I scrolled through pages and pages of pictures before I found the perfect one – I added it carefully to the post, centered it to match the alignment of the rest of the blog, turned off the borders, and linked the source. Then I quickly read through the post again…. No typos, no sub-verb disagreements, at least none that I could see. I checked the preview one last time and added SEO tags before clicking on “publish”.
Then I meticulously shared a screenshot on Instagram with all the relevant tags, shared the post on my blog’s Facebook page and my own personal page, and fired out a Tweet. Going through the motions, it was SOP for all my blog posts.
It was just another post, wasn’t it? Posted at a particularly uninspired moment to simply keep my blog stats up. But social media works in mysterious ways… so whaddaya know! It became my very first post to go viral!! 300 shares in less than six hours, that’s got to be a record of sorts, no? My mind was truly blown.
I replied to comments and thanked readers for the generous love they showered upon my post. But with each new like and each new comment, my heart beat painfully fast. I was terrified – what if someone finds the original article!
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P.S: True story, broskies. Not me (I'd rather go blind:/). But two of my ex-favorite bloggers (as if one wasn't enough to break my heart). If there is anything I detest right down to the last letter, it is plagiarism. How dare you copy someone's hard work and pass it off as your own? And all for just a couple of extra numbers? How could you, being an artist yourself? No wait, you are no artist, you lack the talent to be one. Isn't that why you copy?
