Smells Like Plagiarism to Me
The written word is a demanding tool. Its use requires giving credit whenever and wherever it’s due. This includes in social media posts. When vapid “influencers” scrub the internet for information to use in their fatuous social media proclamations without acknowledging its sources, it sure smells like plagiarism to me.
By John G. Stamos
Give Your Due and Proper
I was guilty of something that I’d never done before, and I literally lost sleep over it. Recently, I incorporated in my published work some photos – the free (as in royalty-free) kind, available as public domain images and unrestricted by copyright/intellectual property rights laws for use as I saw fit. Although their use required no accompanying citation or referencing of any kind, it was encouraged by their respective sources to acknowledge the photographers. This I didn’t do. After I downloaded the shots, I realized I didn’t record their creators’ info, so I made a mental note to go back after dinner and get it, then include it in my article for due and proper, ethical attribution. Evidently, a bunch of Whoppers® and a couple of DQ® strawberry milkshakes don’t offer much in the way of short term memory efficacy. (Note the “Registered Trademark” symbol. I’m watching my Ps and Qs.) Needless to say, I forgot to look for the info, and when I ultimately did remember, I couldn’t find it again. The long and short of it is that, even though attributions of these excellent photographic works wasn’t required, I felt like an absolute shit for not providing them. (Fortunately, my clever and industrious wife found the lost info, and I retrofitted the article with it.)
Regular readers of my digitally published stuff know that I always give credit to/cite my sources wherever and whenever it’s necessary, appropriate, and possible to do so. This is certainly the case with any written sources/references I use to help me in writing a particular article. It’s important to note that my articles are neither academic nor scientific in composition or intent. They’re written and published as informational and/or entertainment pieces only. This is a good thing because my citation methodology for a given piece exhibits about the same level of consistency as a room-temperature DQ® strawberry shake.
I attribute (attributions are important too) this mishmash of styles (parenthetical, numerical, note, AMA, Chicago, MLA, my own concoctions – you name it, they’re all in there) to both my cumbersome keyboard navigation skills and my personal laziness. When given the option to use a particular source’s own citation, whatever the style, in copy-and-paste form, I do it. And when no citation for a particular source is readily available, I exercise a modicum of initiative and create my own (usually a bastardized amalgam of MLA, Chicago, etc.) Shoehorning a bunch of different citation formats into one article in this fashion is academically and scientifically heretical, but at least those citations are all there, and every single one of them gives credit where credit is due.
A particularly salient and redeeming element of my referencing and citing methodology is the fact that I ALWAYS include my citations in link form. I like to think that by providing a direct link to source material, any inconsistencies or less than precise presentation of citation styles can be readily forgiven. And in the case of citing Wikipedia articles, those links are invaluable. Since I’m in agreement with a number of my writer friends that Wikipedia articles as written could potentially be suspect as citable sources, I’m convinced that by presenting a link to a particular Wikipedia article (admittedly, in my own higgledy-piggledy citation format), which includes not only the subject article, but also any and all of Wikipedia’s sources for that article, I’m crediting both the article itself AND any and all of its associated sources. Plus, I’m covering my own ass.
At the risk of coming off like a holier-than-thou prick, I’ll belabor my point and tell you again that I believe it’s critically important for writers to cite, link, name, or in some way, credit their sources, references, and any images they use that are created/provided by others. When using someone else’s intellectual property, whether written or photographic in nature, this is required by law. And even when it’s not required by law or, as you’ll read below, by convention, it’s still the right thing to do. In my writing, though there may be madness to my method, I still bend over backwards to make sure I always do it.
Social Media “Influencing”: Smells Like Plagiarism (and Hypocrisy) to Me
Simply put, plagiarism happens when an individual(s) copies writings, images, videos, etc. from a particular source and passes them off as his/her/their own. It’s nasty and unethical as hell, and it becomes a crime when that stolen material constitutes intellectual property and exists in copyrighted form. I speak from experience on this topic: I’ve been a victim of both simple plagiarism and plagiarism of protected intellectual property, and I can tell you that neither form of victimization is fun. The former happened years and years ago when my words (written as part of a marketing campaign for a project I was working on) were copied, verbatim, by a business rival. Since the material wasn’t protected by copyright, it was fair game. But it sucked for me, and it pissed me off. Fortunately, a gentleman’s agreement was reached and the offending party cooled it with the bullshit. The instance of the latter happened even further in my past when some of my protected stuff was plagiarized. Although the thief’s behavior was actionable in court (I could have maybe gotten a few bucks out of the deal), I settled for a retraction of the illegally plagiarized work, obtained after I loosened a few of the guy’s teeth outside a bar one fine summer evening.
