Imitation: The Sincerest Form Of Forgetting Who You Are
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Earlier this week, I wrote about making something your own, whatever that something may be. A song, an article, marketing copy, a product… it doesn’t matter. Making something your own gives it an edge and makes it stand out from everything that is similar to it.
Learning how to make something your own is a process.
For some lucky people, the learning curve is so short that it can appear almost non-existent. They seem to have been born with an innate knowledge of and confidence in who they are and a talent for effortlessly demonstrating this to the world.
For the rest of us, though, it can take time to get to this place. And to help us along the way we often look to role models – people who have walked this path before us.
Role models are great. Imitating them is a necessary and important part of growth. But, imitation can go too far: learning from someone else’s experience and applying their advice in your own way to your unique situation is helpful; copying someone else’s personality and morphing into them in an effort to become as successful as they are is not. In fact, it’s downright harmful to you and your success.
The scary thing is that this latter form of imitation is not necessarily intentional. And it often happens so subtly and insidiously that the person involved doesn’t realise that they’ve got themselves stuck in the imitation phase and not actually moved on to making the advice their own.
Case study: Big Name Blogger and her fangirls
A certain current Big Name Blogger (who shall remain nameless as this is not about her) has a very large following. And rightly so. She is fantastic and excellent at what she does. She’s successful and she’s quirky and cool. In fact, she’s successful because she’s quirky and cool. And she teaches other people how to be successful by being their own quirky and cool selves.
Oh the irony.
Let me ‘splain. What’s happened over the past year has been painful to see. So many wonderful vibrant women flocked to Big Name Blogger, all eager to learn from her. But, instead of becoming more of their own quirky and cool selves as both they and Big Name Blogger intended, they instead slowly but surely morphed into clones of Big Name Blogger’s quirky and cool self.
I used to read some of these women’s blogs, and watched as their writing style changed. Now, all groups have a certain vocabulary in common, and this one is no different, but the types of changes I’m referring to went way beyond simple group jargon creeping in. I’m talking about the rhythm and tone of the writing changing to match that of Big Name Blogger. I’m talking about such similar ways of expressing things that in some cases sentences will match word for word – not plagiarism, just an exceptionally ingrained way of thinking. There’s more, but I can’t figure out a way of explaining it without giving away who I’m talking about. All I can say is that it totally freaks me out.
You’ll notice that I said I used to read these women’s blogs. Yup, I ended up unsubscribing from them. What attracted me to these women as writers and business owners in the first place was gone. They were no longer vibrant and interesting. Instead, they became boring repetitions of what I’d read over at Big Name Blogger’s blog. They were no longer unique. Instead, they became pale imitations of Big Name Blogger. Like Coke, they changed the recipe, leaving out that secret ingredient in their awesomesauce that made them so fabulous in the first place.
The world already contains Big Name Blogger. She’s an essential and brilliant part of the world. But, the world doesn’t need more clones of her. What the world needs are more people allowing their own special brilliance to shine forth.
I hope these women remember just how amazing they are, and start to let the rest of the world see it. I hope it’s not too late.
As a copywriter I am always impressed by people who can write convincingly in a voice other than their own: it takes some doing. But what we’re talking about here isn’t copywriting technique, it’s expressing a personality, a self.
We all change how we speak and behave to fit in to different situations: as children we work hard to fit in at school, to be unremarkable or only as remarkable as the cool kids. We continue working to fit in as adults, both at work and in social situations.
But blogging isn’t about fitting in, it’s about standing out. In a blog you should express your own personality and speak with your own voice. Your blog is about your take on the world, your experiences and passions: it’s all about you.
I too hope that these bloggers find the courage to be their own brilliant selves again and that they stop copying the most popular girl in the school. Bloggers should write to share or to lead but not to follow.
Thank you, Taryn, for reminding us of that.
Thanks, Caroline – you’ve hit the nail on the head! Blogging can be a way of finding your own voice – if you read many bloggers’ archives or previous blogs, you’ll find that their voice changes over time as they become more comfortable expresing themselves. But it’s usually a forward motion, whereas in this particular case, I feel that just when these women were starting to make progress, they went backwards and totally lost the unique voice they were developing.
Hi Taryn, you’ve managed to put your finger on something that I’ve been seeing around the web but couldn’t quite describe.
Its a very, very tempting thing to drift ourselves into something we love that isn’t quite us. I know it’s taken me a year and a half to even start finding my voice as a writer and I see it as a tender time where I almost have to protect my growing voice from influences that could make it less ME.
Thanks for putting this into words.
Hi Susan
You’ve brought up something so important – that time during which we’re finding our own voice, when we’re so vulnerable and susceptible to outside influences. It takes wisdom and courage to stand firm in our commitment to ourselves during this time and recognise when we’re drifting from our true selves. Thank you for bringing this up!
