Modern Classics: COPIUM & HOPIUM

Don't do imaginary drugs

Saturdays are perfect days for colloquial surprises. Surprise—we’re talking about the slang words hopium and copium today!

Most English speakers know–though ideally not from direct experience–all about opium, the addictive narcotic derived from the opium poppy. The word comes to us in whole cloth from the Latin opium meaning poppy juice.

While opium has been a source of both escape and misery for millennia, new eras demand new drugs, even imaginary ones. Hence, the introduction of copium, a product peddled by 21st century internet culture. Copium can best be described as the imaginary narcotic one self-administers to deal with feelings of sorrow, loss, or unrealized desires. Like opium, copium is not considered a beneficial form of treatment.

BREAKDOWN: COPE + OPIUM

The more sanguine sister to copium is hopium. Hopium differs from hope in that the optimism it fuels is unwarranted or irrational. Basically, hopium makes people delulu.

BREAKDOWN: HOPE + OPIUM

As with actual controlled substances, these virtual remedies should be avoided at all costs, no matter how poorly your favorite football team is doing. As they say online, copium is one heck of a drug!

“Religion is the opium of the masses.” —Karl Marx

“Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.” —Edmund Wilson