The Chive Rips Off Idea From Photographer

August 11, 2010 Author Adam Singer In links, quick bits

Not everything is new (or even true) on the Internet, we know this.  Yet still, yesterday TheChive.com – a site which if you clicked around you’d realize was not the most trustworthy – ran a story that suckered the whole internet.  A few people called it out for being fake initially, but even less picked up on the fact that the concept behind it (a stream of pictures with someone holding a white board) was not even an original idea.

They ripped it off for pageviews (and The Chive version was actually less creative than the original).  See the following post from Andrew McDonald for the original use of a whiteboard to tell a story in pictures.  That was created back in December, 2009.

Original idea from creative photographer:

Ripoff (and poor over-acting) at The Chive

The Chive clearly stole the idea for their fake story and didn’t even bother to credit (or at least give a nod to Andrew, saying he had this idea first, looks like this girl “Jenny” copied him).

The site is benefiting in a big way from this story – it’s been spreading like wildfire across the social web, and according to the Valleywag story linked in the first graph, national TV shows want Jenny to appear.  And I’m sure many will herald The Chive for their creative concept.  However, as nearly all bloggers and content creators will attest, it is frustrating to be ripped off and not even receive credit.

Let’s hope the media start to call this out in their stories when referencing The Chive.