At its best, the internet can be a space where people share stories and ideas. But the line between inspiration and theft can easily become blurred
L
ast month, I wrote an article about being adopted by a British couple during the era of China’s one-child policy. Three days after the story ran in a national newspaper, my phone buzzed with a flurry of messages from a friend who had sent me a TikTok post by an influencer telling her life story to camera. Twenty seconds into her video, my jaw plummeted. She had recited entire sections of my article, word for word, to her 20,000 followers. She didn’t even have the courtesy to give me a credit.
When I wrote that piece, the idea of exposing personal details of my life to scrutiny or criticism was terrifying. Even so, it felt right to share this story in the hope that others might find comfort if they too had had similar experiences. What I wasn’t expecting was for someone to take my words and claim them as their own.
The influencer spoke of her adoption but she took sections of the article in which I discussed my intimate thoughts and feelings, and passed these off as her own. She recited how “in my early twenties, I measured my self-worth in how many matches I got on Tinder or how many boys I was texting”, and having “imagined a childhood in China and being raised by my biological parents”. Taking the exact phrases I had written, she reposted them to her followers, and then thanked users in the comments when they complimented her. I understand that imitation is the highest form of flattery but this was blatant stealing.
