About

"I Saw Flying Lotus at a Grocery Store…" refers to a popular copypasta in which the poster tells a story of a famous person acting like a jerk in a grocery store. The subject of the copypasta is usually a very well-liked celebrity, thus pranking people into thinking someone they really like is actually rude.

Origin

The earliest version of the copypasta was posted to the 4chan messageboard /mu/^[10] on June 29th, 2012. It reads:

It reads:

I saw Flying Lotus at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

Spread

Later that year, it was posted on the forum kanyetothe^[1] on September 1st, 2012.

Shortly after, the story became a copypasta on 4chan, ^[2] appearing sometime before September 17th, 2012, when it was referred to as "that FlyLo copypasta" in thread about meeting famous musicians.

It was reposted on December 25th, 2012^[4] with Flying Lotus replaced by Matthew McConaughey, and again on January 11th, 2013,^[3] with Flying Lotus replaced with Ryan Gosling. The copypasta would be posted several times over the next few years with different celebrities, including Anthony Fantano, ^[5] Kendrick Lamar,^[6] Masahiro Sakurai,^[7] and more.

The spread of the copypasta prompted a thread on Snopes ^[8] investigating the story and a thread on /r/outoftheloop^[9] asking about the origin.

External References