Morning, Players.

Today’s newsletter looks a lot different from previous editions.

That’s because I’m moving away from the old news-based format and into a newer, more original content.

I spend a lot of time online thinking about how we are all playing The Game and want to bring some of those thoughts to this audience.

Below is the first of many long-form writings that I’ll use this newsletter to share. I get this is not necessarily what you signed up for when you subscribed to The Game so no hard feelings if you want to hit that unsubscribe button.

But for those sticking around, I hope you enjoy this new direction as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Is plagiarism always bad?

From an early age in school, we’re all taught that plagiarism is wrong. Not just wrong, but immoral.

Then you enter adulthood and realize that everyone is copying each other.

All the social media apps we use? Plagiarizing each other nonstop.

That TikTok video you just saw? Copied from another creator.

The new car you think you want? Mimetic desire at work.

It’s everywhere we look but I want to peel back the layers of our relationship with stealing, copying, remixing, and plagiarizing.

A bit of social media controversy

Tommy Clark, the Head of Social at analytics company Triple Whale, wrote an awesome case study breaking down a viral TikTok last week.

That case study was then lifted from Twitter and posted to LinkedIn by a “30u30 founder” passing it off as his own work.

That did not sit well with people who knew the content originally came from Tommy. And they loudly let the founder know in the comments.

While others came to the founder's defense or never knew the content was stolen in the first place.

The concept this online tussle exposes is that the internet actually rewards this behavior. Tommy and the founder will both collect their likes. They will both grow their audience. And both will presumably come out of this relatively unscathed.

Yes, the founder will take a short-term reputational hit, but beyond that, there is nothing really disincentivizing this behavior.

Just look at the world of fine art

The aspect of plagiarism that always nags at me is that we are told it’s WRONG!!!! in school and yet we see it constantly in the arts.

Take a minute and scroll through the thread below (it’s fantastic) and tell me what the difference is between what the 30u30 founder did and what these artists are doing.

The main argument for why the above form of stealing is okay while the 30u30 founders was not is that a certain level of transformation took place. The themes are the same but the execution and the context is different. It is was turns something from plagiarism into honoring.

The 30u30 founder didn’t cross that barrier, and that is why he is shamed. But when Stanley Kubrick recreates a frame-for-frame shot of Vincent Van Goh's painting, that’s looked at as genius.

I get the distinction—Kubrick’s scene also appears within the broader context of a film, whereas there was no such broader point to the founder's rip-off—but it is interesting to see how we celebrate one, and vilify the other.

And what of memes?

Another interesting modern layer to add to the plagiarism debate is the presence of memes in our society. I’m especially interested in the moment when a meme crosses over the plagiarism chasm into the realm of free-use.

I recently experienced the liminal space between meme and not-meme when I posted the picture on the right after seeing the one on the left.

I soon received some questioning DMs from both my roommates and colleagues essentially asking me “Why you lyin?”

But then a few more people started to use the format and it became clear to those in the know that this was a burgeoning meme format.

That’s the key phrase here: in the know. Memes rely on shared cultural knowledge in order to function. As long as everyone is aware you are repurposing a piece of the digital world, then no one cares. But if not enough people have that shared context, suddenly you’re no longer memeing, you’re stealing.

The above example is more benign than the 30u30 founder stealing original content, but it shows how similar memes are to outright plagiarism.

Some parting words about Don Quixote

To end this piece, I want to explain a story I read in English class my senior year of high school.

It’s called “Pierre Menard, Author of Quixote.”

It’s a fictional short story by Jorge Luis Borges where the narrator is a book critic talking about how a (made up) 20th-century French poet, Pierre Menard’s version of Don Quixote was than its original author, Miguel Cervantes’.

You can read it here if you want, but the central joke is that the two versions are exactly the same. Down to the very letter.

But, the narrator is trying to argue that Menard was not actually “copying” Cervantes’ work when he…copied his work. Instead he trying to “write it as if was for the first time.”

Menard’s intentions, the narrator agues, end up grounding the copied version in a different historical context (the 20th century) and therefore elevating the work beyond anything Cervantes’ original could hope to achieve.

Again, this is a satirical short story so the distinction Borges is making should come off as absurd.

But there is a certain level of truth to the idea that most of our relationship with a given work is actually governed by our knowledge of the author and the context in which it was published.

For instance, if Oliver Twist were to be published today, we’d view it as an engrossing depiction of victorian society rather than a bona fide work from someone who lived through those conditions like Charles Dickens.

It's the same reason why no one bought Banksy pictures for $60 when he sold them as a street artist, but will pay millions for his work if it’s sold at auction.

It might also help explain why some people who didn’t personally know Tommy actually rushed to the defense of the 30u30 creator. They initially encountered the content as if it was an original piece, and maintained their fealty to him even once the truth was revealed.

It also explains why others who knew Tommy called for the gulag. They couldn’t see past the obvious theft that had taken place.

We judge all art through the lens of the creator who made it and the circumstances under which it was made.

STATE OF THE GAME

Winner: MrBeast for once again driving the internet insane with another massive charitable act.

Loser: US baking sector for having the worst day in the markets since 2020 after Silicon Valley Bank screwed up big time.

Winner: Steve Ballmer for installing 3x the average amount of toilets in the new Clipper’s arena.

Loser: The WWE for trying to get states to legalize gambling on its scripted wrestling matches.

UPDATE ON THE BUTTON

There were no winners of the Button yesterday.

Also, the plan is to put the Button on pause for a little bit as I feel out what the new direction of this newsletter looks like.

By no means is this the complete end for the Button though. I absolutely loved going through your emails each week and seeing how you structured your guesses. You all are some smart cookies.

It was something that was fun, new, and exciting and I hope to resurrect it again soon.

So thank you, Players for playing week in and week out.

I hope to bring it back one day.