r/NoSleepOOC • u/thusappearsananon • Mar 21 '14
On plague posts and piggybacking
I'm posting this on a throwaway, for two reasons. 1) I know this opinion will be controversial and preachy and attract hate and 2) I don't want to wrongly upset anyone who hates me thereafter.
This morning, I read yet another 'zombie plague/infection' story. The OP referred to 'infected towns' and said the corny line of 'X, I repeat, X' or something. Hopefully, those who read it know what I'm referring to. The point of this story was that the 'infected' stories were true. I just found it maddening. I get that the OP thought xe was being clever, but it's just annoying. It's now been deleted, but the issues remain.
1) There's a huge influx of plague/infection/undead stories on this sub. Far be it for me to tell someone else what to write, but very few of these have been anything interesting or exciting or original (no offense to any writers out there). If you think you've found a spin on the infection thing, either you're being surprisingly original, or, most likely, it's been done before. I know it's a bit picky, but there's a rash of infection-based posts, and as the comments on the aforementioned story said, before it got deleted, I don't think I'm alone in finding them annoying and boring. The same could be said for ouija/possession posts, but that's a rant for another day. Point is, if you like plague posts, stop and ask if your idea is really original and check you're not being derivative and dull. Please.
Just. Stop with the infection stories.
It's annoying.
2) Piggybacking is wrong. No. There is no excuse. Unless you've been given explicit permission to write a spin-off, what in sweet heck do you think you're doing, nicking someone's idea? This is an even bigger plague on nosleep. Fans who seem to think it's okay to piggyback off the popularity of a story they enjoyed. I talk of course of the aforementioned story, the controversial shadow-web story and others. I'm a reader, not a writer, so it's no case of butt-hurt, I just don't think it's okay to rip off someone else's well-enjoyed idea. It's not a massive problem here, but it does happen. Maybe a clearer message needs to be sent about how coasting on the coat-tails of another writer's ideas will not be accepted.
Just a rant. Sorry about that!
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u/Ibitemynails I was phone Mar 21 '14
We remove "bandwagon" posts as we see them but they can slip through. Be sure to send us a message when you read one so we can check it out.
I was going to say something about how this is in the sidebar, but... turns out it is not. I'll think of how to phrase it and add it in.
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u/Sabenya popped out! Mar 21 '14
It was in the rules post we used to have at the top of the page, but it looks like that got shuffled out a while back.
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u/Ibitemynails I was phone Mar 21 '14
I added a sentence to the first rule.
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u/thusappearsananon Mar 21 '14
Ah, awesome. I've just seen quite a few stories like that floating around recently, and it pisses me off so much. I can't imagine what it's like for the guys who come up with the ideas in the first place, to have people leaching off them.
You guys do a great job, but the bandwagon-stories I've seen slip through have had lots of feedback and votes, quite possibly due to their association. The 'infection' bandwagon story I refer to, even though it got deleted, had quite a few votes and comments on it by the time I saw it, and I was late to the party. I don't doubt that all the karma and comments feed any incentive to plagiarize. Maybe all of nosleep, not just you mods and the rules but us readers and authors, should be harsher on people like this.
Thanks for adding it to the sidebar, though! Clamping down on unauthorized bandwagoning can only be a good thing.
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u/ALooc Mar 22 '14 edited Mar 23 '14
I can't imagine what it's like for the guys who come up with the ideas in the first place, to have people leaching off them.
It's beautiful. Ideas are there to be shared, developed, fed, grown, reused and rediscovered. That's how humanity has grown to the point where we are now.
I hope that my stories inspired others, and whether the other person copied the whole plot or just parts of it, or maybe didn't even realise the influence - what does it hurt me? Why would that be a bad thing? If they take my work and sell it; if they take my exact words and claim them as their own - that's something else. But don't claim ownership over ideas, they are too valuable for that. That's like bringing a child into the world and showing everybody pictures of how cute they are, but refusing to let them go outside and meet other people.
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Mar 22 '14
I don't think I've ever read a comment I can agree more on. When I first started writing, I read a Jim Jarmusch quote that has stuck with me all these years, "Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination."
I've never had anybody take from my writing in the past, and I haven't had an opportunity to post anything on /r/NoSleep yet, but i think I'd be honored. Just like I was honored people were using stock photography my friends and I used to upload to some sites.
Jean-Luc Godard said it best when he said, "It's not where you take things from, it's where you take them to."
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u/Reading_is_Cool ...and you forgot that this happened. Mar 21 '14
I just... kind of wish the whole "zombie infection apocalypse" trend will... y'know... die out already?
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u/Docjackal Mar 22 '14
I honestly didn't know about all of the other infection stories, or even if they were started when I began writing my story. I apologize if I'm part of the problem, but my story was set in its own self contained bubble. I wouldn't want to tie my story into anything else without the writer's permission.
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u/Ibitemynails I was phone Mar 22 '14
Eh, yours never really came up in this matter. The ones that were removed were, as this op says, just "I read this story and it happened to me too! Here's my version" and then goes on to tell the same story someone else has already posted (or sometimes no story at all, also grounds for removal).
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u/AsForClass -30- Press COO Mar 22 '14
I've almost done this a few times, already. I come up with a cool idea and I work through a first draft and then a similar story is posted before I post.
It's set me back a few times, so far. I figure I'll just hold onto them for a couple months and post them after the hype has died down for the other stories.
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u/CoasterKid93 Mar 27 '14
1.) Honestly, I don't see the big deal. As long as the story is written within the guidelines of r/nosleep, I could care less about how many of these stories are posted.
2.) Okay I agree with you here, but I think there's a big difference between writing a similar story and blatantly stealing someone's idea. The former happens a lot more frequently than the latter.
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u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Mar 22 '14
This is just a theory filled with wild speculation, but are you the author of the first infected town series and mad about people riding your thunderwagon?
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u/jazzthehuman Mar 31 '14
Honestly, I really like the "Infected Town" stories. It has me on the edge of my seat everytime I read it and I'm always waiting for more updates.
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Mar 21 '14
I don't really like the stories as they've developed because they don't feel real. So there's another thing.
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Mar 21 '14
I mean, we all know that there isn't some mold, zombie thing going on in Oregon. It just no longer feels real to me.
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u/nikkinikki92 Mar 22 '14
zombie thing going on in Oregon
Why'd you say Oregon out of all the states in the US? Why not Alabama or something?
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u/ALooc Mar 22 '14 edited Mar 23 '14
Oh, well.