Two things to follow: 1) A lesson in just how small
the Internet is; and 2) a lesson to not fuck with someone who has an ALL-SEEING
EYE, a ROOMFUL OF INTERNET SCOURING, HIGHLY TRAINED ORANGUTANGS and FRIENDS
EVERYWHERE.
There’s this guy. Just your average, run-of-the-mill gay
single-dad lumberjack, or somesuch—so he says. His name is Cooper. Or Nico. So he says.
He’d been stealing my writing, you see, and repurposing it
on his own personal blog—Cooper’s Corridor.
A few months back, one of my readers emailed me and said “This is… beyond weird, but look at THIS!”
So I did. And I emailed him and said “Cooper, this is awkward, but I believe one of my posts fell into your grocery cart by accident. Please do the right thing and remove it. Off to peruse the rest of your site now..."
My mistake was making a pot of tea first. By the time I
came back, Cooper’s Corridor had been deleted. The whole thing.
He concocted a story about 'right-wing-trolls' and 'gay-single-dad-lumberjack-haters threatening the safety of his family' and being bullied off the Internet—even making another blogger think it was his
fault.
But he wasn’t bullied off the Internet. He was shamed off the Internet. And that was enough for me, as chickenshit as it was. I saw no need to cannonball into his cosy blogging pool with a megaphone and a cartful of links. In the Wile E. Coyote dustcloud left in his wake I bowed to an audience of my lone self and said "D-d-dat's all, folks!" and such was the end of the story.
Or so I thought.
First, I put a copyright notice on this blog, which I can’t stand but serves as I KNOW YOU’RE OUT THERE, YOU STICKY-FINGERED DICKWAD.
Then silence.
Then a few days ago, another reader showed me the peephole to Cooper's Corridor Redux: the private Nico’s Niche. A moment later I’m sitting there sputtering and completely agog, staring
at this (click to see the full-size version):
Looks familiar, does it not? With unfortunately impeccable timing, Justin leans in behind me and says What’s that?
(Justin, who's frankly a little creeped out by the Internet. And computers. And anything THAT PLUGS IN. Justin, who refinished that very canoe with his bare hands. Justin, who asks about Teh Blogging, “WHEN WILL IT END?")
And I say Oh nothing, honey. It’s just somebody PRETENDING TO BE YOU. By the by, have you seen Fluffy? He
missed his morning lettuce. What's that smell?
+++++
Welcome, ladies and gents, to another exciting episode of 'HEY! WHAT'S THAT ECHO?'
Me: My chrysalis has crumbled, dried, blown away in the
wind.
Cooper/Nico: The
protective chrysalis I have encompassed myself in these past weeks, crumbles,
dries, is blown away in the fragrant July rain.
Me: I lust so deeply for magic, I swear sometimes I can will it into existence.
Cooper/Nico: I lust so deeply for the magic in life, that I am usually able to percieve it wherever I am.
Me: As soon as I walk
up the driveway he yells she’s here! and runs to me through the scents
of woodsmoke and cinnamon and mystic. He might embrace me eye-to-eye, gruff and
scratchy and with his own stories and adventure. Or he might crawl to me with a
dirty bum, grasp the hem of my jeans with sticky fists grinning broadly to say up! then wrap koala arms around my neck.
Cooper/Nico: As soon as I pull up in the driveway, Dario yells “He’s here!” and runs to me, hurling his body into my arms like a small cannonball. I catch a whiff of strawberry scented shampoo and coconut suntan oil on his warm, summer scented skin. He embraces me eye-to-eye, his
voice high with excitement, full of stories, tinged with anxiety. My own voice
is deeper than usual, gruff with wood smoke and fatigue. “You sound
scratchy!“, says Dario. Matteo grasps my legs, grinning broadly, wrapping
me in koala arms.
+++++
That’s just a sampling of the stuff he was kind enough to tweak.
I know what you're thinking. 'Coconut suntan oil'? On a kid? Riiiight.
He’s
taken word-for-word chunks of posts before too, turning Evan into 'Dario' or 'Matteo' and me into him. Which is a formidable task, given that it's been more shits than giggles around here lately, so far as content thievery is concerned. Just, y'know, the CATASTROPHIC PREMATURE BIRTH, HEART SURGERY, BRAIN SURGERY and DEATH OF AN INFANT. The very same infant I write about above.
