The classic attack helicopter meme is almost up to being 10 years old, catch up on its glorious history.

Known traditionally as the "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" meme, according the internets the origins are created by a steam user going by Guuse back in 2014 around March 17th. Originally a copypasta, (a block of story / text that is typically meant to be comical, which is then shared by many) Guuse was blasting the chat on Team Fortress 2 with:

"I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I'm fucking retarded but I don't care, I'm beautiful. I'm having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me "Apache" and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can't accept me you're a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding."

Know Your Meme - I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter - History

Notably, the fact there are no helicopters in Team Fortress 2 adds to the comedy. This copypasta then eventually made it onto reddit and 4chan which then led to popularity of the more simplistic phrase "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" in text and picture meme format. 

The purpose of the meme is essentially to make fun of the rise of alternate sexuality groups to allow self identification for one's sexuality / gender. Around this time there was a push not just for transgender people between male and female, but other terms like non-binary were being used and these groups still are very adamant that there are no requirements for anyone to label themselves a sexuality or gender at any time. 

The initial argument by these groups was that no one wanted wild genders or pronoun labels, but anyone outside that bubble could easily see that this self ID standard was going to lead to gender and pronoun chaos. For starters it is already a problem to have a man make no attempts to transition to female, yet somehow everyone is supposed to humor that person's request if suddenly they demand to be referred to as a female. Not stopping there, the neo-pronouns came just as every logical person predicted. 

Tumblr - A List of Neopronouns

First it was they/them, then went wackier to ze/zir and ze/hir then it just went to crazy town from there. Next thing you know, ya got fairies, animals, insects, plants, etc based genders and pronouns. Essentially these genders are chosen as personality traits and have nothing to do with sex once go this far down the hole. 

Thus the earlier attack helicopter prophecy came true, and one high-visibility example was a twitch streamer named FEROCIOUSLYSTEPH claiming to be trans deer-kin, which to normal people doesn't look that much more wild than claiming to be a helicopter. 

TikTok soon became known for neo-pronoun cringe which it seems many there feel the need to declare new seemingly arbitrary pronouns on a daily basis. 

Pretty much from day one, trans activists have hated the helicopter meme as it brilliantly shows the absurdity of allowing self identification with no standards or real definitions.  Typically their best come back is that the joke is old and not funny, with never any critique to the merit of what the meme is saying. 

While researching Helisexual, I came across an unexpected gem that apparently in 2020 there was a shitstorm over a science fiction short story literally titled "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter"

Clarkesworld - I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter

Isabel Fall submitted the work to Clarkesworld Magazine, which as another comical sidenote was a finalist for the 2021 Hugo award, whatever that is, and in true clownworld fashion people could not tell if the story was real or a giant troll. 

Wiki - I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter

Reception hilarity included:

- Arinn Dembo, the acting president of SF Canada, wrote that "this reads like it was written by a straight white dude who doesn't really get gender theory or transition & has no right to invoke transphobic dog whistles for profit". After the story's removal, Dembo stood by her critique, saying that "a lot of people might have been spared a lot of mental anguish" if a statement about Fall's identity and intentions had been provided.

-Author Neon Yang, was quoted by Vox as saying "When the story was first published, we knew nothing about Isabel Fall’s identity, and there was a smattering of strange behavior around the comments and who was linking to it that led people to suspect right-wing trolls were involved in this. In hindsight, they were probably just drawn by the provocative title and possibly did not even read the story."

-The editor of Clarkesworld, Neil Clarke, removed the story from the online magazine's website a few days later. According to Clarke's initial note, the withdrawal was made at the author's request. In a later statement, Clarke explained that he had removed the story after a "barrage of attacks" on Fall, "for her own personal safety and health".

-According to Clarke, the story was not a hoax, and Fall was not a Neo-Nazi (as some had assumed because "88" is a Neo-Nazi code). He wrote that the story was an attempt by Fall to "take away some of the power of that very hurtful meme" by subverting it.

-As a result of the contentious debate about her story and the personal attacks made against her, Fall entered a psychiatric hospital because of suicidal ideation

-She said that she was particularly struck by comments that she must be a man because "no woman would ever write in the way she did", which she said increased her gender dysphoria. ?

So as a review, a good chunk of people that blasted the story didn't even read it despite being quite short, and they even went the ADL route and made up some numbers to be nazi "dog whistles", meanwhile some went accidental full TERF and blasted the piece for being obviously fueled by autism and written by a penis-haver. Fall straight up had enough threats to end up in a psych ward due to the alphabet community treatment. 

Articles of note, ones that hilariously complain about cancel culture in this story, from tech lefty publications that propagate cancel culture: 

The Guardian - Sci-fi magazine pulls story by trans writer after 'barrage of attacks'

Vox - How Twitter can ruin a life

I could stop there, but alas my ready friend, I must tell you more about helisexuals and nearby groups. This type of rampant autism has been on display on places like DeviantArt for quite some time. Anthro-vehicles of choice include planes, trains, spaceships, ships, cars, and of course helicopters. And we aren't talking like anime cosplay girls with like pieces of vehicles on a costume as a theme, we are talking like Pixar's Cars type characters banging and getting pregnant type "fan art". 

As seen in the furry community, the art standards can range from raw childlike spazz, to objectively skillful. On that note I'm compelled to present a Mr Metokur classic, Deviant's Art Episode 2:

To close it out, you might be saying, but those are just a bunch of drawings, people aren't actually sexually attracted to vehicles, and that sadly is where you are wrong and why the attack helicopter meme must live on.