I’ve never been a spectator…not really. I’ve always had an opinion and more often than not, I opened my mouth to express it and I have, on occasion inserted my foot in my mouth. It hasn’t stopped me from expressing my opinion though.
In the process, I’ve hurt feelings and lost friendships that I valued. I thought I’d learn from the mistakes and keep my opinions to myself, let other people say what I wanted to say. It was only recently that I’ve allowed myself to step back, or hold my tongue and keep schtumm. But last night, I couldn’t keep quiet.
One of my pet peeves is people taking credit for something that they didn’t do. I’ve always tried to credit people when they’ve done something clever or if they’ve helped me do something clever. I’ve always tried to say thank you.
Last night, Alan’s photo was grabbed by someone, posted on their Instagram feed without acknowledging that it was Alan’s photo. I posted a couple of stories to protest the injustice. Once that was done, and we saw that the “borrowed” photos started disappearing from the account’s feed.
I woke up to find the comments section of the photo I posted before 8:30 last night turned into a chatroom for Instagram bot accounts. I would laugh if it wasn’t frustrating. To top it all off, a few people who follow me on Instagram were messaging that the account that grabbed Alan’s photo was claiming that they took the original photo of the look-down view of the rollercoaster in Winter Wonderland that I posted.
I took to Instagram stories again to just get things off my chest. I told my story, and shared my thoughts.
It is certainly a sad commentary on our times when people think it’s acceptable to take other people’s work and pass it off as their own to gain followers and popularity on social media.
I know that I took the photo they’re claiming is theirs. I have the original. I posted it hours before they did and putting a banner of their instagram name across the photo doesn’t prove ownership.
Yellywelly 