Sylvia Plath Knew What She Was Talking About When She Wrote X

Submission 2,050

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About

Sylvia Plath Knew What She Was Talking About When She Wrote X refers to a phrasal template that developed on Twitter after a user repeated a quote that has been commonly misattributed to the American poet, novelist and short story writer Sylvia Plath, which reads, "Girls are not machines that you put kindness coins into until sex falls out." The misquote made many on Twitter joke about the error by misattributing famous sayings and song lyrics to the late poet, typically starting the statement with the catchphrase "Sylvia Plath knew what she was talking about when she wrote X."

Origin

On April 16th, 2023, Twitter user @anxiousmistidoi tweeted, "Sylvia Plath knew exactly what she was talking about when she wrote, 'Girls are not machines that you put kindness coins into until sex falls out'" (shown below). The tweet was later deleted.

The quote has been widely misattributed to Plath in the past. Sites including QuoteFancy^[1] and The Odyssey^[2] have notably attributed the quote to Plath.

The actual origin of the quote is unknown and has had many different supposed origins since 2010. Some have attempted to correct the misattributed quote and credit model Porphyria R'lyeh,^[3] who did use the quote in a 2013 Facebook post, but she is on record saying she didn't come up with it. It also appeared in NeoGaf^[4] user Zane's April 5th, 2012, post. On April 4th, 2012, Twitter user @ElizabethDanger^[5] attributed the quote to Twitter user @hexjackal.

On March 31st, 2010, the quote also appeared in a Matrix Morpheus meme posted to Joyreactor^[6] (shown below).

Spread

After @anxiousmistidoi's tweet on April 16th, 2023, users on social media were quick to correct her by pointing out Plath never said the quote and a snowclone emerged in which people paraphrased her original tweet by adding well-known quotes and song lyrics in the place of the "kindness coins" portion.

For example, on April 16th, Twitter user @BrandyLJensen^[7] posted the phrasal tempalte with lines from a Rupi Kaur poem, gaining over 2,000 retweets and 27,000 likes in less than 24 hours. Also that daym user @elizamclamb^[8] parodied it by attributing "toss your hair in a bun, drink some coffee, put on some gangsta rap, and handle it" to Plath, gaining over 250 retweets and 3,000 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).