Copycats

[Beth Macbain]

Anyone know what region this dude is in? I need some inspiration!

[Aethelwine]

7 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

Anyone know what region this dude is in? I need some inspiration!

It is in his picks, open to all or something welcoming like that.

It is very nicely done, but I can't see a resemblance close or even remote with his immediate neighbours.. Maybe the copycat is further away than I looked, or maybe he has reworked it.

One neighbour has the same Consignment kitchen that you see everywhere because they are nice, but that is it and presumably what has upset him.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Aethelwine

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I don't even look in my neighbor's windows, so would never know if they copied my stuff. If I bothered to look and saw they'd gone to the trouble of copying what I have (which, I might add, changes constantly so good luck to them!), I'd figure they were complimenting my taste.

If you had an actual stalker, you'd know it. 

[kiramanell]

11 minutes ago, Kiera Clutterbuck said:

There is a 3rd way, and that is simply the discussion that is now happening. The OP simply said it was just her 2 cents worth, and I don't see her calling for a ruling although it is evident what she believes.  Seems she just wanted a discussion about it as we are doing.  Can't you believe one way and me another, and allow this? Do we have to have some sort of rule that encodes one side as the one true way? That would not be the "sharing" that you advocate.

 

Yeah, actually we do, LOL; it's called the Covenant.  And it specifically states "*Residents may decorate the interior of their house to their liking." Full stop.

As for saying 'she just wanted a discussion', I think the OP did a little more than that. I, at least, felt an incredible amount of angry judgement coming from her. Maybe it's just me, but that didn't feel like a friendly opener of a disciussion to me.

[Aethelwine]

The make of kitchen in mine I originally saw in Elderglen, I just couldn't work out what to do with the space there because they are so small and the style so unique..so I cammed around and saw the same make of furniture and kitchen over and over again. After seeing it and looking for alternatives, I realised that there just isn't really any nice alternative available. Anyway they do a nice rustic kitchen too, so that is what went in my houseboat. The kitchen is a bit old world for the houseboat, but I like it.

[Elora Lunasea]

I'm flattered if someone likes my home designs, and don't mind at all if someone uses pieces I've picked up to put in their own homes. After all, we all shop in the same places more or less, it's just a matter of we find or don't. I've certainly asked people where they picked up things (the knotted curtains from Soy for instance) that I particularly loved. 

What does bother me, however, is if someone literally purchases entire roomfuls of the same items. That shows laziness in creating your own style. I'm guilty of caming into other peoples homes for inspiration myself and recently noticed my brand new next door neighbor had the exact furniture all over her house that I did right down to small accessory pieces. She even had colored the bed, chairs and couch in the colors mine were in. I find it hard to believe it was coincidence. That was just weird to me.

Of course, I've now changed my decor like twice since in the past week or so because I'm always tweaking things and I'm about to swap out a lot of the pieces they copied off me so we'll see what happens 🤣 

EDIT: PS - pretty sure it isn't anyone here on the forum so nobody has to worry about me coming next door and having any kind of drama laden moment LOL

Edited July 21, 2019 by Elora Lunasea

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I have one neighbor that puts a lot of stuff outdoors where it's harder to ignore, and honestly, some of these items are so bizarre that I'd be thrilled if this person copied my stuff instead. lol

(Yes, I derender it all!)

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

4 minutes ago, Elora Lunasea said:

Of course, I've now changed my decor like twice since in the past week or so because I'm always tweaking things and I'm about to swap out a lot of the pieces they copies off me so we'll see what happens 🤣

Ooh make it a game to see how much money you can make them spend!

[Elora Lunasea]

2 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Ooh make it a game to see how much money you can make them spend!

Hahahaha, I was thinking exactly the same thing!

[Kiera Clutterbuck]

8 minutes ago, kiramanell said:

25 minutes ago, Kiera Clutterbuck said:

Do we have to have some sort of rule that encodes one side as the one true way? That would not be the "sharing" that you advocate.

 

Yeah, actually we do, LOL; it's called the Covenant.  And it specifically states "*Residents may decorate the interior of their house to their liking." Full stop.

Of course we have the right to do what we want, and it says so in the covenant.

The discussion is about what it means when another person imitates them completely. What would you do if a friend imitated how you dressed, and I mean down to the exact same piece of clothing and hairstyle. What if they showed up for public events you both attended looking just like you when they knew in advance what you planned to wear. My reaction would be a desire to get them to think more for themselves, learn to be their own person more, and not copy others. 

There is no ruling that can be made about this. I'm only saying I DO understand those who would wish another would not copy them completely. Sharing is great, to a point. 

[kiramanell]

1 minute ago, Elora Lunasea said:

I'm flattered if someone likes my home designs, and don't mind at all if someone uses pieces I've picked up to put in their own homes. After all, we all shop in the same places more or less, it's just a matter of we find or don't. I've certainly asked people where they picked up things (the knotted curtains from Soy for instance) that I particularly loved. 

