“Body is a patchwork.”
And it is in this vein, I write my response to that “Stitch Bitch,” Mary Shelley, Shelley herself, or even the woman pretending to be some version of the two.
“I want piratical readers, plagiarists and opportunist who take what they want from my ideas and knot it into their own arguments.”
Plagiarist and opportunist are normally considered bad, yet in the vast expanse of media, technology and artistic endeavors one can hardly call sources of inspiration into question. If you take the idea, run wildly into the wind with it, break it down, slice it up, mash it together and then sculpt it into your own creation, it’s yours. For this mesh pot of ideas and bits of content dubbed the Internet, is a swirling madhouse with shared space, reinterpretations and like has few boundaries and even fewer agreed upon rules.
“You won’t get where you think you’re going.”
Should you? Isn’t the more impressive journey one that takes you places you never thought you would reach? Shouldn’t design start in one fully formed thought and goal and inspire you along the way to diverge from the path and create something entirely new and better than you ever could have come up with before you started? Should your first 10 sketches lead you to a 25th that’s amazing and original?
“Every crank with a webpage can put whatever crack-potpourri she pleases.”
And that dear friends is the constant battle we’ll have to face. The fight is in the understanding that just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. And just because you should, doesn’t mean it’s the most effective way to accomplish the goal at hand. And just because it’s a goal doesn’t mean it’s a worthy one. And just because the goal is a good one, doesn’t mean it’s the only one worth consideration.
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