About

Mesothelioma Ad Copypasta refers to a transcript from an personal injury attorney's advertisement directed toward those suffering from asbestos-related cancer, which is often used as a non-sequitur punchline in various image macros online.

Origin

On August 29th, 2008, YouTuber injurylawassociates uploaded a a commercial for the Houston, Texas attorneys Danziger & Dellano, alerting viewers that they made "be entitled to financial compensation" if they were diagnosed with mesothelioma

"If you or a loved one was diagnosed with Mesothelioma you may be entitled to financial compensation. Mesothelioma is a rare cancer linked to asbestos exposure. Exposure to asbestos in the Navy, shipyards, mills, heating, construction or the automotive industries may put you at risk. Please don't wait, call 1-800-99 LAW USA today for a free legal consultation and financial information packet. Mesothelioma patients call now! 1-800-99 LAW USA"

Spread

On May 16th, 2012, Redditor caraeeezy submitted a post asking if anyone else got the word "mesothelioma" stuck in their heads after watching attorney commercials on television to /r/DoesAnybodyElse,^[7] garnering upwards of 770 votes (86% upvoted) and 100 comments prior to being archived. On November 16th, 2014, Redditor Kelvinist joked that aliens would think our "entire economy is based on car insurance and mesothelioma lawsuits" if they were intercepting our television signals on /r/showerthoughts.^[8] On June 25th, 2016, Twitter user @cool_as_heck^[12] tweeted a distorted stock photo of a person dialing a phone captioned with the mesothelioma copypasta (shown below).

On July 24th, the /r/mesotheliomalawyers^[2] subreddit was created. On August 26th, 2016, Redditor soulnatsu submitted the commercial transcript to the /r/copypasta^[1] subreddit. On October 25th, Redditor LiceCurryToss submitted an image macro of a smiling baby being held by a woman, captioned with the mesothelioma copypasta to /r/dank_meme^[3] (shown below, left). On November 1st, Redditor xLeperMessiahx reposted the image macro to /r/me_irl,^[6] where it received upwards of 32,800 votes (87% upvoted) and 270 comments. On November 2nd, Redditor M4_doop posted a comic in which a student is handed a note with the mesothelioma copypasta written on it to /r/me_irl^[5] (shown below, right).

On November 4th, an emoji variation of the copypasta was posted on /r/emojipasta.^[9] On December 29th, the original copypasta was reposted on /r/copypasta.^[10] On January 4th, Tumblr user idiotdad^[11] submitted a photoshopped Hollywood sign with the mesothelioma ad copypasta (shown below). Within 48 hours, the post gained more than 8,600 notes.

On January 5th, 2017, Redditor Lucretios submitted a post asking about the origin of the meme to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[4] to which Redditor POGtastic responded that mesothelioma ads were nearly "ubiquitous" on American television due the profitability of asbestos litigation. Additionally, other Redditors noted that "mesothelioma" was one of the most expensive Google adwords in online advertising.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References