Monday, April 27, 2009

If You Can't Write...DON'T

So I know that the Miss Musing scam is old news. We’ve all heard, gasped, shaken our heads and pondered the seeming inexplicable act of plagiarism and stolen identities. In the days immediately following the revelation that one of my dearest blog friends was apparently a fake, I was livid. I was pissed that she would let me talk to her and confide in her and share things with her in confidence. I was angry that she plagiarized so blatantly from other bloggers who deserved the credit in her stead. And I was all worked up to write a big, ranty blog about it…

But then the blogosphere lit up with that shit and I just thought it was too much. I let it slide. Everyone else had essentially said what I wanted to say (give or take a few expletives) and it was water under the bridge.

Until today. A little while ago I was minding my own business, procrastinating (as usual), and checking up on my Twitter when I saw a tweet from Alexa that made me irate.

Her message informed us that “the plagiarism continues” and this time it’s by some guy named Kyle from The Beat Goes On. Apparently he thought it was a good idea to word for word copy and paste Maxie’s post from April 21 THE VERY NEXT DAY on his own blog.

(Check those links. "His" post is literally word for word copied from Maxie's blog. What a whack job.)

This dumbass thinks that inserting his name in the last line in place of the original author’s makes this his own writing and perfectly applicable for passing it off as so. Naturally I left him a highly irate comment but he’s a comment moderator so I’m assuming it will never see the light of day. (Ugh. Douche.)

I will never understand why some people think it’s okay to steal other people’s work. Come on people, this is not middle school. We are all grown adults and we know what’s right and what’s wrong and clearly stealing someone else’s words, thoughts, ideas is WRONG.

Bottom line: if you are not funny enough, witty enough, clever enough, articulate enough, or good enough (in your own mind) to write your own material, DON’T WRITE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

(It’s days like these when I wish public stoning was still an appropriate form of punishment.)

36 comments:

alexa @clevelandsaplum said...

preach on emily, preach on.

Maxie said...

what a douche nozzle! I'm just going to take it as a compliment and I can't wait till wordpress takes his blog down!

Jenn said...

Fucking douche is right!!!

Kylie said...

What a loser! I know I'm not always witty, funny or even interesting but, at least they are MY words! WTF? Some things never change, as in there will always be someone stupider than me! Yay!!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, your comment totally isn't there.

Megan said...

I just can't believe it. People are ridiculous!

Esmé Glass said...

I don't think anything I write is necessarily worth teefing, but it's definitely fed into my break from blogging this week...

The idea that someone is ripping off something that amounts to my DIARY is just so not even cool.

Lauren said...

Well said! This is just getting annoying. And it needs to stop.

The Pumpernickel said...

Completely agree. This is all kinds of wrong and I'm tempting to start spamming that asshat's site.

Ftw?! Don't "write" a blog if you don't have the ability to do it yourself.

Jeebus.

Jennifer said...

I second you on the stoning!! What is wrong with people!?

Amber said...

What is wrong with people!!!

Anonymous said...

I really can't believe all these happenings lately. Thank you for posting about it. It's nice to be updated as much as possible, since it sucks to be deceived!!

Children of the 90s said...

I am totally with you on this. This isn't school, no one is forcing you to write on a deadline or assignment. It's crazy that people are interested in stealing personal stories from other people!

LWLH said...

WOW!!!
Seriously these people need to get effin lives instead of spending their days copying and pasting other people shit.. losers.

Anonymous said...

Wooooooow, this is getting retarded. Someone, please turn off the crazy and lock these people up! Jeez.

Mermanda said...

Sick. I commented too... about "deja vu" and he didn't post mine either.

Marie said...

This just makes me sick. I can't believe another blogger has been plagiarized. Don't write at all if you can't think up your own stuff!!

Sorry, had to rant there. Thanks for the heads up!

Anonymous said...

Loser's blog is gone. Although I kinda wanted to take a look at it to see if I recognized any other blogs he may have jacked. Ugh, these copy/paste people are really lame.

Anonymous said...

