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Title:	Originality
Author:	Toam	Posted: 03-04-2007
If you have read my rant about things that piss me off you will know that one thing I hate is when people try to be “random” but what they say is just predictable recycled garbage. I am happy to know that there is an xkcd comic which is very similar to this. I am happy basically the author is an intelligent guy and so am I and it confirms my belief that intelligence and not being shit are fairly closely linked. Although I know that this is not a guarantee as there are people in my physics lectures that I fucking hate and they have to be at least reasonably intelligent to actually be there, however this is somewhat tangential. The thing that annoys me the most about these people being pseudo-random, and this is [i]especially[/i] true when they get praised for it, is that they are not being original or creative in any way whatsoever. Someone getting credit for someone else’s efforts is something that I find incredibly frustrating. So if you are being pseudo-random by saying something that you have taken, or adapted, from a TV show or similar and saying it all the time there is a good chance that I hate you. Quoting amusing things from TV shows/movies is acceptable at times, however, but movie quoting etiquette is another rant entirely. I have recently become aware of another thing that I hate - recycling nicknames. I should be more specific and say non-generic nicknames. Things like “knackers” are generic nicknames. Calling someone with red hair “bluey” is a generic nickname, adapting a persons name in an obvious way is a generic nickname. Even then the amount of people who are consistently known by a specific generic nickname in a certain circle (social group, local area – these sorts of things) should be kept to a minimum. What triggered this rant was when I was on myspace today (yes, yes – I know). There was a person from very near where I am from and I saw that one of their pictures had a caption saying “Me and Pumba”. I looked at this photo and discovered that this “Pumba” character was indeed not the guy that I know, who also grew up in this area and even went to the same school, but some generic idiotic looking fellow. Now, the “Pumba” that I know (who is now a rapper, quite a good one if I do say so my self – and I do, and part of the band Tranquil Artillery) got his nickname in primary school because he was kind of fat and it was around the time the original lion king movie came out. Kids being kids he somehow came to possess this nickname. Fair enough. I know that this is not the most specific nickname ever and it is somewhat generic as it was a play on his appearance, which is similar to a play on a persons name in the sense that it can be adapted to other people who share that appearance in the same way a name-based nickname can be adapted to other people who have that name, however it is more specific because of the timing. The kids in question are a few years younger than me although they would be familiar with this nickname it wouldn’t have been given until later on, after kids at the same school had been well aware of Pumba (the one that I know) and his nickname and then “adapted” (read: stolen) because they are so unoriginal and void of creativity that they had to do this. Still, this alone isn’t really reason enough for me to write this rant. What this event did, though, was remind me of a time a few years ago when I discovered that my own nickname had been stolen. Now as some may be aware I have had the nickname “Tommy 2 Stroke” since about grade 4. This nickname came about from a time when a friend of mine and I were riding out motorbikes and we ran mine (Honda Z50 – 4 stroke bike) on 2 stroke fuel and was then adapted to my name (ie: Tom) and thus the name was born. When I first got the internet and I was signing up for my very first hotmail account I used this name and registered the email address “tommy_2_stroke@hotmail.com” . I used the underscores because it didn’t seem right to squash it all together as one word. A few years down the track (and I don’t remember when or how) it came to my attention that someone had the email address tommy2stroke@hotmail.com. I’m not sure how many others are out there but I believe that email exists in several forms with numbers after it. The part that annoys me the most is the fact that this nickname was very specific in the sense that is was based on that actual event. The way I see it is that the chances of someone else with my name going through that exact scenario (or even another one where that nickname might be appropriate – but lets not elaborate) is pretty fucking small. Basically this is a case of plagiarism and [i]I[/i] am the victim!
300 people have stolen my nickname!