Is Substack enabling plagiarism?
The weak search feature on Substack makes it a playground for plagiarists
The account
is a plagiarist. Plain and simple. Despite what it may look like, I don’t go around Substack looking for bad actors, but when something smells fishy I don’t let it go.This all started a couple days ago when I was scrolling the feed here on Substack and I came across this note.
Read the article. It is heartfelt and real, unlike
the #1 New Best Plagiarist.
Well, I’m sorry to report, I found #2 New Best Plagiarist and I suspect there are many, many more lurking on Substack.
Keep it Cute is a rip-off artist
My hackles were up after reading that first note from Katie. So when I came across
’s most recent note:which looked exactly like something she had restacked just days earlier:
I thought I should say something. Politely. Giving her the benefit of the doubt:
Anna then followed up with her own direct response:
You can see Anna also gives a big heaping dose of benefit of the doubt. I sent a DM to
and I told her I would never have known those were her words had not restacked Anna’s original note. We both found it odd and laughed it off expecting a quick apology and for the note to get proper accreditation.Days have gone by and
has not responded to my comment or Anna’s, which I found strange given that she is on Substack posting almost everyday. No big deal I thought, but I decided to check her out a bit more. I Googled another one of her posts. It was like picking up a rock and finding a slimy mountain of bottom feeders.
Here’s what I found and it’s depressing
has almost 5k subscribers for her deep thoughts and life hacks. The shit you just can’t get anywhere else, the things she tells herself late at night to make sense of it all. I scrolled down to the first, substantive post on ’s feed, past the “If you have less than a 100 subscribers” post and found this: A nice sentiment, and a testament to empathy that we all should think about. Problem is, those aren’t her words. I plopped the entire paragraph into Google and found this:
This quote is bouncing around the internet like a coked up pinball. Thankfully, the first Google result was to MadelineArt’s Facebook and she, unlike almost everyone I found stealing other people’s words, has integrity and gave an attribution to someone here on Substack. She even made a nice graphic to go behind the slightly tweaked quote:
Her attribution to
was right below this post, three weeks ago on July 8.
Same exact language as in
’s note, same punctuation, same lack of capital letters, all the same, and it was posted weeks ago. In fact, ’s words have struck a chord for a number of plagiarists around the internet. Bless their hearts:
My “favorite” may be mgtravelntours on Instagram who you can see ripped off MadelineArt’s contribution to the quote, the picture behind the words. Bravo mgtravelntours, you take the plagiarist award for best copy of a copy. The Plemmy? The Ploscar? The Platony?
In my Googling frenzy I came across this posted on Medium on July 29, that had this quote:
Hold the phone. I’ve seen that already. Unfortunately,
is apparently the go-to content creator on what maturity means, emphasized italics and everything (seriously Jennifer, that’s hall of fame level plagiarism right there)OK, fine. So, Medium is not exempt from this problem. Maybe this is just the cost of doing business if your business is ripping open your chest and pouring out your soul onto the page.
Again the plagiarists were all over the place, but at least this one didn’t copy the emphasis:
But we are here on Substack, so let’s focus on Substack. You’ll note that I only found
’s posts from chasing down Google rabbit holes. Fine, Google is having trouble cataloging Substack notes and articles. But what happens when you use the Substack search bar to see if this language has been posted here already? I’m glad you asked.Substack search sucks
The “top” results when I searched Substack didn’t show me anything:
So, then I clicked on the Notes tab for the search and these popped up:
There’s
right at the top and scrolling down the next exact match was from a day ago (July 29), again no attribution. Where is ’s post in the search results? You really do ask the best questions. He is the Twenty-fifth search result, right there behind ’s behind the scene look at life in Paris (you go girl! I’m jealous):
I’m no software engineer, but it looks like “behind the scenes” was a big result in a lot of the twenty-four results that came before
’s post. Let that sink in.He was twenty-freaking-fifth in the search result, behind two plagiarists who’d copied him verbatim.
Do better Substack. I love ya but this is a problem.
Plagiarists can rest assured that it would take some pathological level obsession to turn up their theft using the Substack search. That is like giving them a big fat green light.
But wait, there’s more.
Round 3 same ole story
Let’s get back to our leading lady,
. Her next substantive post was on July 25th:With Substack’s search sucking donkey balls I went right back to Google and found this:
Are you kidding me!
I got to work. I was determined to find who originated this thought. The top result was from Threads from rishapoet on July 18th.