Ah, memories… (sigh)
The practice of hypocrisy represents another form of egregious human behavior. It’s ugly, and the moral turpitude of its practitioners, when exposed, sears the human cornea like a hard stare at a solar eclipse and induces intestinal spasms better than a case of dysentery ever could. Hypocrites. They’re awful. But there is, in fact, one thing even worse than a hypocrite, and that’s a plagiarizing hypocrite, or, to not put too fine a point on it, a fuckin’ plagiarizing hypocrite. Fortunately, in the daytime real world of face-to-face human interaction, limiting factors like geography, privacy fences, and gag orders make encountering individuals of this particular stripe blessedly rare. When traversing the terrain of social media’s varied and frequently mind-numbing landscapes, however, one is invariably going to run into groups of people known as “influencers.” And it’s from within these groups that profusions of fuckin’ plagiarizing hypocrites issue forth to befoul a particular platform’s atmosphere and besmirch the purity of originality while simultaneously directing self-righteous indignation at those guilty of exactly the same transgressions.
The inane and feckless aspiration of attaining social media “influencer” status (I can’t imagine any activity more time consuming, stultifying, and irredeemable than squinting at a cell phone screen hour after hour, engaging in disingenuous and platitudinous disembodied exchanges with strangers, or in what must be the ceaseless scouring of the internet for tidbits of digitized dangling bait, all in an effort to score social media followers) exists just fine as a stand-alone indictment of personal motivation, direction, and sincerity. But I reserve an even harsher adjudication for those cases where being a social media “influencer” (or social media “aspiring influencer”) involves also being a plagiarizer, a hypocrite, or even worse, the repugnant manifestation of both: the aforementioned fuckin’ plagiarizing hypocrite. Fortunately, for the sake of concise discussion, plagiarism and hypocrisy dovetail nicely into their resulting fuckin’-plagiarizing-hypocrite composite, and examples of its personification among the ranks of social media “influencers”/”wannabe influencers” abound. From within the bowels of the X/Twitter platform, two proficient wielders of hypocritical plagiarism come to mind,* and curiously enough, each of these “influencers” claims the seemingly innocuous activity of gardening and flower-growing as the framework of her respective social media wheelhouse. Although blooms and buds ostensibly form the basis of each of their social media gestalts, you’ll soon see that their purported expertise defies virtually any and all topical limitation.
The first of these floral-centric phonies employs plagiarized information and corresponding verbiage from legitimate sources in order to claim expertise in a wide range of subjects and disciplines. Whether it’s history, chemistry, astronomy, molecular biology, theology, psychology, sociology, geopolitical theory, etymology, entomology, kinesiology, art, literature, or classical theater and cinema, this ethically-retrograde rosebud-wrangler demonstrates an ersatz protean intellect while either spouting stolen information she parades as her own in her posts, or hijacking the random posts of others and embellishing them with benevolent, unsolicited demonstrations of her vast stores of purloined knowledge.
And while cheerfully peppering X posts with plagiarized prose is the purview of this pseudo-puissant pansy-planter, her pleasantness evaporates faster than dewdrops on her daffodils when she discovers that one of her own flower photos has been filched by some X-using miscreant without her permission. “This is an outrage!”, the pissed-off peony-pruning plagiarizer proclaims, as she trumpets truculent condemnation of both the pilfering perpetrator and of the act itself. Evidently, there is no longer honor among thieves.
Though her plagiaristic paradigm of influencer-as-thieving-hypocrite genotype does indeed rival that of the first example in terms of ill-gotten information and knavishly-nabbed knowledge, this second ethically bankrupt blumenhund heroine’s hypocrisy manifests along a slightly different event horizon. Either in the same post, or in immediately successive posts, this pontificating petunia-plucker’s prevarication appears in the form of uncredited, plagiarized information in blinding juxtaposition to her sanctimonious exhortations of moral rectitude and noble character display to the ranks of those mesmerized by her begonia-bordered baloney. “Go forth with a pure heart, and remember to treat others kindly and ethically,” the equivocating Easter lily-lopper enjoins (admittedly with the habitual grammar and spelling errors that regularly festoon her own actual writing) as she displays her grasp (with, this time, perfect spelling and grammar usage) of the causation of a particular human emotion at its molecular and biochemical levels.
The stench of plagiarism and hypocrisy, exacerbated by an infused whiff of minor league messianic complex, permeates the content generated by these particular account holders (and many, many more just like them). The plagiarism, in both cases is obvious, as a clear line of grammatical demarcation exists between the organic writing of each of these geniuses (which exists, quite literally, at the 4th grade readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic level) and the grammatically correct pearls of genuine wisdom they steal from legitimate, academically/scentifically-sound sources. The two types of writing – the organic, poorly-structured, and peurile stuttering of the plagiarizer AND the grammatically-adroit writing of the plagiarized – frequently exist in the same post and allow for an illuminating comparative analysis. It’s clear that the good stuff is being lifted word-for-word from Googled sources, and without one iota of credit being assigned. (Even Google’s resulting AI overview of a particular search query credits its primary source[s].) The Sermon-on-the Mount vibe that these low-rent information-rustlers transmit out and over the heads, but still dimly within the collective rudimentary intellectual grasp, of their bedeviled account followers lends an almost indoctrinating flavor (albeit a still fairly bland one) to their shameful shenannigans.
