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Copycat Anonymous 22563
Are you a copycat? Have you ever stolen aspects of another girl's personality, interests or fashion sense on purpose to be more like them?
If I told anyone this in real life, they'd probably think I was bizarre, but i want to get it off my chest. To be honest most of my personality now and my likes and dislikes and interests were stolen from a girl who's blog I used to read 3-4 years ago. She wasn't anyone e-famous but I just stumbled across her and somehow I became obsessed. I cyberstalked her all over the internet and I started listening to every band she posted about, watching every movie, posting things with the same sense of humor and going over her selfies for aesthetic details every time she posted them so I could try my best to copy her style. I've never spoken to her openly but I used to send her all sorts of anon messages so I could find out things about her to better emulate them. Eventually I stopped stalking her accounts as much and lost track of her online profiles as she would change names a lot. Recently I checked back to find she was completely different now, and in my opinion much less interesting. I'm still basically a reflection of her from 4 years ago, and I'm fairly comfortable with it all still even though it sounds quite creepy when I type it out. Most people who know me now weren't really around in my life 4 years ago, and they have no idea that almost everything about me is copied from some random girl online i've never even properly spoken to. I still use some of her dead aliases as screen names (don't worry, only as nicknames on places she would never be able to see or be disturbed by if she did find me). Am I alone in this? is anyone else this creepy?
Anonymous 22575
I mean most people immitate people they think are cool to craft the persona they want for themselves. They don't usually do it to such an extreme degree and usually only do it in their teens.
I mean do you have opinions youve formed on your own or do you just decide what to like or dislike based on wether the persona you created would like it? Try and think for yourself a bit, you sound very autistic tbh.
Anonymous 22577
>>22575I have opinions, and I'm not autistic (I promise) I was already somewhat similar to this person in some regards, she was a better and more cultured version of me, with a bunch of endearing traits and so I started copycatting her. Essentially, I came across this person on my way out of my teens. I was a very awkward teenager in some respects and while I had other interests I spent a lot of my time aspiring to be a ~kawaii~ anime girl (I'm sure a lot of people here did that too) but I was never kawaii and it almost felt like a ridiculous act and I was getting too old for it not to be super cringe, so I was ready to shed by weeb skin, and then I saw her for the first time online. She was older than I am had also been a weeb in the past byt had already done the skin shedding and was basically, an ideal cool girl in terms of music taste and style so I started listening to all of her favourite records and dressing like her, I got my hair cut to match hers. I know it's skinwalking but I don't really regret it, I've been "like her" longer than she was like her, and it made me much more comfortable and happy and introduced me to more cool irl circles than when I was skinwalking as a fake anime girl. I don't really follow her tastes anymore because they've changed, and honestly I'm happy to stay as I am.
Anonymous 22578
>>22577You should try and word things differently. You still speak like your entire being is merely a persona you've crafted. Try and merge whatever identies you have into being an authentic self.
Anonymous 22579
>>22578No, it's not really a persona, because im not actively trying to keep up anything like or pretending to enjoy things that I don't, but I did look at her and her interests and think, that's cool, I want to be that, and then I was. It wasn't hard really, because if I hadn't thought it was cool and exciting already wouldn't have tried to take it.
I will admit I am creepy for doing it, for using someone else as a template, but I don't feel fake or bad or conflicted about it. An image board seems like the place to confess these kind of things
Anonymous 22584
I do the same but I take a little from more people at once and only "absorb" what I like and reject what does not interest me. My purpose is not to be /like/ them but to simply use other people as a reference to what is considered cringe, acceptable or cool. Also I know how I sound but it's something that helps me.
Anonymous 22586
>>22584I understand. I think it's like art in a way, you know how artists take little bits from eachother but (generally, hopefully) only enough that it comes across as 'inspired by' rather than copying or tracing. My art teacher used to tell me that if i wanted good ideas i should just look at someone else's work and figure out what i liked about it. I feel like you can do that with people too.
Anonymous 22590
Yes, but I'm pretty sure everyone does to a certain extent with celebrities and such.
In middle/high school used to model myself off of whoever my crush was dating at the time. Now I have more of my own personal style, but my fashion sense is dictated by what I like to call "soft streetwear" that you see a lot on instagram. I still blatantly plagiarize slang/jokes/memes/political ideologies from YouTubers or internet friends and incorporate it into my daily life but I am convinced everyone does this, I'm just self aware.
Anonymous 22594
>>22563You mentioned that she is no longer into the media (music, style, interests); as time goes on keep in mind that you are bound to exhaust these interests and overtime you may find yourself inevitably liking some things that the person you model yourself over didn't (as they didn't exist) and slowly this imitator state will be more and more unique until it has little in common and instead you will be (you).
New media (movies, style trends, music) is one of the things I say to myself that makes time worth it, not due to the aesthetic value but simply for exploring new things
Anonymous 22595
>>22594Yeah, she's very different now, my interests have expanded but they're all based on the sort of scenes she was in originally, (related bands and other things within those media genres, new music and films and books put out by the same people). Without a doubt though my weird cybercreeping on her is kind of the basis of a lot of what I've come to understand as myself.
