seriously, what are you even doing here?

postcard 25: on originality, intellectual property, and my very long history of getting plagiarized online

Another mid-week postcard! This one is pretty important and personal to me, so I hope you read it in full.

from Pinterest; artist unknown

part i

Two years ago, I was repeatedly plagiarised by a mutual of mine on bookstagram. I then wrote this caption on a post because I thought it was deeply important (and think it strongly pertains to what I want to say about Substack or any literary platform, for that matter).

on honesty & integrity:

starting from a few months ago, i noticed that a mutual with a large following/platform (100k+) was copying and rephrasing chunks/the trajectory of my reviews, along with a few other accounts’ ones. when i talked to her about it, she claimed to be only ‘inspired’ by my reviews, despite having directly copied and paraphrased my work.

i work very, very hard on my reviews. i also work very hard to create my own voice, my brand. i spend hours on them and i’m really proud of them. and to see it ripped off and broken into pieces on someone’s review is so disheartening and demoralizing. especially when it’s on books i love. beartown. everything i know about love. the secret history.

i’ve been feeling absolutely terrible for the last few days, to be honest. i want to take down all of my reviews. this was supposed to be my little thing, away from my day to day life, but i have felt so messed up and gross over this.

but there’s a bigger message to this, which is my main point.

i think there is a lot of pressure to write ‘perfect’ or ‘super intellectual’ book reviews. but honestly, reviews are just notes and documentation on how you felt reading a book. it doesn’t need to sound like it was written by a professional critic nor do you have to feel the need to do so. unique and diverse literary discourse is so important! that is what bookstagram is for.

i have a specific style of reviewing i personally like to follow. this can differ from person to person. i am very influenced by how i used to write my academic essays, which is why my reviews manifest into the format it is.

also: there is a difference between taking inspiration and stealing content. i have asked people if i could post something inspired by them and credit them, and i have been asked as well. but taking and frakensteining chunks of people’s intellectual property and rephrasing it so it looks a bit different is not inspiration. that’s plagiarism.

all in all, the bigger picture about this is this: bookstagram is an avenue to share unique ideas, so share it! don’t feel pressured to be a certain way.

part ii

I have spent the better part of my life writing online. Because writing has always been an outlet for me, an escape from reality, I think I also began considering it a lonely activity. Sharing my writing online and being able to read people’s comments and feedback has always made it a bit less so.

I started out writing on Wattpad when I was thirteen. My books started gaining millions of reads by the time I was fifteen. This was also when I started getting plagiarized weekly. Every morning when I woke up, I opened my message inbox on the app with dread broiling in the pit of my stomach. More often than not, there it was, a message that started with “Hi, Elle. I’m not sure if you know this, but someone has been copying your writing. Here is the link.”

My skin would crawl, feeling incredibly violated, and then I would sit at my desk and start going through the accused person’s writing in a split-screen view against mine. For hours and hours, line by line, until I found every single thing that was copied from me. I then compiled all of this into a Google Doc because Wattpad refused to take books down unless I had “concrete evidence”. The picture below is just one of the ones I had to do, where someone pulled exact lines from different books of mine to create a twisted Tetris or tapestry of plagiarized work. This document goes on for six entire pages, and took me five hours to make.

this one incident goes on for 6 full pages on a Google Doc

It was during the first week of my summer break going into my junior year of high school that I began reading legal websites and documents about the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and intellectual property in general. Knowing my rights and what exactly classified as a copyright violation was imperative for me. Filing a DMCA complaint also has to follow a specific protocol and method, so this was a learning curve for me as well.

I later left Wattpad for good when all of my work ended up being put on mirror sites, word for word. Wattpad management didn’t think that this was something important or a concern of value, so they ignored everyone who begged them to look into the issue. I didn’t want to be in a situation where any previous and future work was vulnerable to theft.

I learned to stand up for myself and my creative work from a very young age, and this is what I have always done. Writing is something that is always so incredibly personal and precious, no matter what it is.

part iii

Fast forward a couple of years. I wanted an account that allowed me to retain two of my biggest identities: a writer and a literature major. I made my bookstagram in August 2021, and for a while, it was everything I hoped a literary platform would be. I made some amazing, lifelong friends who had the same taste in books as me, I found some of my favorite books through people’s posts, and most importantly, I could post my reviews in peace and without any extraneous worries.

I did not expect to be hit with a scandal hurricane a year down the line when I found out a mutual, who had told me multiple times just how much she loved my reviews, had been plagiarizing me. She had been taking my book reviews, tweaking them, and posting them on her page (I later found out that she plagiarized every single one of her book reviews from someone else).

I realized that while the years of getting plagiarized tremendously wore me down, it also equipped me with a sort of x-ray vision—the ability to tell when someone was copying my work and intellectual property, even in the most subtle way. Sure, it also brought along intense paranoia. I am still wary at all times, and I sometimes text my close friends asking if what I’m seeing is correct and that I’m not being crazy.

