True Crime With Caledonian Kitty

 

Today is September the 11th, the 20th anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks which took place in the US in 2001. Today is always a difficult day for me as it is for a lot of people. My plans were to have a quiet day, to watch the memorial, light a candle and pay my respects in my own way. I still plan to do this but something is weighing heavy on my heart and I need to rant about it so that I can get it off of my chest and move on.

If you've been a reader & friend of mine (I class all of my readers as friends) for a while, you'll possibly remember a post I had written back in 2019 about a well respected true crime podcaster who was constantly having their work copied by Youtubers (you can find the post here) who were basically reaping all the views and financial gain from this man's hard work. 

Well, I was pissed off about the situation, this guy had a full time job and busted his ass researching, editing, writing, organising and putting together videos every week only for lazy chancers to come along and just copy everything he did. He was aware of it and it caused him a considerable amount of stress as it would to anyone who'd seen their hard work stolen. He almost gave up his podcast over it. Luckily his readers and others in the true crime community caught on to this pretty fast but unfortunately I'm sure there's still people out there who copy his work, being online there's always that risk. 

Well darlings, it seems like it's my turn! I've had my blog for a few years now and it's something I am very proud of and worked tirelessly for. I'm always amazed at the amount of views that I get on my posts everyday but it's true what they say, hard work does pay off. I don't do this for fun or to make money (although that would be amazing), I do this because I have a passion for it and you can tell that by all of the hard work, detail and time that I put into it. I want to be a true crime writer, that's my dream, to have my books on the shelves at Waterstones. 

I studied Criminology at university and have had an interest in true crime since I was a child. This is something I am serious about. Unfortunately with the popularity of true crime documentaries now, it seems that a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon trying to make a few dollars. I have friends in the true crime community who work so hard on their content because they are truly passionate about it but there are some of the newer crowd who are trying to create their own channels by using other peoples work (and when I say 'using other people's work', I mean, word for word, even copying layouts, titles etc) and setting up Patreons to make money. 

I have a popular true crime blog so it's inevitable that I was going to be copied at some point, still doesn't mean that I'm not annoyed by it. I have had various Youtube channels who have used me as a source, as much as I don't agree with using blogs as sources (it's lazy, you should do your own research yourself) these people didn't copy me word for word. 

Last night however, a new Youtuber was brought to my attention and to say I was pissed off is an understatement. I sat in shock and utter disbelief (felt like I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone) as I watched this video (I'm not including the link cause she's had enough views from my work as well as other bloggers): The Husband From Hell: Mitchell Quy (this was posted a month ago on this copycat's Youtube channel: Beyond The Pale). You may remember that I posted about this story back in 2020: The Husband From Hell: Mitchell Quy

Well, Beyond The Pale (@beyondxo_pale ) took chunks of my blog together with another blog and read word for word like I had written in my post, basically doing an audio of my blog post then trying to get away with it by including me as a source with another two true crime blogs and a newspaper article (which was also the first newspaper I publicly listed in my sources - oh, what a coincidence) in the links below the video. If this sad woman was such a huge fangirl of me she should have just asked for a collaboration if she's not bright enough to do her own research. Like I mentioned before, I don't agree with using blogs as sources but if you want to ref a quote or at the very least make sure all your words are your own and you have done proper research like others who have referenced my blog. You have to put in the work in order to be taken seriously. The coward behind Beyond The Pale has no public face and sounds like a middle aged woman, straight off the bat, she loses credibility as someone in the true crime community because she's been exposed as a word for word copycat in the early stages of her channel. If she's copied me, you can be damn sure she copied other people.

I confronted this person on Youtube and Twitter and was blocked (says it all really). My readers and friends also left comments on her Youtube channel which were removed and they were also blocked. It seems that when this person gets called out for their actions, they like to remove comments and block people. It makes you wonder how many other people she has done this to and is currently copying right now. 

Anyway, here's some screenshots of me trying to communicate with this fangirl of mine (Single White Female vibes) lol: 

She knew she'd been caught out by myself and my readers and thought she could squirm her way out of it. Plagiarism is Plagiarism, she read word for word of paragraphs from my original post from this case (even in the order I had written them in, the unique sayings I have and the title was also copied) which I published in 2020. Blatantly doing an audio of my work and then listing me as a source is just a bullshit way of trying to get out of it.