There doesn’t seem to be a way to criticize people for “recycling” content.
YouTube channels just trying to exploit the algorithm……video game sequels that change hardly anything……news articles that practically steal from somebody else……tracing somebody else’s art…..releasing your own archive of content and branding it as something new and special…it’s kind of gross, right?
But people rarely resist the chance to plant those lazy seeds and watch them grow. What keeps them from doing it?
Why not compare it to the feelings you get when emulating video games? Let’s just use the most benevolent version of piracy as an example. Running a Nintendo 64 game on your computer that you can barely even buy anymore!
When you get that shit up and running, it feels kind of magical. Getting something for nothing. Accessing it quick and easy. Doing it with nobody even knowing you are!
It’s stealthy, it’s peaceful, it’s chill. What’s also chill is not using as much effort as you once did to make something awesome happen.
But not totally chill, eh? It’s spicy, too. It’s still kind of off. But it isn’t. Oh yeah, that’s the feeling that makes you human.
It makes you a lot like a shoplifter. That serene mindfuck of not having to try too hard. When the world wants so much more out of you. And you use just the right amount of effort at the right time to take it.
I’m sure bank robbers get the same butterflies in their stomach.
That feeling that everyone doesn’t really disagree with you when you take something by force.
And all those white collar criminals as well likely feel the same.
I would rather we all deal with the need to steal by only stealing unplayable software,
and that we’d rather reuse our own creative material just enough to help make its mark.
Only then will we be as chill
as we think we definitely have been.
Only when you fall out of love
with that warm and wonderful feeling
of lightly crossing boundaries,
will you be the opposite of grand larceny.
The purity behind the contemptible is the only thing we need to keep in check.
The Found Emotion (Invoke Yourself) 