When I answer the phone for my father the person calling thinks I sound like him. The same thing happens when my younger brother answers or when either of my sisters answer for my mother. What I’m trying to convey is that most “voices” written or spoken share more similarities than difference especially when part of a shared community.
Think back to your youth. We tend to gravitate to groups where we share similar values, ideas and in youth image. Recall the youth culture you shared with your friends. The haircuts, fashion and music that both divided and united our community. Perhaps these are examples of homophily.
Is it that we all have our own unique voice and if so is it really that different from other peoples. Perhaps you can’t see the uniqueness because you’re attributing characteristics to others.
Hi Kenneth
That’s a great point. I don’t dispute that groups have things in common, including a shared language, but there’s usually still a fair amount of variation. The group that I’m referring to in my post used to have that – a common vocabulary, similar interests and values, yet they were still quite individual in spite of all that was so similar. And then, the individuality started disappearing, in a sort of Stepford Wife-ish kind of way… it feels like it’s gone beyond simple group homogeneity now, and this scares and saddens me.
Since I’ve seen it recently, this reminds me of the end of “How to Train Your Dragon” where the Viking King dad says (something like), “We needed more of….” and gestures to Hiccup who says (something like), “You just pointed to all of me!”
Sometimes what’s needed to save the world (village?) is what makes us different from everyone else. =)
Interesting post and the more I think about it, the more complicated it gets. I don’t expect I’m the only one that adapts slightly to the social groups I meet. But these adaptations are also “the true me” as I am social animal with many different roles: business owner, wife, sister, friend, author, neighbour, associate…
A confident freely expressed ‘me’ only fits some parts of these roles sometimes. At other times I could shut up and listen more.
There’s also a lifetime of experience of dealing with thousands of slight facial and body reactions when speaking face-to-face. Most of these reactions are only subliminally picked up, but they help to check and steer the conversation.
When it comes to writing, that’s a totally different sort of communication as it can be more considered, and it certainly lacks the subtle gesture feedback. That may explain some of the rabidly insensitive and inane unmoderated comment you see on certain newspaper sites.
Sadly, those comments may represent the ‘true me’for some people. Which begs the question: is ‘the true me’ always worth having? We all have dark sides.
Is ‘the true me’ actually ever attainable? We are always communicating in situations with contextual influences: everything we see, read, experience and hear, for example. The ‘true me’ is probably a myth and for the sake of society, that could be just as well.
When we write, are we taking on yet another role that is reasonably consistent with our main values? Or a better version of the other ‘mes’? Or do we take the opportunity to explore personas with different values? We can do all of that.
Could the writers on the big name blog be having fun playing with a comedic streak that the blog has awakened in them? You’re free to play if it appeals. What’s not to like about feeling cool and funny from time to time? It’s a big leap from that to a Stepford-ish personality take-over. Obviously, not knowing the blog involved, I can’t be certain it doesn’t contain extensive video evidence of whole towns full of identi-kit young women…. but somehow I doubt it.
For some, it may be unconscious copying, like finding yourself mimicking an accent.
Writing styles are infectious and that can be a useful development tool. Painters often copy parts of pictures to learn more about creating certain effects.
I discovered as a teenager that if I read Byron’s poetry, I had Byronic couplets running around my head for a while like a pervasive song. It doesn’t last, but it gave me a lingering confidence that I could ‘hold a rhyme.’ That gave me the confidence more recently to have lots of fun ‘adapting’ Burns’ style to create personalised speeches for Burns suppers. These were only performed at clubs where I know the people well.
I hope some of the young women playing with their comedy streak on the big name blog will develop confidence in being funny. We could all do with a laugh at times.
I do know that the one thing we needn’t worry about when it comes to writing is finding our unique voice. We all already have one. The way we each use words is so distinct, it is as individual as a finger print. In fact, language patterns have been analysed to prove authorship as evidence in court.
With that amount of linguistic variety to handle, no wonder Google is still adapting natural language filters to identify good information online. And spammers can adapt their messages so easily to get past our message rules.
Tami – I need to see that movie! Love the quote
And I think your point about saving this global village through expressing our own selves is very pertinent!
Penny – Thanks for the comment. Some very interesting things to think about indeed! I do feel like we each have a core self, although we do emphasise certain parts of it depending on the situation in which we find ourselves.
Two words: Right on!
I’ve seen the turning-into-clones thing myself. And it always makes me kind of sad.
Not because the person other people are cloning is bad. But because in the process of imitating someone else, a huge chunk of awesome gets lost.
One of the things I really dig is seeing someone’s own unique brand of awesome shine through what they do. Even if they’re influenced by other people or inspired by other people, it’s delicious when their awesome is still totally visible.
Inspiration and influence is fine, normal and (sometimes) helpful.
Losing your awesome in someone else’s awesome isn’t so helpful. Because the world needs every bit of unique awesome it can get.
Fabeku – Absolutely!
If anyone’s rocking their own brand of awesome, it’s you. Because you, my friend, are ninjariffic