The Plagiarism Paranoia

I’m not sure how many of my readers are aware of who AmySchumer is and that she was recently accused of stealing jokes, because let’s be honest, you don’t all have my Buzzfeed addiction. For the purpose of this post it actually doesn’t really matter if you know the whole spiel or not except that this was the catalyst for bringing up yet again one of my semi-constant paranoia’s. I live in very frequent terror that I am going to be accused of stealing creative content.

Not jokes, because I am not a funny, joke-telling person. This really applies to two of my creative outlets: writing and nail art.

Since I started posting fanfiction back in the day (which speaking of, I super need to finish that story I added three years ago and never finished the last chapter. Oops. Any fanfiction readers will know what a bitch move that is) I have been dreading the possibility that someone is going to scream PLAGIARISM. To be clear, I have not plagiarized. I do not steal ideas from people. AS FAR AS I KNOW.

Because in my opinion, sometimes people have very similar ideas, maybe even stemming from the same source. It is near impossible to prove whose idea happened first. This became even clearer when I started getting into nail art. I have a few Youtube personalities I follow, and they often have very similar design. There are SO MANY COMMENTS from fans going back and forth claiming Person A made the video first and Person B is stealing and yada yada that it gives me nightmares about posting something of my own.

But for example, a month or two ago (or maybe longer, time perception is not one of my strong suits) everyone suddenly heard of the glass nail trend. Within like a day, both of my favorite nail people had a video showing how to do glass nails. Do I think they stole from each other? No! I think they saw the trend and created their own version, just like WE ALL DO. How many ideas are wholly and completely original, with no basis whatsoever on any other existing content out in the world? NOT THAT MANY. THAT’S WHY THERE ARE A MILLION MOVIES WITH THE SAME PLOT OVER AND OVER.

One of my designs

I have been debating whether or not to enter a nail art contest recently, and honestly, half of my hesitation is that I don’t know how “original” any of my designs are. They wouldn’t be deliberately copying anyone, but most of my techniques were learned from watching other nail art videos. There would be similarities, obviously. What if there already exists a design that DOES match mine that I don’t know about because I clearly haven’t seen every nail art design out in the world!?!  WHAT THEN?!

Actually, on a smaller level I already worry about this with my instagram account. I’ve been posting some nail pictures and while I tag the artist if I followed a tutorial, again, some of my “original” ideas are loosely based on things they’ve done that I then changed up.

Another set of my nails!

Is that copying? Is that plagiarism? Am I an idea thief? If I don’t even remember a video but then a year later the design re-emerges in my subconscious, am I a bad human being? Is there a magic ratio where if 40% (or more, or less) of the creative content is new, it’s okay?

In case you’re curious, the other half of my hesitation on entering the nail art contest is that it has to be a video entry and I’ve never made a video before other than work stuff. This is despite the fact that several of my coworkers want me to start a video channel for my rage-baking, nail art, and/or retelling of movies as they claim it is hysterical. I will neither confirm nor deny my level of entertainment value. 

Miss Goody Two-Shoes

Whenever I describe my mother to someone, I get a look. It’s a look I recognize, although I never acknowledge it. It’s a look that says, “you realize you just described yourself, right?”

I can understand this, as my mother and I do have a few similarities. We’re both short. We both frequently have reddish hair. We both seem insanely nice and are easily amused. However in my humble opinion there is a huge difference between us.

Remember how I said we both seem insanely nice? Well, my mother is legit nice and adorable and goodness and sugar and all those things. Apparently she was the perfect child. I’ve heard this from several reliable sources (basically all of her siblings, and her mother). She can’t even get mad properly. Sure, if you’re under the age of three, you might be a little intimidated when she starts yelling gibberish. When she’s really mad, there may even be a curse word included here and there. But let’s be honest, for anyone who’s not a toddler, her random outbursts don’t accomplish anything than making you want to pat her on the head and go “there, there.”

For the record, while no one believes this initially, me when I’m truly angry is actually a terrifying thing to behold. Avoid it.

But the main reason I don’t consider myself to be like my mother isn’t because she fails at being angry, but the larger problem: her goody-two-shoes-ness.

My mother is the ultimate goody two-shoes. So much so, that in our family she is routinely referred to as Miss Two-Shoes. The goody isn’t even implied, it’s just known.

I swear too I’m not saying this because the rest of the people in my family are deviants that like to torture each other, and in comparison my mother comes off like a saint. My mother legitimately seems compelled to follow the rules that everyone else feels free to ignore, whether they be actual laws or mere social conventions. 

For instance:

• She is the only person I know who actually comes to a full stop at the guard shack when leaving the gated community where my parents live. The guards barely give a f*** who’s coming into the community, let alone who leaves. She also insisted throughout our childhood on telling them every time a visitor was coming. To be clear on how unnecessary this was, if you smile and wave, or just say you’re going to the pool or ski lodge, they let you through.
•   She is the first to volunteer for her church, her community, or any random cause that comes hither. Sometimes to switch it up she donates. Or does both, and then also “recruit” her kids into it. Every time I call her she’s either canning soup, making candy, or setting up for a fundraising event. If other people aren’t hitting the quotas on candy production, she complains once, feels bad about it, and then makes more.
•  She feels compelled to follow all directions. This includes assembly directions in a box, directions when traveling, as well as signs saying “stay off the grass.” If she is with someone who ignores these directions (like my father) she has a special face of disdain and superiority, indicating that this will end in misery and it will not be her fault since she wanted to follow them (you’d know the face if you saw it).

Whereas I have never considered myself a goody two-shoe because my moral code is all over the place. I don’t want to give examples because that would provide concrete evidence against me, but trust me, there’s some deviousness sitting pretty in my corner.

So you can imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago, I realized that I too might be a goody two-shoes. This was mainly due to NaNoWriMo. If you don’t remember this from previous years, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. I am yet again attempting a novel (which is why there won’t be a surplus of posts from me for awhile). I had a whole month of debate though on whether or not to do it, because the thing is that I have like 5 days where I won’t be able to write because I’m visiting my family. This gives me a condensed writing schedule. While it’s doable, because my friend Erin did it last year, I had doubts.

I was discussing it with my mother, my perfect, goody two-shoes mother, and she suggested I CHEAT by starting A WEEK EARLY. I spazzed. Was I turning into more of a goody two-shoes? Was she now the devious one? What was happening?

After giving it much consideration, I have decided I am NOT a goody two-shoes. You’re relieved, I know. There are a few random rules I follow and stick to, but it’s not consistent, and it probably goes more along with my general insanity and slight OCD tendencies and whatnot. It doesn’t really come from a desire to “do good.”

However, I also have to say that if I was becoming more like my mother, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. We need those goody two-shoes people to make up for those of us that are running amuck and causing havoc.