What does bother me, however, is if someone literally purchases entire roomfuls of the same items. That shows laziness in creating your own style. I'm guilty of caming into other peoples homes for inspiration myself and recently noticed my brand new next door neighbor had the exact furniture all over her house that I did right down to small accessory pieces. She even had colored the bed, chairs and couch in the colors mine were in. I find it hard to believe it was coincidence. That was just weird to me.

Of course, I've now changed my decor like twice since in the past week or so because I'm always tweaking things and I'm about to swap out a lot of the pieces they copies off me so we'll see what happens 🤣

 

Why, I've seen your boat; and trust me, I can grasp someone's urge to copy it in full, cuz it was massively impressive when you posted pics of it. 😍

All levity aside, though, I agree that I wouldn't like it per se, like I said. And I'd probably think "Geez Louise, couldn't you come up with something of your own?!" But I wouldn't say anything. The freedom to decorate their homes as they see fit, sadly, but necessarily also includes them doing things with it I don't like.

[Raevyn Addams]

I second the notion of Imitation being the highest form of flattery, but (and as a wise midget once said anything before the word 'but' doesn't matter) it's the motives I question. If someone wants to rip off a style, so be it. If they do it with the intention to benefit from it (ie; take sales away from you), or use your look as a form of mockery, or for any means that may be generally interpreted as negative in intent, that I don't agree with. I guess where one draws the line varies from person to person.

My best friend has a real bee in her bonnet about being copied. I don't feel as passionate about personal appearance as she does, but then it doesn't effect me as it does her. When we used to RP together we would both be baffled to see other avatars appear to change their looks to match hers to the point I've had to do a double-take because they look that similar, practically identical. It wasn't even subtle flattery. The reason for these dramatic changes, we guessed, came down to catching the eye of our mutual friend (a guy) who she often played the love interest of and were competing for.

When it comes to copying as a learning tool I'm actually all for it, again, providing someone doesn't blatantly plagiarize for a profit. The more I create the more I learn, and the more I learn the more I pass on to my friends who want to learn too. It's not that uncommon for one of us to build something, send a FP copy to each other, and use that as a basis to build on, or even copy the build completely before we add our own personal spin to it. And that is really gratifying to see. I love it when others are inspired enough to want to create, and if I play a part in that creative process then all the better.

In a very literal sense though, we as a species learn through imitation. I can't say that I agree with the countless Kardashian clones out there, but that's freedom of choice and not my place to judge. We are all products of our environment after all.

37 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

I think my add-ons are a perfect example of copying at it's best... We all learn by copying techniques. As a teacher one of the absolute best teaching methods is modeling for our students. When someone copies your idea or mine they are in the process of learning. I hope people learn by watching me build or by inspecting my builds in order to learn how to achieve their own goals. So unless someone is actually copybotting, I say copy all you like!

I'm glad you feel that way! I have a confession to make. I learned to build by copying others, not in the literal copybot sense, but by purchasing the item and then trying to replicate. Of course its a flawed system, and the ideal always looks so much better in my head than the finished product, but that was what kicked me off into building in the first place. Back in the day I bough a region, I bought buildings, I edited buildings to fit the region, and when those edits didn't meet my needs then I attempted to build from scratch using the original as the basis. That's how I started. It's what I still do, and did a few days ago.

When I saw @Blush Bravin's Porch Life I had to change my house style to use it. That lasted a few days before I started to wonder what another room would like attached to it. Or a driveway extension. Or an entertainment area. It felt like cheek to ask the possibility of having these things built to order (I'm not that special to make demands!) so I decided to knuckle down and see if I could do it myself. So I did. I recreated the build, then edited, then added to it. The end result is something that I am moderately happy with as it fits my needs (and the space), but it still leaves an odd feeling in my belly because it started off as someone else's baby. The genesis of it can be seen if you know what Blush's original porch add on looks like. I have no intentions to ever sell, so there's no profit to be made. I haven't even given my version away to my friends since they don't own Bellisseria homes and are now more than capable of building their own add ons if they need to anyway. But even now I'm wary of posting pictures because as I say the original idea wasn't mine. I'm not taking credit. But now I've read that quote I'm feeling a bit better about it... Only a little bit. And to Blush this is a personal thanks on a public platform for your generosity in sharing your creations and permission. So, thank you. ❤️ 

[kiramanell]

6 minutes ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

Ooh make it a game to see how much money you can make them spend!

 

I think I would forfeit that game with you right here and now.  You and Marianne are 'walking marketplaces', remember? Me? All my stuff would likely fit inside a single, small designer bag.  Pray that I am never stupid enough to enter into such contest with you, cuz I'd lose badly. 😁

[Beth Macbain]

Do we actually have any evidence that someone copied this dude's house down to the last detail?

