Art thieves...?

Once upon a time, this page was a long, long rant about plagiarism, in the form of over one hundred Javascript alerts that looped if you didn't memorize a 'password'. On here, it was only linked from a warning page that made it clear it was pretty unpleasant, but sometimes people would link this page, the one with the alerts, to other people as a prank - sort of like a nastier form of Rickrolling. I hated the pranking, and made a version of the page with the rant in text form so people would link to that instead of the version with the alerts, but obviously that probably didn't stop anyone. I formally took it off the site when some poor kid's mom e-mailed me that the kid had been stuck there for hours, really upset, and didn't understand how to get out. But because I hate breaking links, I kept the page there.

In the years since, I've very literally grown up, and today I think the entire thing was hopelessly immature and caused nobody anything but grief. So this page no longer has alerts, or even the rant itself. If you're curious, the gist of it was, "Art thieves are bad and should feel bad, also did you know people keep stealing from me, now let me present a bunch of anecdotes about plagiarists, like that one guy who, when confronted, claimed I'd stolen the sprites from him and continued insisting so even to me personally."

Seriously, though, don't plagiarize. If you didn't make something, then don't say you did. Sure, it might get you praise and attention, but praise and attention aren't worth much if whatever you're being praised and beloved for isn't actually yours, and if you're caught, which you probably eventually will be, it'll get you nothing but embarrassment and ostracization. If you want people to think you're cool, then actually make some cool things! It's fun and you'll actually feel like you deserve it.

Page last modified August 13 2016 at 02:34 UTC