About

Gr8 B8 M8 is a copypasta which uses the number 8 to re-spell words that end in -ate, as a way of abbreviating them. It originally appeared on 4chan's /b/ board in the middle of 2013.

Origin

The first known reference to this copypasta is on the /b/ image board, which is not archived. A question on Yahoo Answers came up in the middle of 2013 when a user by the name of TrovaTravita^[1] asked what "gr8 b8 m8 check my 8" meant. The user explained that he did not speak English, and therefore didn't understand its meaning. The earliest screenshot of the phrase is from December 25th, 2013.

Spread

The copypasta is usually used on the /b/ board in 4chan, as well as other boards including /v/. On June 16th 2014, Reddit user WillyTheWackyWizard posted a screenshot of a thread on /b/ where the copypasta was used to the subreddit "U Wot M8", and received 225 upvotes and 18 comments.

m8

m8 is a slang word has been used both as a shortened slang and ironically for the term "mate". Originally deriving from the copypasta, the slang has a heavy affiliation with montage parodies and its related montage linguistic affiliations.

Search Interest

External References