Pics or it didn't happen.

[kiramanell]

8 minutes ago, RaeLeeH said:

When I saw @Blush Bravin's Porch Life I had to change my house style to use it. That lasted a few days before I started to wonder what another room would like attached to it. Or a driveway extension. Or an entertainment area. It felt like cheek to ask the possibility of having these things built to order (I'm not that special to make demands!) so I decided to knuckle down and see if I could do it myself. So I did. I recreated the build, then edited, then added to it. The end result is something that I am moderately happy with as it fits my needs (and the space), but it still leaves an odd feeling in my belly because it started off as someone else's baby. The genesis of it can be seen if you know what Blush's original porch add on looks like. I have no intentions to ever sell, so there's no profit to be made. I haven't even given my version away to my friends since they don't own Bellisseria homes and are now more than capable of building their own add ons if they need to anyway. But even now I'm wary of posting pictures because as I say the original idea wasn't mine. I'm not taking credit. But now I've read that quote I'm feeling a bit better about it... Only a little bit. And to Blush this is a personal thanks on a public platform for your generosity in sharing your creations and permission. So, thank you. ❤️ 

 

Haha! I sooooooo hear ya! 🤗 I feel the same about Blush's addon for the Evening Star. Actually bought it, the other day, but just can't bring myself to use it, as whatever I would do with it, ppl would always, ostentatiously, see Blush's creative structure... with some of my own stuff added.  This was more to do with my own OCD-ness than anything else, I haste to say; but with my Windlass, at least I could say it was 100% me. But I also just saw someone post a kitchen, with Blush's addon, that was still very uniquely done, and totally felt like a personal creative work of art. So, yeah, now I'm confused. 😀

As for that 'beautiful quote', I recall being so disillusioned, in highschool, when I learned the full quote actually goes, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness." Bummer.  

[Leora Jacobus]

38 minutes ago, Beth Macbain said:

Do we actually have any evidence that someone copied this dude's house down to the last detail?

Pics or it didn't happen.

Reading all this thread made me wonder if he just wanted to try his hand at trolling

... not long ago he wrote THIS

... then he finally managed to get a houseboat

... and now he's complaining of someone copying his style!

 

Edited July 21, 2019 by Leora Jacobus

[Hendrix Portal]

Imitation is one thing, and if someone likes my own style enough to want to use it, I'll take the compliment. But xeroxing everything down to the smallest detail and mods is a bit weird if not plain rude. Now, buying a complete set of something, be it a living room or entire themed build, and using it exactly as the creator did in the photos, is not the same. I've done that myself. If my neighbor also did that, hey, we both saw the pics and liked it enough to recreate it. But if anyone were to mimic my mainland home down the the details, I'd have to wonder 1. what sort of mental state they were in because that is not a style that appeals to the masses and 2. what their motivation was for doing so. And then I'd laugh at how much time they had to spend tracking all that stuff down.

Belli homes, not so much. We're all a bit limited on space and LI and the sharing aspect of Belli is one of the things I love about it. I am totally going to inspect your kitchen if I like it, and maybe ask where you got that sweet lounger. I'll use add-ons and not worry if 5 of my neighbors have the same add-on. I'm not going to replicate your exact decor and make a Stepford community though. 

(All that being said, I currently have an empty Traditional and could use some inspiration.) 

[Blush Bravin]

8 hours ago, RaeLeeH said:

And to Blush this is a personal thanks on a public platform for your generosity in sharing your creations and permission. So, thank you. ❤️ 

You're very welcome! I suppose first and foremost I am a teacher. I've always been a teacher. My mother jokes about how my younger siblings didn't think it was so much fun to be in my classroom when I was six. For some odd reason they thought playing outside preferable to being indoors with their big sis teaching them the abc's. 

I learned from watching Glamorous Mole build Hyannisport. Did I copy what I saw? Why yes, I did. It's how I learned to make prims do more than stack up like blocks. In my years of learning how to build here in SL, I have taken things apart to see how they were made so I could learn how to make the item myself. Nowadays that's not so easy to do with so much being mesh. Even the lessons I used to learn Blender had me copying what the teacher was making. 

But I do get what the OP is saying. It might be a bit irksome if someone were to actually copy what you've done with your home completely down to the smallest detail, though I've never actually seen that happen. I've done a lot of exploring in Bellisseria as well and haven't really seen two houses next to each other that looked identical either. Of course with the vast majority of people using the same particular model of home ... *cough-cough* Winchester, it's harder to look unique but it's certainly possible even if your neighbor has the same model and even the same paint color. It can and will look different depending on what you do with your yard and those little details you can add to the exterior of your home. Heck if someone copied my look, I'd just take it as a challenge or a shopping opportunity. I don't keep the same house look for longer than a month anyway.  

