Ok it is serious time, guys. I might offend some people with this post and if I offend you, I am sorry but only a little because I think maybe if you are one of these people you should be offended in a way because it might mean you are realizing that this is not cool. That being said, ok here is the deal:
Let it be known: I freakin’ love weheartit.com. I do. I have an account there, I have the little thingy in my Firefox and I heart stuff with it sometimes. So that’s cool. I think it’s a pretty rad way of keeping track of inspiration and also exploring to see other cool things.
What is not cool, in my opinion, is when you primarily use photos from weheartit.com in your blog posts. Why? Because it’s misleading. Yeah, it’s a great photograph but you did not take it. And I do not care if you are linking back, I still think it is weak.
Occasionally I post pictures that are not my own, but I try to do this only in the context of “Hey look at this awesome thing I found, this person made it, go look at their blog because they are awesome!”
I think part of being a good blogger is creating your own content, and that includes learning how to use your digital camera. I don’t take mindblowing photographs, but at least they are my own.
It is really annoying to me when I read a post that is all “Oh hey I went to the beach today” and there are photos of someone on the beach and I’m like wow that is a nice photo and then I realize that it was taken from weheartit.com or wherever else.
If you are writing about how much you love to create, why don’t you try actually CREATING. I can understand using it occasionally if you are talking about inspiration but to use it as a substitute for creating your own content is weaksauce.
This is how it makes me feel:
That is all.
I feel this video will become the stuff of legend. It randomly popped up on the tv in the lunchroom today and I cracked up.
On topic though, I fully agree. And as a photographer (ok kind of) I would feel pretty ripped off if someone was using my photos and not linking to my blog or flickr, or at least mentioning my name or where they found the picture. It’s just RUDE. And dishonest.
[Reply]
Tams Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 12:48 pm
usually they at least link back to weheartit, but the problem with that is sometimes it doesn’t link back to the original person who created/took the photo. i dunno. i don’t mind when people do it occasionally if they really need to illustrate something but i just think it’s kinda cheap when it is the majority of their images.
[Reply]
I agree, I find it way more interesting when I see original photos from people instead of ones I know they did not take.
[Reply]
Posting other people’s stuff on your blog is the Internet equivalent of scrapbooking. Sometimes it is actually good because people can create collections of images and videos with overarching themes. It’s highly curated. Other people, though, just post a bunch of pictures they found on flickr. I don’t bother reading them.
[Reply]