expy
nounEtymology From a clipping of exported character + -y. Coined by TV Tropes in 2006.
1
Lifestyle Slang A character in a work of fiction who is a stand-in for or knockoff of a character from an unrelated work or of a real person.
- I like your novel but your protagonist is pretty clearly a Scooby-Doo expy.
- The demon-run Raptor News Network clearly parodies that of the American conservative Fox News Network in both rhetoric and appearance, with its anchorman Bob Barbas being a thinly veiled expy of Bill O’Reilly.2014, Jonathon O'Donnell, “Our Demonic World”, in Robert Arp, editor, The Devil and Philosophy: The Nature of His Game, page 120:
2 more examples
- The monsters vary from completely original creations to bizarre expies of famous characters and people, […]2018 February 27, Amy Nash, “You should be watching Monster Factory”, in Concrete, University of East Anglia, page 21:
- […] Thimbleweed Park is an obvious X Files parody with direct expies of Mulder and Scully as protagonists, so a 1990s setting is the natural choice […]2019 March 1, Robin Wilde, “The 1990s: A Decade of Adventure”, in Forge Press, University of Sheffield, page 36:
- Related terms
- Captain Ersatz