CopyDog

I've been thinking a lot about copying lately.
Never has it been easier to copy. Or, harder to establish ones originality! Once I made up a song. Totally impromptu...it was deeply profound. About a cow in a field. I sang it over and over, laughing giddily about it when someone said "Oh yes, I saw that episode." Pardon? "That episode where the girl sang that song?" Are you kidding me? I made up that song with verse and chorus on the spot and it's NOT original? How disappointing.
You could make up a completely random saying and type it into google.com and find that seventeen other bloggers have expressed themselves in precisely the same way.
And yet, to copy should never be more challenging. Just walk down the toothpaste aisle at any drugstore. There are so many choices, it seems unlikely that any other human being could possibly come to the same conclusion to grab the same tube. We have limitless choices on just about everything! Anything can be custom-made. But walk into a typical public high school and you will see cliques of mini clones milling around in packs. Live in a dorm room for three months, and TELL ME that all the girls don't end us using the same face wash! Watch as you enter a tight knit community and see dozens of glowing fruits rise to announce the crowd's corporate computer participation.
They say that, "Copying is the highest form of flattery." But I have to wonder, too, it is the natural progression of choice overload, too? Or the evidence of paralyzing insecurity?
Cerulean. It's a fabulous color. According to Google, though more memorably referenced in The Devil Wears Prada, cerulean hit the fashion scene in 2002 with Oscar de la Renta. Or if we push it back a bit farther, a company called Pantone, the American color authority, and organization that works in color development for major corporations. Cerulean has always been a color. God invented it in fact...or perhaps its the combination of the pretty cones in our eyes that allow us to see color that fabricate it. Either way, it was not the new invention of the color that made it popular. It was the fact that someone made a choice. And declared it to be so. And someone influential like Oscar de la Renta could carry to that to the next level of completion!
So the next designer who has to choose the powerful hue to complete their collection with a stunning ball gown makes a choice. Not to flatter, I would argue, but rather to reneg on their opportunity for originality. Oscar, via Pantone, made that choice very easy. A choice that would satisfy millions of people, conveniently having already been made.
Let's go back to the face wash. A very pretty girl uses Noxzema facial cleansing cream. She has nice skin and nightly applies a thick layer to her face as she finalizes closing out her day. The next time each of the seven roommates goes to the beastly monstrosity known as the drug store cleanser aisle, all they can think of is the face of the very pretty girl with nice skin. She's confident, she made the choice, and her skin is nice. Therefore, I should try it, too. THUS eliminating the angst of personal decision making, and also the rare, yet possible occurrence that another peer might open judge or chastise them for their choice. Noxzema already went over well; no one seems to protest.
I remember the day when I professed openly that I would never wear flare-legged jeans. After holding firm ground and rocking JNCO's for about 7 months (Come on! You remember those!) I caved and proceeded to live life as a hypocrite for about eleven years. I also remember swearing off the cursed day when tapered-leg jeans would resurface, and already claiming my allegiance to the boot-cut. Let's be real, people. Skinny jeans on me? That would be unattractive. And here I am three pairs of skinny jeans later, living on in my lifestyle as a sell-out. I saw a pair of stirrup pants on a girl a few days ago. Let's see a show of hands of everyone who condemned stirrup pants to the ultimate fashion faux-pas that should never resurface...yeah that's everyone. Y'all...stirrup pants have not changed. They are just as unattractive, and still possibly the worst idea, that they have ever been. And yet a cute girl with a bold attitude made me feel like I should probably own them in every color.
Copying is not always about paying someone a compliment. Its a few more things, too.1) Its a relinquishment of the gift of self-expression2) It's a failure to act on an opportunity for original thought3) It's a bunker to avoid the shells of rejection and fear4) It's a free pass from the bombardment of choice overload
Trend-setters often feel cheated when other copy them. And we console them with that age old quote that should make them feel better. And sometimes it does, especially if they get some sort of satisfaction from swaying public opinion. But sometimes those who are stepping out...really boldly making a stand, and choosing to throw caution to the wind as they express themselves...are frustrated. Their attempt to be original and bold has not only been stripped from them, but adopted by people who didnt really care deeply about it to begin with. It would be like Mozart's semi-musical neighbor who heard some repeating chords and decided he would use those too in his next piece...I mean, the other neighbors liked it too, right?
As much as maybe at this point you feel like I'm berating the copy crooks, I'm actually not. Especially (as I struggle to sit more comfortable in my rather constricting skinny jeans) as I am in their number. I want us to sympathize with them...and take a moment to analyze them. Maybe the last time they went out on a limb with their creativity, they were shot down and stomped in the face, and vowed to never let that happen again. Maybe their life is so frenzied with multiple levels of stress that they would rather hear someone else's opinion, knowing that it MUST have been formed thoughtfully, and adopt it as their own. Maybe they worked so desperately hard to get accepted by those around them, that any mis-step of perspective could potentially jeopardize all they labored to achieve. So rather than be original, they fall in line. Or maybe somewhere along the road, the belief was imparted that they were not creative, and were not to be trusted with coloring outside the lines.
So this is a challenge. Why are you copying? Maybe it's for a good reason: Everyone is buying Hondas because they are known to be fuel efficient, reliable, easy to work on, and with a high resale value. Maybe its for the necessity of survival: I'm stressed about finances, silver seems to be where it's at, so please, give me some dang bars! But maybe it's for one of two bad reasons: 1) You're scared of the consequences of making your own choices. Or 2) You couldn't care less about exercising your God-given gift of creative expression. Either way is a tragedy...and one that deserves reconciling. Who knows, maybe YOU'RE supposed to bring puce back.
Oh, and CopyDog? Yeah cats don't seem to be scoring high on the popularity charts right now.