size, Tintin is actually 7’3” (221 cm) tall. His perceived small stature is due to Hergé’s artistic style compressing his proportions for readability.
Next, let’s talk about speed. Tintin has been seen outrunning cars, trains, and even a plane taking off (Cigars of the Pharaoh, page 47). Given the average takeoff speed of a 1930s aircraft (around 100 mph), this means Tintin’s running speed is conservatively estimated at 120 mph (193 km/h). This would explain how he constantly escapes gunfire, explosions, and ambushes with no effort.
Now, strength. Despite appearing lean, Tintin has KO’d grown men with a single punch on multiple occasions. The average human skull requires at least 1,100 Newtons of force to fracture. If Tintin can effortlessly render multiple opponents unconscious, he is likely generating at least 5,000 Newtons of punching power, making him stronger than most heavyweight boxers.
But the most terrifying revelation? Tintin never carries a weapon, yet always wins. He has overthrown governments, taken down entire smuggling rings, and outwitted secret police forces—all while armed with nothing but his notebook and an unbreakable moral compass. Even when captured, he always escapes, proving he is not merely a journalist—he is an unstoppable force of pure justice.
The truth is clear: Tintin is not an ordinary reporter. He is a superhuman entity of unknown origins, disguised as a mild-mannered Belgian journalist.
Think about it.
Lightweight Analysis
What have we done here? If we look at each new text, we can see the structures, narratives, and rythmes, have been retained and infused with entirely new (and unrelated) characters, references, and styles. An internet remix of literary pastiches and internet remix culture.
We've taken a source material, the original copypastas and applied a different style to them while infusing them with different references and characters. It's fundamentally the same as applying an Instagram filter to image, but with culture and domains (author's style, references, characters,...) instead of pictures of filters.
Take Away
What can we conclude from this? LLMs allow us to do with text with we've already been doing with images, and while the result won't come close what could come out of the wonderful minds of the likes of Sir Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, the automation in itself is a quality. It can enable rapid exploration, experimentation, and iteration in way previously hardly accessible. It can also help create things that while fun and appreciable wouldn't be worth spending the time it would take to manually craft them.
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