Edited July 22, 2019 by Blush Bravin

[Luna Bliss]

1 hour ago, Kiera Clutterbuck said:

I'm only saying I DO understand those who would wish another would not copy them completely. Sharing is great, to a point. 

Well Kiera I see the OP as making an impassioned call to the artists of Bellisseria, asking them to "be original". Is he perhaps a budding artist? Attempting to find 'the new' (what one hasn't seen or been able to achieve before)  is very important to most creators. In the beginning I've seen new creators struggle by comparing themselves to other people in an attempt to judge if what they're doing looks good or stands out. But eventually one gets to the point (hopefully) where one mainly does self-comparisons in order to grow, striving to learn new things and to make each creation unique compared to what was accomplished before.
So, again, I see his post as a call to creators as much as a judgement of those who don't make any attempt to be original. Could be, too, that he doesn't understand that budding artists generally copy/imitate before they attempt to strike out on their own.

[GinaFreumann]

57 minutes ago, Kiera Clutterbuck said:

. What would you do if a friend imitated how you dressed, and I mean down to the exact same piece of clothing and hairstyle. What if they showed up for public events you both attended looking just like you when they knew in advance what you planned to wear. My reaction would be a desire to get them to think more for themselves, learn to be their own person more, and not copy others. 

 

Single White Female? 🤣

 

But on an aside, to answer the OP, what about those of us (thousands) who just aren't creative but love beautiful things?  Should we just not furnish? lol  I'm not afraid to admit to "mediocrity" in decorating, my talents are in different areas.  Why are the add-ons for sale?  Because the creators intend for people to buy them-I have & intend to use them, I love them & many thanks to those who make them available. 😙  I sympathize with her/his discomfort tho, hope all the comments help to see it in a different light.

[Elora Lunasea]

1 hour ago, kiramanell said:

 

I think I would forfeit that game with you right here and now.  You and Marianne are 'walking marketplaces', remember? Me? All my stuff would likely fit inside a single, small designer bag.  Pray that I am never stupid enough to enter into such contest with you, cuz I'd lose badly. 😁

Yea I have a feeling Marianne and I could open a second hand mall between the two of us 😊

[LyricalBookworm]

We have a pool in our backyard a few of my neighbors have gotten too and I don't blame them! It was a good price. Did they first see it in our backyard? I have no idea and really don't care. I'm not paranoid to give it much thought. If someone finds something useful that I have out in homes or on my person, then I'm happy to be of help.

Not that anyone would go to the trouble of copying me, but I wouldn't mind if they did. I had to make that clear. 😅

[karynmaria]

Not everyone has the knack for decorating.  For some they want to, but have no idea where to start and so they will copy someone else.   And I am sure there are quite a few people that are getting these new homes and have never had to worry  about decorating and are drawing a blank.  It can be hard to decorate if you have no artistic talent like me.   I am not the greatest at it, but I enjoy it even though some stuff might turn out crappy.   Have I copied ideas I have seen?  yup, I have.  If I have the same kitchen or furniture that someone has and I see a look I like, I will try to set it up basic like they did.  That just gives me a starting point and from there I can take things out, move things,  add things, change colors etc.  I know for me I need a starting point and I am so not embarrassed to say:  hey man I have copied people!

All these add-ons people come up with I really admire and envy them.  There is no way I could come up with these porches, rooms, etc.  I see them in my head but I can't execute.

If someone copies your set up almost exact or pretty close, then consider it a compliment.  Out of ALL the homes or pictures they saw or looked at, at the end of the day yours to them was the best!

Edited July 21, 2019 by karynmaria

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

I always scratch my head when someone starts a thread like this and doesn't return to it. Makes you wonder what the purpose was...

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Well Kiera I see the OP as making an impassioned call to the artists of Bellisseria, asking them to "be original". Is he perhaps a budding artist? Attempting to find 'the new' (what one hasn't seen or been able to achieve before)  is very important to most creators. In the beginning I've seen new creators struggle by comparing themselves to other people in an attempt to judge if what they're doing looks good or stands out. But eventually one gets to the point (hopefully) where one mainly does self-comparisons in order to grow, striving to learn new things and to make each creation unique compared to what was accomplished before.
So, again, I see his post as a call to creators as much as a judgement of those who don't make any attempt to be original. Could be, too, that he doesn't understand that budding artists generally copy/imitate before they attempt to strike out on their own.

The only thing the OP sells in his store is Gachas. 

After visiting his houseboat and looking around, the only thing I saw was someone a few houseboats down has the same kitchen, but it is not arranged the same or even in the same area of the houseboat.  I can't find anyone else nearby that looks to be using any other items that he has.  It is possible that the OP has changed a lot since he posted and thus that is why we don't see anything else that appears to be copying him.