After a couple of rather annoying discoveries, the Selfish Seamstress has come to a rather rash conclusion.  There are two kinds of people on the internet: 1) my dear, wonderful readers and 2) idiots.

Okay, I realize that my logic here is flawed and that there are probably a couple of non-idiot internet users besides you guys, but DAMN if there aren’t some serious idiots out there.

For example, dear reader Polly (NOT an idiot, instead rather awesome) alerted me to this:

That’s right- someone’s trying to sell my pattern for the Coffee Date Dress on eBay! For £7.50! Good job, eBay user lorriange, with your two negative feedbacks as a seller in the past 6 months, way to do your own work. I bet you tried to cheat off of other kids’ math tests when you were little because it was easier than learning how to add and subtract for yourself. Sorry to see that no one bid on your pathetic little auction. You know why?  Because people who sew know that it’s available for FREE ON THE INTERNET. If an idiot like you could find it, so can anyone else, duh. (Also, possibly because the pattern is not all that interesting.)

Here’s the description the seller provides with the auction:

“BUST 32-42 MULTI SIZE SEWING PATTERN.   ELEGANT DESIGNER SHIFT DRESS. AVAILABLE READY PRINTED ON A4 PAPER READY TO TAPE AND CUT OR SAVED ON CD FOR YOU TO USE OVER AND OVER.”

Ugh. first of all, it’s SIZE 32-42, not BUST 32-42. Also, it’s not a shift dress, it’s a fitted bodice with an A-line skirt. And as for printing it or saving it to CD, I’m going to guess that lazyass lorriange probably just sends you a link to where you can download it from me because she can’t be bothered.

Now one idiot on the internet could be an isolated incident, but two idiots is certainly indicative of an epidemic. Awesome reader Hussain pointed out that a photo of me in my bubble wrap tutu was used to illustrate a Wikihow article on how to make a bubble wrap tutu!

For serious?  I mean, it’s a Wikihow article, for jeeb’s sake. Why would you even bother to put together a tutorial on doing something if you’re not actually going to do it and use your own photographs of it?? This is like inventing a cookie recipe, posting it on the web, and then showing a photo of a package of Chips Ahoy! next to it. IDIOTS.

Also, seriously, if you want to make a decent bubble wrap tutu, don’t use the Wikihow article. They actually tell you to use glue on the bubble wrap. Glue! I mean, use the tutorial if you want your tutu to fall apart within minutes. Or if you want it to look like this (the finished project they show at the end of the step-by-step instructions- look, it’s exactly like mine! No wonder they used my picture as the title image!):

Oh, and if you want, you can also make an accompanying “wand”:

Niiiiiiice. It’s sheer crafting genius, like those intricately painted Ukrainian Easter eggs, or rose point lacemaking. Nice to see a modern revival of the lost art of “putting a wad of garbage on top of a stick.”

In all seriousness though, sigh. Sometimes it makes me want to stop putting my stuff out there, knowing that other people who can’t be bothered to do their own work are just going to claim my creative efforts as their own ideas, their own property, their own stuff to sell, their own stuff to show off. I’m not talking about laws and legality and intellectual property – for those of you who have your mouse pointer poised on the “Leave a Comment” link, ready to point out that no laws have been broken- I know. And yes, I am fully aware of what one opens oneself up to by putting things on the internet.  It doesn’t make it less annoying to discover yourself front and center on some random eBay auction and see your precious hard work appropriated, diluted, and misrepresented.

So there you have it- proof that my readers (thank you, Polly and Hussain!) are smart and wonderful, and that everyone else on the internet is an idiot. Though I suppose if they’re downloading my patterns to sell and copying my pictures to illustrate their own sad little tutorials, they’d have to have been visiting my blog also… hrmmm. I’m going to need to come up with a new theory to explain this then. Until then, how about you?  Any uncreative asshats exploited your creativity lately?  Do tell!

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