I remember back in elementary school, the worst insult you could give someone is being a copycat. The word itself brought about a wave of shame and embarrassment from the mouths of my peers. However, now that I am grown, I have come to question whether being a copycat is truly the insult it once was, or whether it shows creativity.
According to Ferguson (2021) in his video Everything is a Remix, remixing is "to copy, transform and combine existing materials to produce something new." To think about this in a broad sense, most things in modern society are due to the effects of remixing. Ferguson (2021) goes on to say that "remixing can empower you to be more creative". The prime example of taking inspiration from someone else's work and making it your own is the site Pinterest. Pinterest is an image-based website that allows users to "pin" photos to different albums based on their interests. Back in 2010 when Pinterest first became popular, the vast majority of people that I knew were using this website to aid them in their creativity. I used Pinterest for outfit inspiration, craft ideas, and food recipes, amongst other things. As someone who has used Pinterest many times for creative inspiration, it was about a 50/50 chance that the remix resembled the inspiration. The times that the end result went as planned filled me with great pride and accomplishment in my creative achievement. Sometimes, it did not go well and the end result turned out to look like the image below. However, this allowed me the chance to reflect on the process and make mental notes about what to do better the next time. Either way, Pinterest gave me the inspiration to unlock the creative potential that I did not know I had. All I needed was an image to get me started and I was able to attempt things such as sorority crafts, prom dress shopping, home decor remodeling, and now, planning my wedding. My intent behind remixing the original ideas was not to "copy" the original poster's ideas but to remix them for my own benefit. This is the beauty of remixing.
The risk you take when trusting Pinterest for your inspiration.
From an academic standpoint, there is a fine line between using others' works for inspiration and plagiarism. According to Plagarism.org in their survey, 1 out of 3 high school students admitted to using the internet to plagiarize for an assignment, 36% of undergraduate students admitted to plagiarizing from the internet for assignments along with 24% of graduate level students, and 38% of undergraduate students admitted to plagiarizing from written sources along with 25% of graduate level students. These statistics show a huge problem with people taking other people's work and claiming it as their own. However, this shouldn't be the case. Personally, I am the type of learner that needs to see examples of others' works for assignments in order to grasp what the expectations are asking me to do. Do I take this peer's work and copy it? Goodness no. I use it as inspiration and use my own topics and insights. This is the true intent of remixing. Even on the Tik Tok videos that were highlighted both of Ferguson's Everything is a Remix Part 1 and Part 2 videos show this taking form. The users use the same guidelines, but oftentimes give credit to the original poster/creator. You can be inspired by someone else's work without plagiarizing. This shows me as an educator that plagiarism needs to be focused on more in upper education so that students are not stealing published work. We as people can be inspired without stealing.
Circling back to my original question about whether being called a copycat is truly a shameful thing. After listening to both of Ferguson's videos, I do not think being called a copycat is such a bad thing. It is juvenile to expect that all ideas need to be fresh. There can be joy in collaborating, or remixing, previously created ideas into repurposed ones to fit your needs better. At some point in our lifetimes, it will be extremely difficult to come up with a new idea that has not been thought of by someone else. However, by utilizing the art of remixing, older ideas can be made new and more useful. Now, in the words of Ferguson in Part 2 of Everything's a Remix, have a meme.
References:
Ferguson, K. (2021, September 7). Everything is a Remix Part 1 (2021) [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/MZ2GuvUWaP8
Ferguson, K. (2021, December 14). Everything is a Remix Part 2 (2021). [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/HhMar_eYnNY
Plagiarism.org. (2017, June 7). Plagiarism: Facts & Stats. p.org. https://www.plagiarism.org/article/plagiarism-facts-and-stats
Image Credits:
Brooklyn Nine-Nine. (2015). Chelsea Peretti Nbc GIF. Giphy. https://media.giphy.com/media/3oEdv4eYAA8VBx2Jry/giphy.gif
Eyebleach [u/Eyebleach]. (2018). Cuteness Copycat GIF. Giphy. https://media.giphy.com/media/VVcvfnnLHni5G/giphy-downsized-large.gif
Martinez, A. (2019). These Pinterest Expectation Vs. Reality Pictures Are Waaaay Too Relatable. Buzzfeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/angelicaamartinez/pinterest-fails
Comments
Post a Comment