Dead baby, meet Internet newcomers. Internet newcomers, meet dead baby. His name was Liam. Not 'Dario', not 'Matteo'. LIAM.
I don’t know what’s more pathetic—him plagiarizing a personal blog for his own personal blog, or me wanting him tarred and feathered for it. I mean, it’s just a blog, for chrissakes.
Serious stuff, though. I had no idea.
Let’s hear from one of his heartbroken readers upon the apparent demise of Cooper's Corridor V1.0: “Cooper wrote with a grace and maturity that belied his young age. His writing was never ‘cute’ and more often it was breathtaking prose worthy of the loftiest prizes. He was selfless—he could sell books by the millions but he seemed much more content nurturing his loyal readers. …His was the most human voice of all. He, perhaps, the single greatest gay role model.”
The SINGLE GREATEST GAY ROLE MODEL? Stop. Just stop right there. First, for reprinting that, let me apologize to every excellent gay person in the entire freaking universe. And second, I cannot—as an avid Dan Savage devotee—let
that statement go unchallenged. Please wait a moment while my master removes my ballgag so that I may object.
Time and time again, this guy has clicked and dragged over my writing, my family's life, and hit Edit > Copy > Paste. Does his internal dickwad-o-meter not go berserk? Or does he lack an internal dickwad-o-meter entirely?
External voice: Hi.
I’m Kate, and I’m 31.
Internal dickwad-o-meter (shouting): BZZZT! LIAR!
External voice: Hi.
I’m Kate, and I weigh 121 pounds, just like always.
Internal dickwad-o-meter (shouting): BZZZT! LIAR!
External voice: Hi.
I’m Cooper and writing is Everything To Me.
Internal dickwad-o-meter (shouting): BZZZT! PLAGIARIST!
I wonder about people who are frauds. Is the public approval worth the self-loathing? Does the ego boost go down without a choke when it’s built on a lie?
Let’s play a game. What lies do you tell? Little and white, big
and stinking? Are they worth what they cost?
I’ll start.
External voice: It’s
just a blog.
Internal dickwad-o-meter (shouting): BZZZT! LIAR!
+++++
I'm sorry if
I am not a jerk
You know, I just had to take off my Mrs. Nice hat. I'm trying to keep my sense of humour but this space is sacred to me, as are all the people and memories on it. I've got no more patience to see it continually reinterpreted and claimed by someone else.
Some of you might say, What did you expect? You're the one who put it all Out There. And I know that. We all do. But to see it actually happen—and to know just as well as he does how to use the Internet Wayback Machine and save webpages offline and capture screens—I have no choice but to claim it as mine, as it always has been. Because it belongs to me.
sweetsalty kate
196 Comments
Reader Comments (196)
Of course it belongs to you! It blows my mind that anyone ever does this sort of thing, but yours? Your story is so personal, so you.
I guess maybe everyone's is, to them at least. Still. Unreal. Fight the fight!
Whoa. That kind of behavior is WAY beyond the pale. He needs to be publicly called out for this to stop-- since he already got caught once, and just continued to do it. Who in the community can do this for/with you? Not our community-- the gay dad community. It needs done.
sooooo sorry this happened! i wish there was something that could be done!!!!
That is unbelievable. Actually I've heard this is happening more and more. I'm sorry it has happened to you. I guess you can look at it as, "the sincerest form of flattery?" I tried to go over to Nico's place and well, now you must be an "invited" reader. It sounds like he is a VERY loyal follower.
Have you considered legal action? I know a few copyright lawyers.
Kate, I've been reading your blog for over a year, but haven't ever commented - but THIS.
THIS is so terribly, horribly, awfully wrong I don't even know where to start. Someone NOT ONLY stealing your words + your story but taking the photos too?! Borrowing from your life so liberally, so shamelessly - such brazen theft is staggering. I'm outraged for you.
"Just a blog" this is definitely not, as Cooper/Nico/Nutcase's blog is not "just a misunderstanding." I think "dickwad" is too kind a nickname for him.
(oh, and as for his "additions" - strawberry-scented shampoo? ewww.)
WOW! Talk about a crazy! I can't imagine trying to steal someone else's life like that. I hope you do what you've gotta do to protect your work/life.
