A few weeks ago, there was another case of one blogger plagiarizing another. The plagiarizer was a teenage girl. I've seen it all at this point - adults, teens, kids, respected bloggers, new bloggers.
As the blogosphere tends to do, it began to be talked about on Twitter - exasperated cries and jokes and discussion about the issue. Was it just the YA blogosphere? (Other book sites said yes.) Was it just teenage girls? (No.) Was there anything we could do about it? (Not really, not in the short run.)
But what I talked about - with Pam and Mundie Moms and Megan and a few others was why? Why do people plagiarize?
We came up with two reasons.
The feeling of a community has been lost.
People lose focus of blogging. This is a fact; we know this. We probably, have some time, have gone through that. There have been posts recently on jealousy in blogging, on losing your blog mojo, and Tweets up the wazzoo supporting bloggers who are feeling iffy about their blogging.
Plagiarism often comes with the idea that it's the books that matter, the ARCs, the amount of followers you have, and people are desperate for that. We've lost the feel of a tight knit community and have begun to become obsessed with the size of our readership.
"Losing the focus of promoting a book takes the fun out of blogging. When you lose focus, you get caught up with the not-so-important reasons for book blogging." - @MundieMoms
The idea of just talking about books and immersing yourself with people who love them like you do has been lost to the idea of making a profit - with ARCs, with people reading you, with Tweeting with the right authors and the right people.
And with that, it leads into the second problem.
We live in a society of 'be somebody' instead of 'do something.'
There is a generational gap in the blogosphere. You can see that from the conversation I was having above; I'm somebody who's halfway through college having a conversation with parents and people who live their lives in the 'real world.' They do blogging for fun, because they love it.
My generation blogs because we've been told we have to; we need a social media presence! We need a website that displays our ability to write-read-observe-create! We need we need we need we need.
We live in a society where you can name celebrities and never remember the movies they've done; we live in a society where reality television does better than shows that are well-written with beautiful social commentaries.
"I often wonder how the online culture is impacting younger generations self-worth and therefore actions." - @MeganHooverATX
Plagiarism is wrong. We're taught that from a young age. Of course, we're taught that doing a lot of things are wrong, but celebrities get away from them - and we're taught that we need to be somebody, not to do something. And if we are somebody, we get ARCs! We get followers!
We live in a culture where followers determine your worth.
It doesn't make plagiarism okay, by any means. But it's good to note where these things come from.
Let's start subverting these problems.
Obviously, plagiarism is terrible. I hate people who do it. The reasons I've listed above are not excuses. But they're reasons that I know a lot of bloggers struggle with without turning to plagiarism.
There is a problem in our community right now. We are disjointed and competitive instead of together and supportive. (It's one of the reasons I started Reader's Report.) Perhaps it's because we're influenced by our media and our society, or because we've begun gnashing our teeth at differentiating opinions, or perhaps it's because… I don't know. Things I haven't thought of, perhaps. (I'm not all knowing.)
"You can't worry about numbers and who likes you and how many ARCs you have." - @MeganHooverATX
But we can work against it.
Stop caring about numbers and ARCs.
I'm aware that it sounds weird, coming from me; I have a decent sized following, and I have more ARCs than I know what to do with. But isn't that the point? I'm still trying to figure things out, thinking I can do better, and I have those numbers. There are still books I want to read and I get ARCs.
We need to actively work against this mindset that we need these ARCs; that we need to have a certain number of followers. While following is required for my giveaways, I don't do giveaways when I hit a certain number of followers. I try not to post too many Stacking the Shelves post and avoid reading those done by other people. When I go to BEA, I only snag those things that I'm supremely interested in.
Stop caring about the numbers. Start loving the bloggers who comment, the posts that you had fun writing.
Let's be a community again. And maybe, just maybe, everybody will stop being so competitive and start smiling a little more instead.
Related posts:
- WORD for Teens on blogger entitlement.
- WORD for Teens on plagiarism.
- Book Brats on jealous blogging.
- Radiant Shadows on blog haul jealousy.
- Parajunkee on how to ruin your blogging career.