Conclusions, Qualifications, and Clarifications
Conclusions. As I wrote at the beginning, whenever you write something for publication, it’s important – and in many cases, required by law – to credit your sources. In all relevant cases, I give unequivocal, iron-clad credit to any and all information sources in my own writing, and I never plagiarize. A lot of the time, doing this requires a fairly decent amount of time and effort, so I feel somewhat justified when I bitch about others not following suit in their own writing. Even though crediting sources is imperative in any kind of published writing, it’s also important in social media use. The bar is low there, admittedly, but maybe that’s even more reason for users to conduct themselves with honesty and transparency. Plagiarism is still plagiarism, and it’s wrong, whenever and wherever it goes down. And it happens in every social media milieu and interest silo. Whether it’s the arts, sciences, or even flower-growing, there are always people -“influencers” – whose only goal is to garner quantifiable levels of adoration and popularity (as measured by an ever-growing number of account followers) who are going to use the hard work, skill, talent, and knowledge of others to accomplish that goal without so much as a thought to giving them credit. Who’s got time for details like that when you’re busy trying to spellbind the vulgus mobile? And who’s got the intellect or the character? Not many “influencers” that I know of.
*Clarifications and qualifications. From what I’ve experienced during my social media incursions over the years, blatant plagiarism and hypocrisy manifest almost entirely in the actions of “influencers.” There are so many intelligent, ethical, and morally responsible users of the “non-influencer” ilk, particularly on the X/Twitter platform, whom I follow and heartily respect. My appreciation of their contributions is ratified by, among other things, my re-posting of their content (although it’s very important to qualify this statement here by adding, for the record, that re-posting any particular item is by no means the only evidence of my appreciation of that item, nor is it an indictment of its quality and value, as I perceive, it if I don’t re-post it). There’s a lot of great stuff on X, but there’s just no way to re-post all of it.
Some of my very favorite X accounts will feature photos that are often the property of the account holder, but sometimes just as often archival, in the public domain, and free to use by that account holder. These account holders, to whom I afford the highest regard, understand the subject matter of their posts, and possess a corresponding level of experience, expertise, education, knowledge, etc. that affords them great latitude with respect to any and all citing or assignation of credit of any kind. X posts, after all, are not published writings. In their purest form they exist to provide a means of sharing the knowledge and expertise/experience(s) of those who write them, as well as the beauty – photographic or otherwise – of the post’s subject itself. Smart, genuine people know what they know and love what they love, and they should be free to share these things in any way they see fit without judgement or repudiation by me or anyone else. It should come as no surprise whatsoever that none of these people are “influencers.”
Finally, the two flower-growing ding-dongs I described earlier (the fuckin’ plagiarizing hypocrtites that happen to garden but who also wax expansively and disingenuously about a multitude of other topics) exist, at least for the purposes of this discussion, as archetypes only. Though they’re fictitious, they’re composites of any number of real X influencers who conduct themselves in precisely the way I described. And this behavior, along with the people who engage in it, transcends subject matter. The arts, the sciences, the humanities, and even the humble act of flower-growing, plus many more social media interest-specific enclaves… they all have their “influencers” and they all have their fuckin’ plagiarizing hypocrites. And almost always, one group, regardless of which it is, begets the other.
“Smells Like Plagiarism to Me” ©2026. John G. Stamos and The Renaissance Garden Guy
John Stamos is a writer and is co-publisher of The Renaissance Garden Guy. His work has appeared in a number of publications including, most recently, A Man for Some Seasons, Splice Today, and, of course, The Renaissance Garden Guy. He is married to his multitalented sweetheart, the mycologist and writer Ann Simpson-Stamos.
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Good reminder to give credit where credit is due! Even when requirements are in doubt, best to give proper credit!
Absolutely right. When someone acquires the expertise, training, and education, or demonstrates the skill, talent, and creativity to generate original content of any kind – written, photographic, or otherwise – it must be properly credited. There’s nothing more distasteful than stealing someone else’s hard work and claiming it as one’s own. Thanks for reading the piece, Lisa, and thank you for commenting. It’s very much appreciated.
The goal of the influencer is to get followers. Who cares if he or she needs to steal intellectual property from others in order to do it? And, truthfully, it would seem that their followers are either oblivious to this theft or, worse, don’t care about its commission. Kudos for calling them out on this. Further, kudos to you for acknowledging your own sources. It’s the best way to instill trust in your readers.
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Agreed, agreed, and agreed. It’s just so pathetic and awful. But I probably wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about the antics of social media influencers if my own stuff hadn’t been pirated. It’s a shitty feeling. So when I see this kind of thing in ANY form of writing, etc., including on social media platforms, it really pisses me off. Thanks for the kind words, Kevin, and for your thoughts on the subject.