Oh, this makes me FURIOUS. This happened to me last year, and isn't it a dreadful, sickly feeling? Especially, I think, when it is someone co-opting such personal parts of your life. I don't understand it at all. And I see he password protects it, no less. COWARDLY, COWARDLY HACK.
You have every right to be incensed and to call this plagiarist out in public. It is bad enough to steal your words and images, but to repurpose them as his own, deleting REAL PEOPLE and inserting his own characters in their place, is beyond the pale. What a disgusting person.
oh my gosh, of course it does. how sickening.
Of course it's yours. I'm sort of numb with his audacity, and all that keeps coming to my mind is that he took your eloquent prose and made it clunky.
(And because I'm obsessed with Myers Briggs, I'm totally figuring out his type. Definitely not an NF like you.)
I think I would have had exactly the same reaction as you. But I may have made my blog private. I think I may yet, now. My husband is a Justin - he doesn't understand why I blog, and feels that I am putting our family at some very small risk by sharing our lives, even the small parts of it that I share to the small (mostly family) audience that I have. I don't know why it seems so sinister when some stranger appropriates your writing and photos as his own . . . for all you know he could be in Iceland or something . . . not a physical threat. But it still creeps the spine.
And yes, you are way less MAUDLIN. I love your writing because it feels real and fresh, rather than a ploy for pity or melodrama. His just seems like "I want to be on Oprah's book club list, let's see if I can peddle my wares to the lowest common denominator and score a Hollywood deal."
I would shoot on sight anyone and I do mean anyone who attempted to claim as their own any and I do mean any part of Jackson's life, death or the brief period in between.
Furious. FURIOUS!!! Fucking furious on behalf of you and yours.
Wow, I've seen some batshit crazy fakery on the Internet. We all have. But plaigarising the contents of someone's blog? New on me.
It's not your fault and it's not just a blog. It's an absolute violation and if you could bring yourself to "out" this fraudster (no pun intended), I think you should.
Kelly (long time reader, first time commenter)
That is pretty low. And not even just your writing, but your pictures as well. Get a life of your own, buddy!
I've been reading your blog for a long time but I don't comment too much. But seriously, that is creepy. And just sick after everything your family and you have been through. You have every write to be seriously pissed and I think a public humiliation is definitely in order.
You already know how I feel about this guy. I'd set up a entire site devoted to his asshatery.
I've had my site skimmed by link farms, but to have it knowingly stolen by a person-not cool. Not cool at all.
I'm furious for you. Outright, blatant thievery. So pathetic. This guy hates his life so much that he has to steal someone else's. Pathetic.
I am a regular reader and have always been impressed with your writing and your photography and this is TERRIBLE! What can I do to help? Do you have dickwad's email? I would happily write him or whomever you think appropriate.
H
I'm also interested to know what that Joe guy thinks....
I know, thor... Joe seems like a good guy, and very well-read. I dunno, though, I didn't intend to tangle him up in some blogger-on-blogger writing and photography grudge match.
HEEEEY! Now THERE'S an idea.
The canoe photo?? Seriously? How the...what the...WHAT WAS HE THINKING??? Did he think no one would notice? Oh, this just pisses me off. Especially that the opportunistic bastard used the "gay bashing" card as an excuse for pulling his blog.
I am so glad you learned of this and exposed cooper/nico for what he is. I hope Joe posts about the REAL story behind it all.
You have every right to be livid, but you've handled it with grace and humor. As always.
xo
Kate - I don't normally post comments, but check/read your blog each day.
This AssHat is unbelievable. I am FURIOUS for you.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
I feel sick. I feel so sick that a dickwad (too good of a word) would take anything of your beauty, your loss and your catharsis that resides here.
You have every right to be livid, inflamed and post your anger any where on the Net. Go tell Sweet Juniper, go tell Dooce, go tell them all because there is no way to ever justify the way this is happening.
He will get called out every time. Every time. Because the Net an be a small space and we love you and your words. Not his farce.
So, so sorry, Kate.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - if this is what high-traffic blogs have to put up with, I'm glad I have 12 readers and they are all my friends.
I know I look reasonably mild-mannered but I've got an awful temper and if this happened to me, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to restrain myself from causing some massive, uncontrollable stink throughout the interweb.
I don't imagine you could feel more violated if he showed up at your house, walked in, and rifled through your stuff.