This is cringe but i messaged her anonymously on her [insert name of anon messaging site everyones using on twitter] when i discovered her again and pointed out that she'd changed a lot and said I hoped she was doing well, she just said she always felt fake doing the stuff I now do/admired her for in the first place.
Anonymous 30214
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Honestly I kind of did something similar when I was like 14 with a deviantart artist I liked. She had been big into a band I liked but when I discovered her she had sort of moved on from that period in her life but I basically started emulating everything about her from that 'era' of her life. I used her syntax, copied her art style etc. I just obsessed over her, she's actually a pretty well known artist now and works at Cartoon Network I believe so its nice to see she did well for herself. (Pic unrelated)
Anonymous 30222
God my best friend in middle school was like that and it was interesting to observe from my perspective. She hung out with a lot of people and every few months had a phase of morphing into a person she liked or looked up to. Last time I saw her she was 19 and copying her boyfriend at the time.
She would copy everything; speech patterns, mannerisms, music tastes, opinions, political leanings, hair color, hairstyles, fashion, piercings, mental illnesses, drugs, type of alcohol the other person liked etc. She was really extreme with that and since most people that knew her didn't know everyone she hung out with except for me they didn't notice it, she always stood out as this really quirky original girl that burns through interesting music and fashion all the time. She was a damn chameleon but a really fun person to talk to beneath all of that. It's been 2 years since I've last seen her, I wonder if she grew out of that.
Anonymous 30246
I know this is selfish but I REALLY want to see this blog, OP.
Anonymous 30258
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>>30246i feel interested to.
i wish i was brave enough to inentionally craft a persona/look or try to emulate people i admire – but i'm to shy/scared to really change or do much out of the ordinary. in middle/early high school i was hot topic goth but that's not so original/risky.
Anonymous 34824
I've never done this. But I was obsessed with a male. It was jhonen Vasquez the creator of invader Zim. I Know that's cringe. But I was 16 or so and just read jthm and thought he was the only one who could understand me. I never exactly copied him but I wanted to be with him and be him so bad for many years. Never done it with a girl though. I don't entirely see problems in that behavior though. It doesn't seem harmful in anyway. I'm no longer obsessed with him but I wouldn't mind becoming obsessed with someone (literally anyone) because it gives me a reason to live.
Anonymous 34825
>>30068
I'm curious about that too.
Anonymous 34927
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No. Now, I'm a bit too old to go around copying other people's fashion sense and social media aesthetics like some childish teenager.
When I come across a nice-looking Instagram, I still fantasize about being a copycat, though. It seems like fun. Probably because I've never had a real emo, lolita, Tumblr hipster girl or whathaveyou phases and changed my appearance in a drastic way. It's "unfathomable" to me how you can swap out your whole wardrobe within a week and not feel self-conscious in front of your friends and family for looking like a different person overnight.
Anonymous 35517
>>30068>>30246>>34825Hi guys. OP here.
I feel a bit silly giving specifics. She was in to a lot of old art rock/new wave bands. Think stuff like Arcadia. She had V bangs at the time and I cut my hair into them too, she also really liked to dress like in super retro casual wear with edgy more modern embellishments (think 1980s non alternative streetwear and vintage band shirts mixed with stuff like harnesses and pentagrams). I think i just dressed really normally before, mostly I wore tshirts and skirts or anything I liked that I saw at the store.
I think I had some interests in common with her before, we both liked some of the same horror films and we both liked JJBA. But, I had never heard of most of the stuff she was in to before she mentioned it.
Did it feel hard to Be Her? Not really. I just loved so much of how she acted and what she talked about that taking elements of that really made me feel happy and comfortable. I'm still copying her from several years ago now, and people compliment me for having an "original" sense of style all the time funnily enough.
It wasn't like she had a trendy aesthetic, she didn't look like the kind of edgy or retro that's popular on instagram (then or now) and I think that's why I liked her look.
I went to link you guys to her old blog but I discovered it had been deleted! It's probably for the best. Now i'll seem like a real original.
Anonymous 35521
>>35517Wow, super interesting. Thanks for following up OP.
You can probably still find an archive of her blog here:
https://archive.org/ Anonymous 35619
I think I've been doing this in little increments since I was a young kid, usually to try and look older. These days it's not as obvious but I for sure sometimes wish that I had a definite aesthetic/style and try to copy those who do. I figured it was fairly normal
Anonymous 36273
[steals personality] this is mine
Anonymous 49364
I realised today that every job I’ve had has been inspired by someone else I knew that had it first. Some of them are pretty uncommon. I’m retraining right now for another one. I guess this makes me a bit of a copycat, though I think it’s more that I have always had trouble imaging my future self and these types of jobs never seemed to be within reach before.
Anonymous 49369
Could be a BPD thing, actually. I know armchair diagnosing can be offensive, but flimsy sense of identity like that, that is also influenced by people you admire is common with BPD.
I take unconsciously take inspiration here and there from girls (noteably a wrestler called AJ Lee - I even bought all of the same comic books and read them), and even guys I develop obsessive crushes on, but I don't full on skinwalk.
Anonymous 49370
>>49369I feel like I absorb little bits of every person I know, with some people moreso than others. No one could peg me as a skinwalker, though. For reference, I have BPD.
Anonymous 49373
I feel like I have some BPD traits but not this. A strong sense of identity is like the only thing I have going for me.
