Australia Is Not Real

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About

Australia Is Not Real is a copypasta which says the country of Australia does not exist and was invented as a way to make people believe Britain sent its convicts somewhere when in actuality they just killed them. The copypasta is usually posted on Reddit and 4chan threads whenever Australia is mentioned.

Origin

The copypasta comes from a Facebook post by Shelley Floryd on March 21st, 2017,^[1] though it has since been deleted. Screenshots of the post were uploaded to Twitter on March 25th by @Asher_Wolf.^[2] The post reads:

Australia is not real. It's a hoax, made for us to believe that Britain moved over their criminals to someplace. In reality, all these criminals were loaded off the ships into the waters, drowning before they could see land ever again. It's a coverup for one of the greatest mass murders in history, made by one of the most prominent empires. Australia does not exist. All things you call "proof" are actually well-fabricated lies and documents made by the leading governments of the world. Your Australian friends? They're all actors and computer-generated personas, part of the plot to trick the world.If you think you've ever been to Australia, you're terribly wrong. The plane pilots are all in on this, and have in all actuality only flown you to islands close nearby – or in some cases, parts of South America, where they have cleared space and hired actors to act out as real Australians. Australia is one of the biggest hoaxes ever created, and you have all been tricked. Join the movement today, and make it known that they have been deceived. Make it known, that this has all just been a cover-up. The things these "Australian" says to be doing, all these swear words and actions based on alcoholism, MDMA and bad decisions, are all ways to distract you from the ugly truth that is one of the greatest genocides in history. 162,000 people were said to have been transported to this imaginary land during a mere 80 years, and they are all long dead by now. They never reached that promised land. Tell the truth. Stand up for what is right. Make sure to spread the world – Australia is not real. It's a codeword for the cold-blooded murder of more than a hundred thousand people, and it is not okay. We will not accept this.Stand up for the ones who died. Let it be known, that Australia does not exist.

Spread

The post quickly went viral on Facebook. When the post was reported on by Mashable^[3] on March 23rd, the post had over 40,000 comments. It was covered by several media outlets in the coming days, including Newshub.co.nz,^[4] Askmen,^[5] Refinery29,^[6] and more. Buzzfeed^[7] pointed out that the majority of comments were from angry Australians.

Though Floryd deleted the original post, she continued to propagate the theory online in future posts. On March 21st,^[10] she uploaded a "real map" of the globe which did not have Australia, gaining over 440 shares (shown below).

In the following months, the post became a copypasta on sites such as Reddit and 4chan. On May 25th, 2017, it was posted to /r/copypasta and received 46 points.^[8] On November 2nd, the copypasta was posted to 4chan^[9] in response to a post which said Australia should change their flag.