When I messaged her, I gave her every benefit of the doubt, mostly because I found it incredulous that she would be so kind to my face and then do this. I thought she read my reviews and then unconsciously wrote something very similar because those things sometimes happen. I didn’t expect her to outright admit that she…had been copying me. “I do admit that I use your reviews to frame mine and for inspiration”, were the exact words she used.

my messages to the girl who plagiarized my reviews

This was when things began spinning out of control. I asked her to take down every review she copied of mine, and she did. I posted the caption that I pasted above in part 1 about plagiarism and stealing content. People began catching onto who I was talking about, and she posted her own post about how her actions were the product of “numbers and pressure mixing” (ironically, she had been buying thousands of bot accounts to increase her following count). I couldn’t even see the post because she had blocked me, so my friends had to send me screenshots of it.

When this became highly publicized, many people started sending me angry, vitriolic messages. Calling me dramatic, mean, a bully, “not that deep”—just because I had stood up for myself when someone was stealing my intellectual property. They were angry because I didn’t ‘hear her side’, or ‘consider her feelings’. I hated that plagiarism on social platforms was simply reduced to “drama”, just because two people were involved. It is not drama when there is a sure victim and perpetrator.

The message that made me afraid to ever think about standing up for myself actually came from another large account who I had previously spoken to numerous times on friendly terms. She, as a complete third party, posted on her story that “this should have privately been dealt with months ago”. These are some screenshots of my messages with the third-party account:

the worst interaction I’ve had with someone on social media

I had always stood up for myself and my intellectual property, but this conversation singlehandedly made me doubt my decision to do so. Was I being overdramatic? Was I being a burden and a pain to other people just by standing up for myself? Was I being a bully simply for bringing to light something that had been done wrong to me, not the other way around?

Because to be honest, I wasn’t exactly clear on why I had to walk on eggshells around someone who had very blatantly disregarded my feelings, hard work, or mental health when they decided to take my intellectual property and repeatedly publish it as their own. Why did I have to hear her side? What could she possibly say that would justify her stealing my words, my intellectual property? She could have stopped on multiple occasions if it was truly a ‘mistake’. But she thought she was getting away with it, so she continued. Plagiarism is not a mistake. It is a calculated judgment.

I think comparing a request for accountability for instances like these to “cancel culture” is genuinely absurd and akin to comparing apples and oranges. Below is the Instagram story of another person, who was also plagiarized by this girl but never received an apology. The comment defending the girl attempted to brush off what happened as a ‘huge mistake’ and ‘cancel culture’, although this girl had monetized off of the plagiarized content. And blocked half of the people she plagiarized so they couldn’t even see her ‘apology’.

the Instagram story of another girl who was plagiarized by her

Let me spell it out so I can make myself abundantly clear: people get expelled from academic institutions for plagiarism. People lose their jobs over it. In the ‘real world,’ it is a serious and grave offense that has actual consequences. So why are we not approaching it with the same gravity? If we raise concern about stolen work, why is it brushed off and counted as “drama” or a “mistake”? Knowingly and consciously copying someone’s work is not a mistake, nor should it ever be treated as one.

part iv

I now know that, for better or for worse, Substack will be my main platform for the foreseeable future. I love everything (or 99% of everything) about it. The beautiful interface, the way I can archive my writing along with everything I love (like a public journal of sorts), and the unique, beautiful posts I can read of other people’s writing.

But plagiarism and content stealing have become rampant here, especially in the last few months. Perhaps it’s because Substack is becoming mainstream and everyone and their moms think that having a Substack is the next best thing. I’m excited that the past few months have brought in a wave of diverse voices and interesting newsletters, but am concerned that some people are not on it for the right reasons.

I truly do not understand why you would be on a creative literary platform like this one if you do not have the capacity to think on your own. If you have to be relegated to copying and ripping off other people’s hard work and creative content, then this truly is not the platform for you. You are not obligated to write on here nor is someone forcing you to. Please. If you do not have your own thoughts to post, don’t post at all. Oftentimes, I see posts and newsletters with uncanny resemblances to mine, and I think its creators think it goes unnoticed.

But I do notice. I notice when someone uses my exact layouts that I spend a long time trying to make the most visually pleasing. I notice when someone subtly rewords my essays and my book reviews. I notice when everything I post appears on this one person’s page a few days later, just with a few things changed. Sometimes, I wonder if these people think others are stupid or oblivious that we won’t be able to notice when our original work has been stolen.

I notice, but I usually don’t say anything because after the whole bookstagram ordeal, the last thing I want to cause is ‘drama’ on a new platform. Because no matter how many times I tell people it is not drama or cancel culture if you are standing up for yourself and a justified reason, people will diminish all of this to those two words.

final part

Ten years later, as a twenty four year old, I still feel my heart drop and cold sweat all over me when I realize someone has copied my work. The same feeling and anxiety I had when I was fourteen. I have been plagiarized on every platform imaginable (Instagram, Substack, Wattpad, Letterboxd, even Spotify), and it never changes. That feeling of anguish when I realize someone has taken my hard work, my brand, my experiences, my words, as their own. Acting as if they were the ones that came up with the idea, replying, “omg no stop, it’s not even that good, but thank you!” in a revolting faux humble manner when someone showers their post with praises in the comment section.

I work three jobs. I am tired all the time. Substack is one of the happiest parts of my life right now. I love the fact that I can write down little essays, book recommendations, and a list of things I love all in one place. This is such a special platform to me. For the last few days, while I have been dealing with various people copying me, I’ve felt nothing but stress. Please let me go back to just posting my content in peace, and please, for the love of God, let’s mind our own businesses and have some fucking shame.