Days in the Life of Mo

Imagine writing code without copy-paste. Imagine rewriting the same line, over and over, like a medieval monk transcribing Bibles by candlelight. That’s not just inefficiency, it’s torture.

Enter Larry Tesler, a computer scientist who, in the 1970s, basically saved humanity’s wrists, eyes, and sanity. While working at Xerox PARC (the birthplace of way too many ideas that Apple and Microsoft later “borrowed”), Tesler and his team developed the concept of cut, copy, and paste. He didn’t patent it. He didn’t trademark it. He just gave it to the world, like Prometheus handing fire to humans, except instead of fire, it was the ability to never retype your email signature again.

But here’s the kicker: it wasn’t originally about making your Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V dreams come true. It was about text editing. Xerox was experimenting with user-friendly interfaces; yes, this was revolutionary in the 70s, and Tesler wanted to make moving text around less painful. According to The Guardian, Tesler saw repetition as “evil.” Evil! And honestly? I get it. Every time I manually rewrite boilerplate code, I can feel his ghost whispering, “This is why I invented copy-paste, Mo. Respect the legacy.”

And let’s be real: copy-paste didn’t just change how we work. It changed how we think. It made digital life modular, remixable. From essays to code snippets to memes, it blurred the line between original and borrowed thought. Would TikTok even exist without the spirit of “copy-paste” culture? Would half the internet? (Looking at you, Stack Overflow answers I’ve Ctrl+C’d at 11 p.m.)

So next time you hit that magical combo of keys, remember: it wasn’t inevitable. It was invented. Accidentally, maybe. But it became one of the purest symbols of what tech should be; simple, accessible, and designed to make life less frustrating.

---

If you’ve ever survived a deadline thanks to Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, you might like hanging around here. Subscribe for more stories about the tech we take for granted, and the humans (and accidents) behind it.