To Those Who Stole My “9 Reasons Why City Harvest Church Was the Devil To Me” Article

When my post 9 Reasons Why City Harvest Church Was the Devil To Me went viral, I didn’t expect it.

To say the least, I just went “What the f**k happened?” I remember I was having another typically busy day at work, so didn’t bother much with personal matters during those hours. Then next thing I knew a colleague went, “WOMAN! You’re featured on Mothership!!!”

And I still went, “Huh? For what?”

Many things happened during that time. I received endless emails, comments, messages… And I somehow wanted to reply every single one that actually spent time to share their stories. It was really tiring. I actually stayed up till about 4AM for a whole week just reading and replying readers – and I didn’t mind at all. I was happy that my story had touched so many.

Of course I received flak, but it was minimal. And didn’t really ruffle up my tail. Honestly for people to get so defensive and call me ‘Judas’, ‘Satan’… Kind of just proves my point. It was more amusing and affirming to me more than insulting or hurting. #sorrynotsorry

However the thing that really got under my skin was other sites blatantly stealing my content with just a pathetic line that goes ‘Taken from: http://www.gerashen.com’.

Without even having the f**king courtesy of asking for my permission or dropping an “FYI” note.

Creative people will understand; our work is like our baby. And when it’s good, others just grab it and parade it around and take all the credit.

I tried very hard to tell myself, “It’s okay. The important thing is that people hear my story and get touched by it.” But I won’t deny it… It irks me to the core when they just copy everything I wrote fucking wholesale! And “credit” me by just saying, “Oh yea, we got it from here btw.”

THAT’S NOT HOW YOUR CONTENT SITE SHOULD WORK!!!

If I might say, Mothership handled it the best out of all. They only took excerpts of my content and wrote their own – then linking up the original article to be from my site.

Which is the right thing to do!

Most of my friends just told me, “Aiya, they’re like doing free PR work for you.”

Honestly, they’re not. They just took what works, and didn’t care who did the work. I really despise this sort of nonsense. In other words, I am the one doing free work for them.

I was really hurt for a while, but I also wanted people who were affected negatively by City Harvest to know they’re not alone.

But it still pisses me off… And I just have to get it off my chest.

If you’re so great at creating good content, create it yourself. If you need to take it from people:

1. Don’t bother acting like you’re in the content line
2. Ask for permission and do it like how Mothership does it

The only sound piece of encouragement I got from a friend was, “If your post wasn’t good, no one would bother stealing it. So it’s really that good.”

I’m sorry if I sound selfish or like some attention-loving whore. But I wrote that article. I went through those experiences. I wept, I suffered major insecurities, I literally spent all my money then… And as usual, I write. That’s what I do. I write.

And some other unoriginal idiots stole my baby from me. And they just act like they fucking did it all. It’s like you put all your hard work in this project – and everyone loved it! But then your colleague/classmate shouted (even louder than you), “I DID IT!!! AWESOME RIGHT?? Oh, btw she did it actually. BUT COME TO ME AND CHECK IT OUT!!!!!”

Of course I’m upset. Who wouldn’t be!

Through my City Harvest post that reveals monsters I’ve met back then, it revealed newer monsters to me. It’s because of monsters like this that quality content are becoming endangered – because writers simply don’t want to write anymore, because their creations just stolen from them shamelessly.

It irks me so much.

But I want to believe that it’s a good way to spread my story to more people who need to hear it. Because I knew that if it were me at that time, it would’ve consoled me immensely if I knew I wasn’t the only one.

 

So yes, I must tell myself to not care about those content-thieves and focus on the good it’s bringing people.

Ooommm~ Mutherfuckersommm~ Dontcareaboutsuchwankersommm~ Letitgoommm~ Macaroonommm~

XOXO, G.