Dillhole.
Is there anything that you can do?? This is horrible for someone to exploit your life, your family, your tragedy like that. It never ceases to amaze me that people are so selfish in their actions. I am so sorry that this jerk has tapped into your personal emotions and tried to pass them off as his own.
You created the writing in this blog with your own two hands and all the nubby stuff inside your head just as plainly as your husband created that canoe. It belongs to you just as completely, and this guy stole it just as outrightly as if he had driven up to your home, loaded the canoe onto the top of his car, and driven away. Just because he thought to repaint it once he got home doesn't make it something that could ever rightfully belong to him. Your anger is completely justified.
I came across this site thanks to the link that was posted at Sweet Juniper. I've never commented before, out of, I don't know, a desire not to call attention to myself. But I have cried for you and your family and for Liam, and those tears belong to you, too. He could steal every single sentence you have ever written in your life, but no words he steals will ever make the times that I've thought of you or said a quiet little non-believer prayer for you belong to him.
Ha, you plagiarizing loser, you thief, take THAT!
Oh, that pisses me off... I hope you have some screen shots/print outs/what not. Let Blogger know and they'll likely boot him; he needs to be off the internet. Pathetic.
Dear Commenters,
What SaltySweet is not mentioning is that she thought long and hard about posting this. She was concerned that she might seem anti-gay. I happened to be thrown into a recent private discussion of this matter given that I am a friend of Joe's and I have an internet-only acquaintance with Cooper/Nicky/Nico.
I assured SaltySweet that anyone with a brain would not view her as anti-gay, and that her position was entirely justified. When someone plagiarizes to this extent - and not for financial gain - there are some serious personal issues at work that I hope he will deal with. Also, I'm sad to report that he seems to have lied to me and others to cover his tracks. I'm mortified, and reminded that although I consider myself a good judge of character, I seem to have really been wrong about this man.
Sweet holy moses. First, I am sickened and furious along with you, Kate. Second, I kinda agree with Father Tony: this plagiarist dickwad is seriously not right in the head. As an English prof, I am rarely surprised by plagiarism, but this? This is nuts. Who would spend the time and energy to steal and then tweak writing from such an intimate, truthful place as this?
Third, I am suddenly dubious of every blog I've ever read. Gross. I mean, I don't imagine I could be fooled, but people can lie really well. Nasty nasty nasty.
Wow. I actually feel kind of sorry for that guy... I mean, he described his blog as "unique"!
So maybe he's not a dad, even. Maybe he's not even gay! My husband says: "He's probably some 13-yr-old girl out there, trying to get attention from her friends... Or maybe it's John McCain's wife, stealing more than just cookie recipes!"
Sheesh.
But more than that, of course, I join with others in feeling indignant on your behalf. It's a violation and it's totally intolerable. The internet may be a vast and lawless place, but I'd like to think it's up to regular, decent folks to root out this kind of behavior.
And your writing is way more than "just a blog" -- I'm so happy that YOUR internal dickwad-o-meter is fully functional.
kate.
i feel sick about this. and to think that what you've shown is only a bit of it ...
i've had something similar happen to me. just one post, but reproduced by someone i know. i don't know what to do. it's been months, and i pretend to laugh about it, but they were my words, and seeing them written and claimed by someone else makes me want to scream. do i confront her? do i let her get away with it? i can't imagine dealing with this, kate.
bravo for posting this, kate.
i love your stuff, and i think if i came across it somewhere else, i would only recognize it as yours. no one writes like you do.
i hope that dude feels like the major dick that he is.
whoa ... sorry about he overuse of your name in that comment. guess i should proofread;)
Oh, ugh! So sorry you have to cope with this. It's incredibly wrong on many levels. Especially because the lyrical tone of your writing is hard-earned (both because of your skill as a writer and because of the tough stuff you're writing about), and as Cooper shows, it becomes dross in someone else's sticky paws.
I met a woman in a chat room once. She told her story of how she had a stillborn daughter, Kaydence, and then posted her daughter's website. I clicked the link but didn't have time to really look at it so I left the window open to view later. Later that day I came to my computer to see a picture of MY STILLBORN DAUGHTER with the name Kaydence below it. It made me sick. There was really nothing I could do. She did take down the picture after receiving many messages from my friends but she still has her website up with new (and probably fake) pictures of so-called-Kaydence.
