This past summer, the oddest thing happened to me. (Beside that time I woke up in the middle of Pasadena with a dead dingo in my arm and a backwards B drawn on my face). While checking my e-mail one morning, I received this letter from a guy named Mike. It read: “Hey Lynn, I read your articles every now and then, and I don’t even go to UC Davis…. Are you on Okcupid? Some 20-year-old girl named Sammi has been posting your articles as her own, and now all these guys are all about it. I stumbled across her and started reading, then dejavu settled…“
I clicked the link Mike attached to access her profile, only to learn that I needed to create an account. Begrudgingly, I became a member of Okcupid, an online dating service that lets you blog, post pictures and arrange meetings to those who are interested. I promised myself I wouldn’t sign up for these things ever again, especially after the fiasco that happened when I signed up for eHarmony (see: Pasadena incident), but then this d-bag popped up.
Sure enough, it was true. The girl was from Del Mar, username: Hella_Sammi. And since December 2007, she copied and pasted my columns verbatim as her own blog entries. What was surreal was that she didn’t even bother changing the names of the people I mentioned. So when I took a scan through, I yelled out, “You don’t have a sister named Dawn, I HAVE A SISTER NAMED DAWN!” but then I remembered – oh yeah, I was the one who wrote the fucking thing. She was choosy of course; she picked only certain columns and ran them out of order, but she didn’t have one original entry at all.
When I checked out her pictures, I couldn’t find anything substantial enough to make fun of her, despite my best efforts. She was sort of cute really, Asian, average looking, owned a few Coach bags and she ate Tiramisu on her 20th birthday (whore!) Were it not for the fact that she was stealing my hard work, I might have actually been friends with her. But then again, probably not. I’m just saying all these things so I look a little nicer but what’s the point? I’m the O.G., come on!
If you’re wondering why I’m so bothered by it, it’s not all about this “copying” spiel. I don’t think that I have such a great personality that it’s worthy of emulating or that my articles are so the shit that each should come with its own lawyer. It’s just that these columns are mine. I live through them and I get paid the big bucks to write them. Even though these columns don’t read like Hemingway and they’re not going to win a Pulitzer any time soon, they’re my thoughts and they’re mine. Mine, I say!
Alright, I’ve been lying to you a little bit. Artistic property is actually not the thing that bothered me the most about this whole Hella_Sammi debacle (but doesn’t it sound so admirable?) My actual main reason is just too embarrassing. But then again, I think I’ve pretty much maxed out all my self-dignity lately, so here it goes.
The real reason I was so pissed was because, well … she was actually getting dates! Guys were hitting her site and commenting on how pretty, funny and quirky she was and a bunch more were asking her out for drinks because they always wanted to “meet someone who can talk about these kinds of things so candidly,” and also because she was just so gosh-darn cute. She was using my personality to snag guys and she was actually pulling it off! I can’t even pull off my own personality and you’re telling me that some girl with the crazies in Del Mar is getting dates left and right?! Damnit. I suck at life.
In the end, what I thought was going to be a huge problem surprisingly wasn’t. After a few messages to the right people and, of course, messaging the bejeezus out of her hinting that she was out of line (OK, I called her a c*********, sue me), she disappeared. Doesn’t matter anyway, she’s probably just going off on another date and I’m just here alone, writing this friggin‘ thing!
LYNN LA is wondering what she’ll have for dinner tonight … and also who the new President of the United States/Leader of the Free World will be. She supposes the latter is a little more important. To convince her that no, her dinner is still more important, email her at ldla@ucdavis.edu.
