Damn you Sanders!
Now I know how a blind person feels when they’ve been shamefully taken advantage of. There they sit with their dark glasses on, minding their own business, when some punk-ass thug sneaks up on them and snatches a valued possession right out from under their unsuspecting nose. If the sightless victim is lucky they’ll have a seeing eye dog that will chase down the thief and rip their throat out. I have no such seeing eye dog. In fact my dog Eddie is pretty much a lazy, worthless lay-by-the-door retriever. But I digress.
^^^ idea stealer ^^^
Before you close your browser window, please hear me out–I assure you that this has something to do with fly fishing. You see, I’d recently been laboring over a review I’ve been intending to write about a new pair of Revo sunglasses which will be my new favorite fish glasses. I had the outline in my head and was going to set aside an evening this week to scribe a formal review. It was going to be good, too. And then a couple of days ago, what should my eyes behold but a review for Revo sunglasses over at Up the Poudre. Now, I wasn’t surprised to see Sanders writing a review for these shades. After all, manufacturers often reach out to popular bloggers for help in marketing their wares. Why they’ve approached the UA is beyond me, but who am I to judge? Anyway, Sanders writes good, so I was eager to read his review.
Before I’d finished reading I was pounding the desk and yelling Sander’s name in outrage. I believe my outburst was actually, “Damnit, Sanders! This is an outrage!”
What Sanders wrote was nearly identical to what I was planning to write, right down to referencing a specific other brand of sunglasses that I own, and like, except that they cause head pain. That was suppose to be MY angle. I just can’t see forging ahead blindly with what I had planned to write because it would no longer be original. And nobody would believe me when I declare that the idea was mine first, and Sanders just ripped me off. Afterall, more people like Sanders than they do me. It would be a futile attempt to stake my claim. I’m not territorial. There’s room for the both of us in the blogashere.
At least the specific model of Revo sunglasses that I’ll be reviewing is different that those covered by Sander’s plagiarism review.
I assure you I am not bitter. It was my own fault for not getting to my review sooner. The early bird gets the worm, right?
Now where’s that throat-eating seeing eye dog when you need one?
If Revo would send me some sunglasses, I would still write a review even if you and Sanders both cover them. Hello Revo Sunglasses…
Revo Sunglasses, I’d like you to meet Fred.
Ouch! I wouldn’t have expected that though when sunglasses lie in the balance one cannot be held responsible for their actions.
True, Steve, it is a seemingly irrational thing until one considers the stakes.
You’ve got to watch that Sanders character. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. He is a decent net man, though…
Decent, but shifty and sneaky.
Thanks Mike! I do what I can…have a net review coming out soon. Is that enough lead time for the UA, we shall see…
Spoken like a true southerner, Mike! “That man is the slimiest son-of-a-bitch coward to ever walk the planet, God Bless His Heart. And of course, I mean no disrespect by that.” (puffs on cigar, cracks open oyster).
Now see… since you blessed his heart. It’s all good.. No harm. As far as southern etiquette goes, you can say what you want about somebody, but as long as you bless their heart, it makes it a ok. Hell, you ain’t even gotta say you mean no disrespect. And it’s just “Bless his/her/it’s heart”. Just a side note. Contrary to popular belief , all of us (I said us.. myself included) southerners ain’t terribly religious so, we ain’t gotta stress on who’s doing the blessing.
Kirk,
hoooweeee. Son, you seemin’ to be about a day late ‘an a dollar short. Bless your heart. There’s some old sayin’s that go somethin’ like this. You can fish or cut bait, but don’t let the tail wag the dog here. You ain’t got the short end of the stick here, so don’t go gettin’ your feathers all ruffled. Write that review. Give us the whole hog.
Dave
I grew up on the NC-VA border…..as men we can only do so much damage in conversation, perhaps out of fear of our words catching up to us in a poorly lit parking lot, 6 months later. Southern women (traditionally speaking), on the other hand, seem to have no such fear (although they are quite capable of a mean physical fight)….”Did you see her shoes? She looks like a hooker. Like a truck stop trash dumpster hooker. I mean, bless her heart. The girl is a sweetheart and I just love her to death – she’s like a sister to me.”
I’ll give this one an LOL.
It happens. But look at it like this – if the other review is the same as yours – you’re both in agreement with the pluses and minuses of the sunglasses you’re reviewing. I would somewhat expect the reviews to be very similar under the circumstances. If you’d put any of your review down on paper, or these days, in your computer, there might be some way of stealing the review. It just sounds like you both had the same item and tested the product under similar circumstances (i.e., you both fish) and you both have the same or nearly same yardstick to measure the product against. If you reviewed it as an angler, and someone else reviewed it as a skier, you’d most likely have different points pro and con.
But it’s frustrating when you see someone else’s writing on a topic that’s almost verbatim what’s in your mind. I’d written six articles that I wanted to pitch to a magazine. I let my most trusted colleague read the for critique, and mentioned the topics of the succeeding articles. Unbeknownst to me, he casually mentioned them to the editor & publisher of the magazine I was going to pitch them to. It was a pair of old friends of ours who had started the magazine. My colleague said they should contract with me before I possibly sold it elsewhere, because it was a great piece and series.
Six weeks later…there’s one of my topics as cover story…and inside, the list of the exact other topics by their new columnist. I was LIVID. Money was tight for me at the time, and my “friends” hire someone else to write MY series? WTF? I considered it karma when their financial backer suddenly died a few weeks later under tragic circumstances. The magazine folded about a month later when the heirs cut off the funding, called all the loans and the new venture in publication ceased.
I also wrote, as a favor to a friend, a very snarky review of a play before it opened using the friend’s inside information. I did it as a joke, and it wasn’t published anywhere – I had it run on newsprint with part of another bogus story and advertising on the back so it looked like a real newspaper clipping. You know you’re writing about a bad play when the writer/producer/director lists it as “Written by so-and-so and William Shakespeare.” You didn’t write it – you adapted an existing piece. The Monday after opening, the phone was ringing off the hook in the office – the local theater critic had written almost the same review of something I’d never seen, and even used some similar quips.
“Damnit, Sanders! This is an outrage!”…surprisingly familiar words are flying out of my wife’s mouth as we’re tackling home improvement projects.
I’m not even sure Eddy lifted an eye when I commandeered your notes….Thank you Eddy!
This has happened to me too, where I have a great idea, but I procrastinate, and before you know it, I’m reading something similar to my idea on someone else’s blog. Sucks..
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