What a mess! I really can't believe someone would do that to you. I just don't understand that type of thing. What propels someone to use your words like that and think it is acceptable, enough to do it twice?
I'm so sorry. I'm glad you shared this, it might make us all pay a little more attention.
What is wrong with him? Lowlife. And his Nico site seems to be invitation only now. Guess he'll keep a few in the dark. This must make you feel positively naked. I cannot imagine.
I love your writings. I'm sorry your words have been
pilferedstolen in shameless mass quantities. It is sick and wrong.Beyond outraged on your behalf. Loralee at Loralee's Loony Tunes just went through this same experience on her blog as well. It seems to be happening more and more. Scary.
It's time for some software protection. There are programs that will ban the computer he using from accesssing your site. I'm not a techie, so I can't give you specifics, but I'll bet someone else can hook you up. I am so sorry for your very personal theft.
Oh my God - this is so, so wrong. I'm so angry for you. Dickwad feels far too kind. How about thief? Plagiarizing, lying thief.
What a slime. Ugh. The sense of betrayal on your behalf is a bad taste in my mouth.
When I first began to read your blog, I couldn't help but share stories with my husband, as if I had just seen you that day and we'd talked. Finally, he replied, "You know that you can't take this for granted, right? It could all be fake. You don't know." I was appalled. It was a cousin-feeling to the revulsion I feel for Cooper/Nico/Joe/Bob/Whatever He Is Choosing To Call Himself This Week. Familiar in its similarity to the anger I felt when my younger self saw kids at school trace drawings of superheroes and bask in praise while I tried to figure out perspective and proportion for myself. You were real. They were not.
These are the slobs, the leeches--following the trailblazers like yourself. I'm glad to be one of your sharp-eyed orangutans. Keep blazing. And ask Dutch about theft of images--I know he has something to say on the subject after photos of Juniper were stolen.
I'm sorry you had to have your words and thoughts stolen, it must feel terrible and you have every right to be furious.
This is not 'just a blog' and these are not 'just words', I say talk to a lawyer!
What an asshole! I can not beleive that someone would try and take your words as thier own. He has to be a nut job.
I love your blog. Someone above said that the words and emotions you share through them are all yours. No one can really steal them. I agree but I am still really pissed that this guy even tried.
i second, third, fourth everyone else above. so fucking mad for you. it is akin to identity theft of the most personal kind.
it's just really pathetic, what's he's done. there's no other way to describe feeling so unworthy of your own life that you have to steal someone else's story to gain attention.
i'm sorry you had to deal with this. i wish i could get over to his blog and take a crowbar to his posts.
I'm here from daysgoby. I can't believe someone could be so screwed in the head as to do something like this. I'm so sorry it's happened to you and I sincerely hope you can get him (her?) to knock it off and that he (she?) gets some help. Sounds like he (she?) needs it.
I hope you kick some blogger ass. I can't believe someone would do something like that. I read your blog quite frequently and can't imagine someone having the guts to copy and paste your life into their own. Disgusting.
Okay, he has good taste but you were more than kind to him, what a freeking creep and you should be mad! It is no different than my friend who's husband was deployed, risking his life, and her neighbor said, "Hey! Great time to steal their lawnmower!" Many people just do NOT have "dickwad-o-meters"...
Kate, I'm totally freaked out to know there are such creeps out there. I'm also curious to find out what you're options are? What can people do to protect themselves from this? It's one thing to call him out on the internet, but when he makes his cite private there must be something you can do. I don't know much about copyright law, have you found out anything interesting?
of course, please pardon the typos, I was too bugged out to proofread
Ew. Just ew.
Someone stole my posts and used them on their site offering blow jobs. I never did figure out why they thought that was even a good idea.
But this? This is more like he is trying to steal your life, not just your words. It's excessively creepy.
Canape, that was clearly your fault. It was that post I remember, entitled "WHY MY JOB BLOWS", wasn't it? ;)
Debbie, there are a few courses of action. There is Google's DCMA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) , which can get him kicked off Blogger, and I've got all the evidence I need for that. But then there's nothing stopping him from setting up camp elsewhere.
I feel like I've done what I can - to let his readers know who he is (or. better put, who he isn't). He's pulled a major fast one on them.