Copy-Paste Role

Haven't I seen you before, like, 8.3 million times before?

A role whose actors have little if any difference from other people who have their role. This role is known as the "stock character" in literature, film, and theater. This person could possibly have a different backstory, lifestyle, or set of mannerisms from others of that role, but in the end, they're just another Damsel or Bad Boy or Next-Door Kid or Mean Girl or Bully or Wise Old Man or Underdog. Many Copy-Paste Roles can double as One Notes, a type of character who has little substance.

Copy-Past Roles aren't necessarily always a bad thing or sign of a writer's lack of creativity. In certain cases, having a Copy-Paste Role would actually be better than a fleshed-out role due to factors like limited time for the creators being present or doing so taking up too much time. Indeed, Plain Is Easier.

On the other hand, having too many Copy-Paste Roles, unless the work of fiction in question has a solid excuse or reason for them, can make the work forgettable, feel empty and bland, or like a Generic Branding story within a story that wasn't meant to be imaginative as it was inside of a larger story that was. It's like mass Flanderization but the characters never had anything to them to begin with.

Contrast to Makeshift Role. Where a Copy-Paste Role is expected to be around for some time in the story and appear often in the story, a Makeshift Role normally lasts a short time and shows up only for a joke, to parody a character from another franchise, or in stories in stories.