Earlier than
but not the first, so just another copy cat. The next Google result was from Tumblr, posted ten years ago:
Tumblr shows that this was reblogged from “highschoolhottie” who reblogged it from “Piiseas” who reblogged it from “televisedradio” who reblogged it from “palmist-blog” who reblogged it from “nectarinies” who wrote these lines in August of 2014. Back then Sarah (nectarinies) got over 230k likes and reblogs from these words. Suck on that
. I wonder if Sarah is still writing. I hope she is.
These are beautiful words, but like chum in the water, the plagiarists have been living off of Sarah’s words for years it seems.
Rebecca here resurrected Sarah’s words in 2022 and seemed to be attributing “LostinCape-Town” for the words. Which was an account on Tumblr, where they undoubtedly got the quote from Sarah.
But this was then found in 2022 by an Instagram account which now has 267k followers:
Since then it has rattled around Facebook starting just a month ago, in a group called “We Love Leo” because who doesn’t love a Leo (happy birthday Liz! It’s not her birthday but Leo’s love their birthdays and I’m just happy she’s read this far into the article)
And maybe this is where
saw it. Are you, by any chance, a Leo ?Just two more, I couldn’t help myself.
Keep it Cute on boredom and iced coffee
woke up bright and early on July 25. Pen in hand and ready to meet the day. First a cup of coffee and then to the keyboard. But not to write. No, no, no. Don’t be ridiculous. Why would she bother with that? She turned to the internet for her “inspiration.”Wow. Just wow. How do you do it
? And at 6:30 in the AM no less. You are a wonder. A few hours after dropping that gem, at 11:34 this was posted:Then two minutes later at 11:36 we got the “attracted to intelligence” post (because naturally opposites attract for
)Truly prolific. OK, I’m giving
shit. Maybe she has her pearls of wisdom squirrelled away on some dusty tome, or maybe she prefers a note on her phone, or a Word document chalk full of deep thoughts. Or maybe …
And don’t forget about being bored and how important that is to
:
The post on LinkedIn two weeks ago had an attribution to someone here at Substack but I can’t figure out who. While looking I found some more plagiarists here:
These two accounts are no less unethical just because they got almost no engagement with their stolen words.
When you click on the only link on
’s page it takes you here, in case you needed some cutegirly merch
She’s left no other digital fingerprint. The Instagram link on this page is dead. I’m saying “she” here but really I wonder if this account isn’t a bot or a team of people farming the internet for quotable material. Her website was built on this platform, which interestingly has an AI domain.
I’m sure if I kept going through all of
’s posts I would find that most were plagiarized. She has one posted article from a month ago, discussing her merch, the rest of her presence on Substack has been on Notes.
So, what do we do about this? Other than put in our order for a pair of Kawaii Cat Paw Mittens Fingerless Gloves (is it wrong that I kind of want these … I mean not from her but from somewhere) and curl up in a corner to drink an iced coffee and be bored.
The bottom line
I don’t have an answer for you. As a first step I would say that the Substack team needs to work on the searching algorithm so it is easy to check whether someone here on Substack is getting their original work stolen by one of these meme-eograph machines. I realize that Substack can’t moderate the content here but they can at least make it easier for us to do so.
Like I said earlier, maybe this is just the cost of doing business for writers these days. If OpenAI and Anthropic aren’t stealing your copyrighted material to train their generative AI models, rest assured if you come up with something great, that touches people, you may have one of these thieves repurposing your words for their clicks.
For my part, whenever I see this I’m going to scream it from the rooftops. I’m going to report these accounts and I’m going to do everything I can to protect this community of creatives. It reminds me why I first was passionate about intellectual property law.
If you see something that looks stolen report it. If you are following or subscribed to
drop her and report her. She been lying to you.I’d like to give
the last word here, I couldn’t have said it any better. She is truly a magnificent writer, researcher, and human.
If you enjoyed this article, take a look at another piece I posted about a scam editor here on Substack.
Author’s note
The cover image for this article is my original artwork. Now I’m going to get back to writing my novel!
Small update, Jennifer Stacy (https://medium.com/p/fcf5df7fc9f1) on Medium blocked me and deleted my polite comment that she should properly cite where she got her post on maturity. The irony is strong with that one
This all makes me fearful. But I’d rather know than not. I bet it took a ton of time and effort to put this all together—thank you for that.