By Meryl M
When you have an admirer at work or in school there is a sense of pride that you get, however admiration to the point where they follow and copy your every post on Instagram can become a little bit of a worry. Well if you do look at it with a positive note this can be quite flattering but when you come across something on such a level of copy perfection then it can be a little shocking at least for the first few minutes till you grasp a hold on what’s going on.
This is exactly how Lauren Bullen a travel blogger and Instagram star with her account Gypsea Lust first felt when she came across an Instagram account @diana_alex that featured a woman who travels the world just to recreate Bullen’s work.
The fact this Instagram account followed her around across the globe, in her footsteps with admiration was a definite mind-blowing discovery for Bullen although her kind nature lead her to write a post on her page in response to @diana_alex that was aptly titled as “Imitation is the best form of flattery”
It was not just about the traveling in Bullen’s footsteps
But the copy cat does more than just follow her travel destinations,
She creates exact replicas of her well thought Instagram posts
As she not only copies the exact shot location, but also
Copies her creative poses,
Includes her boyfriend in her work just like Bullen,
and even copies here creative story captions.
Bullen however had the perfect response to this sort of crazy admiration, as she stated in her post,
“I don’t promote and tag everything I wear, so that would have taken a lot of time and work, even down to the anklets and necklace, Not to mention the cost of all these outfits and accommodations don’t come at a cheap price”.
She continues by saying” A lot of what my boyfriend and I do is work with companies and brands to create imagery and promotion- this is our business and how we are able to continue to create this for everyone”
What turned our jaw the most was how she even used one of Bullen’s boyfriends clicks from their page as her own.
Even though it was kind hearted of Bullen to include some praises in her initial words, we are totally not surprised at her next words, as stealing someone else’s work is simply not acceptable.
“When a girl travels across the world recreating your exact imagery over and over again you begin to worry. And that ” Imitating someone else’s artwork and passing it on as your own is totally unacceptable”
She continues her post stating that ” I understand seeking inspiration from what I do- and I love that but this truly shocked me. Further gesturing with a kind remark “At first I thought it was all photoshopped and had to take screenshots to compare the two. They honestly did an incredible job copying our imagery, controversially insane mimics, So I congratulate them for this. But stealing someone’s art, that’s never ok” she explains as she concludes her post
The Instagram user diana_alexa after seeing this post has in turn deleted all the photographs posted and set her account to private since then.
