Skip to main content

Stealing Vibe

Legal protection for someone's vibe is an interesting concept. The parties involved in this lawsuit are influencers and their vibe drives followers and income so there is likely argument to be made there. But what about regular folks who are not known or recognized as influencers? They too could have vibes that inspire plagiarism. It could be that someone's vibe is to be involved in marathons, training, running and having a community around that. Maybe they are partial to a particular style of athleisure. What if their friend or neighbor was inspired by that vibe and started to copy some or all of it. The person no longer remains quite as unique. This reminds me of a kld in school who was a few years older than me. She had a very unique sense of style that could shine through even the boring school uniform that allowed almost no opportunity for self-expression. 

B was not one to be held back by such constraints. There would be little flourishes added where possible and permissible to make her stand out from the sea of school-uniforms. Inevitably, copycats would emerge and soon there would be a scattering and more of girls who followed what B did. So she'd change things up and yet again as the followers caught on. I was a good bit younger to do any of that but was definitely well aware that B was the trend-setter and the older girls took their cues from her. Thinking back, I think B did not want people to copy her - the novelty and ingenuity was lost when they did. She always needed to stay ahead of the pack to maintain her separation from the crowds. Wherever she is now, I have no doubt B has a very unique vibe and chances are that she inspires others to do as she does - she was that kind of person, calm, self-assured and above the fray, qualities that those kids in school clearly found admirable.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...