Repeat After Me, All Cops Are Bastards

About

Repeat After Me, All Cops Are Bastards is a TikTok Trend where people joke about upholding their principles on certain issues of identity politics and media representation. For instance, someone could think that gay characters should be depicted by gay actors, but have a soft spot for a specific depiction. The sound originated near the end of September 2022 by a TikToker discussing exceptions to their belief in the phrase ACAB.

Origin

On September 20th, 2022, TikToker^[1] @iamwandawakanda posted a video saying "All cops are bastards" to various media depictions of police officers, and slowly faltering as they reacted to their favorites, including Law And Order: SVU, and Brooklyn Nine Nine. The post gathered over 1.7 million plays and 390,000 likes in nearly three weeks (seen below). Their video also became the TikTok sound that later iterations of the trend utilized.

Spread

On September 23rd, TikToker^[2] @nurdrocks posted a video participating in the trend and rating his favorite children's media depictions of police, including Power Rangers SPD and the Green Lantern. The video gathered over 700,000 plays and 100,000 likes in nearly three weeks (seen below, left). On October 1st, TikToker^[3] @whittymoon participated in the trend as well, this time rating anime cops and gathering over 300,000 plays and 40,000 likes in over a week (seen below, right).

By October 8th, several TikTokers had joined in the trend, using the audio to rate depictions of other identities. On October 8th, TikToker^[4] @andretalksalot posted a video ranking depictions of gay characters, and gathered over 2.6 million plays and 500,000 likes in three days (seen below, left). On October 10th, TikToker^[5] @guavagirlys posted a video ranking voice actors voicing roles outside their race, and gathered over 1 million plays and 200,000 likes in one day (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References