Reference Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html

I remember very fondly my College years, and my love for writing stemmed from my finally getting a decent research paper for English 102.  It was on Video Game Violence and I wished I could dig it up somewhere and show it to you.  Not only was it humorous—the quality that got my instructor there to suggest me becoming a fiction writer—but it was well referenced.  I enjoyed taking the tidbits of information and referenced materials and weaving it on the computer screen into a masterpiece.  It was where I had my first taste of actually writing—the process itself—and it was like shooting up heroin or meth.  Even better, according to some.

Some people would never feel that, because most of their creative minds only consist of two things:  Control-C and Control-V.

Plagiarism in any area—especially academia—was always prevalent.  I remember copying entries in a Funk and Wilkins Encyclopedia for my health assignments in that hell hope they call Junior High.  But back in that day it required some sort of work, and there’s always a halfway decent excuse for doing it.  (For me, it was time-economics; too many teachers think that they should devote all of their homework time for them, and all the while looking over their shoulders for two parental figures in case they want to barge in and demand a pound of flesh from you.)

Internet Rule 22:  Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality.
Internet Rule 23:  Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality.

Reference:  http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/30662

But nowadays, with the advent of the Internet, it’s almost ridiculous.  Not just in the concept but also the reasons:  In 2010, plagiarism might as well be replaced with the internet meme, “Copypasta,” because that is all you need to do.  And the reason is a clavier laziness:  The idea is that, if it’s on the internet, it’s common knowledge and acceptable in any level of communication as Public Domain.  Some people just print out Wikipedia articles and put their names on it, and then be surprised that they actually need to write something about the article.  And state the sources behind the account.

"I myself don’t feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context and from the outset consistently promoted the fact that none of that is actually by me,"  — Helene Hegemann, on her non-defense of copypastaing in Axolotl Roadkill

This form of laziness is not just in college.  Ask any Deviant.  That referenced image ended up on a T-shirt in Korea.  The designer didn’t even bother to write to the creator even to jest.  Nowadays there is a rising trend to just be like Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli when it comes to creativity.  They join Hegemann in raising their noses and going “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” as they copypasta everything they ever liked into their lives a la P2P and just declare it their creativity.  News flash, folks:  That isn’t creativity.  That is Scrapbooking.  And It’s a very sad artist who looks back at their lives and sees that all they’ve ever done is scrap book their way through life, without any original thought or idea in their constantly empty heads.

And it’s more prevalent than you think:  When was the last good new song you heard, or the latest most original story you’ve really read, or watched an innovative and original television show?  I see Mexican Wrestling and Chinese cartoons for a reason:  Almost everything in America is a copy of someone else:  Everything is generated by computer and is spat out for the masses to consume with compulsion.  It is an age of Boy Bands and of Girl Bands. Of Boy and Girl Bands. Of Girl Bands with a couple of boys in them that look like girls anyway.  Nothing is left to chance, hits are scheduled years in advance.  And Queen is nowhere to be seen.  (Hint:  There’s a clever way to state your references, something I always do.  Such is the charm of HTML.)

“You’re not coming up with new ideas if you’re grabbing and mixing and matching,” said Ms. Wilensky, who took aim at Ms. Hegemann in a column in her student newspaper headlined “Generation Plagiarism.”

“It may be increasingly accepted, but there are still plenty of creative people — authors and artists and scholars — who are doing original work,” Ms. Wilensky said in an interview. “It’s kind of an insult that that ideal is gone, and now we’re left only to make collages of the work of previous generations.”

From the referenced article at top.

It even became part of how we present ourselves on the internet, which is sad by the way.  I think that the Number 1 reason why I’m such flamed on the Internet, and a good chunk of the reason why I’m the Ed Wood of the Internet, is that I present myself as an individual here.  I have an individual and unique identity online.  Granted, that identity becomes skewed into some grotesque curvature at burn sites like ED, but that’s almost expected.  Google my legal name—David Gonterman—and compare it with my Internet-born pen-name—David Foxfire—and you’ll see which one is more realistic and positive.

It’s a lot harder to do than just hide behind your Gay Fawkes mask and Tuxedo all the time,  believe me.  Which is why most people don’t do it online.  It’s mentioned in the article as well:

She contends that undergraduates are less interested in cultivating a unique and authentic identity — as their 1960s counterparts were — than in trying on many different personas, which the Web enables with social networking.

“If you are not so worried about presenting yourself as absolutely unique, then it’s O.K. if you say other people’s words, it’s O.K. if you say things you don’t believe, it’s O.K. if you write papers you couldn’t care less about because they accomplish the task, which is turning something in and getting a grade,” Ms. Blum said, voicing student attitudes. “And it’s O.K. if you put words out there without getting any credit.”

And that comes to the core of who I am, where I’m coming from, and why I have the balls to show my true self here in a place that too many people would just put on brown paper bags and call everyone else gay.  I’m more of a Woodstock type of spirit.  Not only do I believe that everyone else around me is a human being, an American, and someone who is as worthy of life, liberty, and the pursuit as I am, but I believe in creating, not collaging,  myself.  Not just in my works and projects here, but also by my identity, both online and in real life. 

I am not Anonymous.

I am not a copypasta.

I never intended to be.

Expect Me.