I hear ya girl! I too let it pass without a mention, but that doesn't mean I wasn't shocked! These crazies need to realize, eventually a friend of a friend is going to find them.

Good luck with you move this week. Moving sucks, but when it's all said and done - it is great.

Megan said...

I sent him an email saying:
I noticed that you have not listed Maxie on you blogroll. To me, this is odd, since you clearly stole/used HER (http://www.ihatesomuch.com/?p=1222) post and used it as your own (http://thebeatgoesonblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/hello-it-seems-as-though-we-are-eligible-to-date/) ... though you changed a word or two around. I made sure I took a screen shot of the post on your blog to save (just in case). Plagiarism isn't cool, at all. At least email Maxie and apologize AND link back to her, or email and apologize and take the post down.

I'm not sure if any of your other posts are copied or not, so I've contacted wordpress about the situation as well.

---
and he replied with:
Hi,

Yes, the same thing in the post happened to me and instead of writing my own post, when I googled the thing, her's came up and I read it and thought it was funny and took it. For this I am very sorry. I don't know her email or else I'd contact her.

I have deleted my blog and hope that this solves the problem.

No, none of my other posts are anything else than 100% original, unless of course I linked somewhere else.

I didn't do this to be malicious in anyway, just being lazy.

Please forward this to her, or better yet I'll try to find her email address.

Again, I'm deeply sorry about this. When I did it I didn't really think over what I was doing.

I don't for her to accept my apology, but at least she can know it wasn't personal in any way.

Sincerely,

Kyle

--
What a load...

rachaelgking said...

Dear Kyle: Since I don't know how else to contact you, please know that I will sleep tonight with visions of you choking on a thousand gorilla dicks dancing in my head.

Fuck you,

LiLu

Katelin said...

sheesh i can't believe there are so many plagiarizers out there, it's ridiculous.

Tiffany said...

how do people find this out and how can people protect themselves from such douchness

PorkStar said...

wow you guys, this is worst than the swine pandemic thing going on.. it's a little disturbing, really.

Living Dees Life said...

yes, public stoning should be reinstated.

ReRe said...

it's a sad world when folks have to plagiarize on a BLOG!

The New Mrs said...

I missed pretty much everything, but just wanted to say that I definitely concur with everything you are saying. It's just sad. I cannot imagine taking someone else's feelings and just clicking copy and paste. That's not only weird, but a little creepy!

LWLH said...

You know you and the Boo need to escape the moving drama..come to the beach with me and Big Man!! : )

promise they'll be booze!! :) lol

Stacie said...

Wow, Emily! I had no idea this was happening until I saw it here! (Stupid finals keeping me out of internet dramas!)

I agree with everything you say! (Especially as a former English teacher.)

Barefoot Blogger said...

What a douche. His reply is super lazy! Ugh.

I just take care knowing that my shit is too boring and/or random for other people to copy! :P

Desert Rat said...

I was going to click to see his site and then I realized that would give him more attention and "hits" than he deserves, he is loving the attention I am sure. Maybe show it but un-link it so nobody else gives him the attention he wants. ;-)

Andhari said...

I very much agree. First Miss Musing and then this random dude copycating Maxie. AHHHH *frustated*

Dmbosstone said...

Thanks for reading my post over at TMG- I'm shocked to hear somebody else has done the same thing, maybe it was a spambot?

Mrs Anne said...

Amen.

Seriously.. get a life folks!

Super suprise!

You have an award waiting for YOU at my blog! :)

xo

Taren said...

I agree 100%. So... would it be okay if I copied and pasted this post word for word?...

hehe, just jokes. It would be kind of funny though, given the topic of this post... or maybe it wouldn't be funny at all.

prin said...

Oooo!!! I just read the update on Rachel's blog and ran over here.

That is just disgusting!

Similarly, it's irritating as hell when somebody you know in blogland steals your post or steals a unique post structure from your blog and doesn't even give you credit, knowing you read their blog- two weeks after they themselves posted about hating being plagiarized too, no less.

I'm a little bitter. :D

People suck sometimes.


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