![\"IMG_8556\"](\"https:\/\/howtokauai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_8556.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAs the online space continued to evolved and easier, quicker, publishing platforms like tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram garnered a\u00a0larger audience\u00a0a second boom arrived that was arguably bigger than the first.<\/p>\n
Prior to these \u2018micro blogging\u2019 platforms, creating an online space took effort, not a tremendous amount, but effort all the same. Those initial first steps\u00a0helped separate those with drive from those without.\u00a0When that barrier was reduced to a few phone taps the floodgates opened and the market became quickly over saturated. Unfortunately unlike the previous boom, this one had a negative effect on the quality of content produced.<\/p>\n
Many of these new micro bloggers realized that while creating an online space was now easy, keeping it filled with original content was not. So to avoid large lapses of inactivity, often caused by their own lack of creativity, they re-posted the work of others. Noticing this content was doing better than their own they continued to \u2018borrow\u2019 from the more talented instead of honing their craft.<\/p>\n
Almost inexplicably this became the go-to model for people to follow. In short Timmy Vape noticed Stevey Swag amassed 10,000 likes in a month without ever picking up a camera and followed suit, hoping to do the same.<\/p>\n
Now don\u2019t get me wrong, there\u2019s nothing wrong with a well curated aggregate website\/social media space made up of a combination of original and shared content \u2013like say\u00a0one that say compiles the best build threads the Internet<\/a> has to offer, one\u00a0that combs the internet for interesting projects up for sale<\/a>, or one composed of unique vehicles from Japan and abroad<\/a>\u2014 but sadly today these sites are becoming fewer and fewer. Instead of pages providing technical info, opinions, insights and related content when original content is unavailable we are left with regurgitation pages\u00a0that can hardly be bothered to credit the photographer whose work they\u2019ve taken advantage of.<\/p>\n These talentless hacks assume they can simply add \u201ctag the owner and photographer\u201d to their profile in order to clear themselves from any wrongdoing. Joey Lee from The Chronicles <\/a>talked about this practice in 2014<\/a> and yet it still runs rampant.<\/p>\n Worse still some established online outlets saw this method as a cheaper way to engage their audiences (why hire a photographer when borrowed content does just as well) and began devolving into similar models. As around the web sections grew in popularity and some dotcoms were abandoned all together, \u2018features\u2019 went from multi-page print spreads, to 800 word blog posts, to fifteen word sentences and a slew of hashtags in a few short years.<\/p>\n Industry marketers also\u00a0took note and leveraged\u00a0these pages as cheap\u00a0way to get their product seen by a large audience (even if they factored in a fake follower number of around 25%) and provided page owners with product to promote, use, and give away. Sometimes even cutting them a check for not so subtle advertisement posts.<\/p>\n New\u00a0photographers hoping for a fast lane to exposure, contributed to these outlets directly only to quickly learn that there was very little, if any, return in doing so. In our lust for uninterrupted streams of content and instant gratification, we accepted these baseless pages and their underhanded tactics as the new normal, creating a race to the bottom in the process.<\/p>\n We have birthed\u00a0a culture where the creators who are out there going to the events, putting in work, and generating content are second fiddle to those sharing it. By holding the content stealers in higher regard than the creators, and often criticizing the content creators publicly when they ask for credit, we are effectively pushing our most talented right out of the industry.<\/p>\n<\/a>