What Does 'Copium' Mean, And Why Is Everyone Saying 'Cope' Online?

Your team almost scores the goal, but at the last second … nope. You can't believe it. Perhaps you come really close to winning an election and then, suddenly, it turns out you didn't. In the lingo of 4chan, after things like this happen, you might want to go and do some “copium,” but what exactly does this slang term even mean?

Cope and Copium have steadily become prevalent words since the end of the 2010s all around the web. If you're still unsure about what these terms and memes are all about, allow us to explain.

Where does “Copium” Come From?

The first recorded use of “copium” is the 2003 album Copium by rapper Keak da Sneak. It would be 16 years, however, before the word became a widely used meme online. Posters on 4chan's /pol/ board began using the term in summer 2019, writing it out as a reply on posts where somebody seemed to be a sore loser.

Then in June 2020, the Pepe meme started to be frequently used as a reaction image, suggesting that a person was seething, a sore loser or in denial. From there, the meme went to Reddit (a common waystation for 4chan memes on their way to the mainstream).

A month later, the famous YouTuber Vaush brought “Copium” to Twitter referencing Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election and put a left-wing spin on a meme that had come from 4chan’s /pol/ board, which is a rather right-wing space.

"Copium" Usage In Memes

The "Copium" meme is often used to insult someone else, suggesting that they are responding in an inappropriate way or with deluded expectations. Copium is often used with "cope" via the Cope and Seethe meme since the two describe similar things — the person doing the copium is also coping, that is, they are seething, in denial and being a sore loser.

The two words rose together in 2020, each most often used to describe the response of Republicans to the loss of the 2020 presidential election, though later being used by people from all political leanings to mock their counterparts.

Copium Variants and Related Memes

“Cope” is a pretty common verb, so "copium" is not the only meme that uses it. A cope meme was quite popular on Tumblr in 2016, in which people joked about what steps they took for their mental health. It was inspired by a post where somebody said they used “soda” to “cope,” which led many others to joke about other things used to cope with different events.

There's also the term Hopium, a portmanteau of the words "hope" and "opium," that's used to describe a fictional drug to help one stay hopeful in times of stress. It is frequently used in reaction image macros featuring Pepe the Frog hooked to an oxygen tank labeled "hopium."

Head on over to our copium and cope entries for more information, if you so desire.