When I'm not in the mood to do any real work I often just go to HubPages' Questions/Answers section or else their community forums. Sometimes I get ideas for writing a little something there. Earlier, I ran into the title question of this post. When I started to write and realized how long my reply was going to be I decided to turn it into a blog post instead. (It's not as if I have all kinds of inspiration and new ideas for posts these days.)
As I wrote I recalled that quite awhile back I wrote a poem, "Emulating". I wasn't sure I even had the poem on the computer I'm using, but I found it (so obviously, I did). I have no idea who the person is who asked the question. It appears pretty clear that English is not their first language. (Makes no difference to me. It was an idea for something to write about.)
In any case, this post is what I didn't post on that forum question. I'm going to post the almost forgotten poem I wrote in a follow-up post.
(There was a cute picture with the person's question, but I suspect copyright could be an issue with that particular picture.)
I'm not sure people who may appear to be "copying" someone else are actually doing that. In fairness, there are some things that many people find appealing, so if it looks like some people are copying others it's sometimes just that many people like the same thing. An example might be that so many people put out a pumpkin and flowers in the Fall. Nobody's copying. It's just that pumpkins with flowers are liked by so many people.
Of course, there's the thing that children mimic those they admire for some reason; so some non-children who "copy" just want to be like the other person. There's the saying that imitation is flattery.
I think where "copying" can get obnoxious is, for example, when there's a very popular television show on one channel. Maybe it's unique. And then "all" the other channels try to come up with their own version of the same kind of show. There's no law that says one channel shouldn't try to compete with the first one that came up with the new and different show; but people I know all tend to say the same kind of thing about the channel that so obviously copies that first, unique, successful, show; and that is, "Have they no pride?". Of course, it's business. It's not just copying but competing. They don't care about a personal trait like pride. All they try to do is get ratings with their "copy show".
I don't know.... I don't really think too many people (grown-ups, anyway) are all that consumed with "copying" (or "copying with competing") in their lives as individuals. I know some people are more "competing-minded" as individuals than others, but I don't think they so much copy others as try to "out-do" them in some way (or in as many ways as they think they can come up with).
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