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The internet is going wild over @AkilahObviously’s battle against BuzzFeed

The Brooklyn-based Youtuber and writer thinks BuzzFeed Video ripped her off. Here's what she's doing about it and why it struck a nerve online.

By:
Adrienne Yap headshot
Adrienne Yap,  @adrnnyp
Jul 1, 2016 11:42am
The video in question. (Screenshot)

Recently, those who followed Akilah Hughes (@AkilahObviously) on Twitter brought out the popcorn and pom poms as she called out BuzzFeed for allegedly plagiarizing her How To Be An Introvert video.
Hughes, a Brooklyn-based YouTuber and writer, was shocked and angered to see the thumbnail of a Buzzfeed video that looked exactly like hers.


She went on to express her frustration with the media giant:


Via email, Hughes tells Technical.ly: “I’m not the introvert police. I don’t think I invented making videos about being an introvert, but I do know that I spent an hour making a shot list for a video and that my friend Tim figured out the best way to edit together a series of shots to show time passing and that to have someone make a video about the same subject matter with the same shots is usually unheard of.”


She continued:

If you asked me right now to make a video about being an introvert over a weekend, my first step would be to check Google for any pre-existing content like that. Now, I would have immediately decided to go a different direction with my video after finding something so similar. But BuzzFeed decided to power through that instinct (or not look it up at all — a grave offense to online creation and journalism and digital media as a whole) and make a video that was so similarly crafted that someone else pointed it out to me before I even got my angry tweet about it sent.

Hughes alleged that this wasn’t the first time BuzzFeed had plagiarized her work.


This isn’t the first time BuzzFeed has been accused of such actions. As the Twitter battle continued, more content creators came out with their own stories.


https://twitter.com/kat_blaque/status/748367056966397952
https://twitter.com/kelseyrholmes42/status/748506582791516160


https://twitter.com/DanaSchwartzzz/status/748617732627791872


https://twitter.com/CatherineFAJ/status/748358219794366464


Hughes posted this side by side comparison to illustrate the severity of the situation.


Hughes offered up a solution:


Then she started a petition urging BuzzFeed’s advertisers to stop supporting the corporation.


Meanwhile, the Twitterverse cheered Hughes. They had fun with it.


https://twitter.com/TraceOddity/status/748350509598248961
https://twitter.com/heytherescout/status/748351688071741441


Hughes said she wasn’t surprised with the outpouring of support. She would have been surprised if no one had cared.
“I’ve worked with nearly every digital media company in some small capacity and I think there have been whispers about BuzzFeed’s constant egregious ‘coincidental’ use of other peoples’ work,” she said.
Through all of this, camp BuzzFeed remained silent on Twitter. BuzzFeed also did not respond to Technical.ly’s requests for comment.
Those on the other side of the battle came out of the woodwork when Ira Madison III of MTV News subtweeted Hughes.
https://twitter.com/ira/status/748555014407282688
We asked Hughes what she would say to people who agree with Madison.
“I think it’s really crappy that someone would take it upon themselves to defend a media conglomerate that has proven time and time again that they’ve stolen ideas down to the exact phrasing and staging when I have the balls to speak up about it,” she said.
She continued:

I think it’s really lazy and safe to take the stance that a company with more than 100 employees couldn’t have had one person make sure their video wasn’t too similar to mine is just appalling. And sad. If I had a really small audience I’d probably just have to take it. Sorry, I’m not going to take it, I guess.

When asked what her end goal is, she said she wants BuzzFeed to publicly acknowledge the fact that they are stealing work and initiate company policies that encourage their creators to research videos before making them for the sake of a quota.
“There’s not one large media company/news organization that doesn’t vet their reporting beforehand,” she said. “Common decency and protection against intellectual property theft would dictate that you would have some process in place to avoid these all too common coincidences of stealing other people’s work.”
Fittingly, Hughes is on the advisory board of the Internet Creators Guild, a new group designed to protect internet creators.
“Creators should be able to protect themselves from having their ideas stolen and sold to McDonald’s or GE just because BuzzFeed put an intern on it instead of you,” she said. “I want everyone who wants to make videos on the internet to be empowered to take down companies that claim their content as their own.”
If you are facing a similar situation, Hughes advises, “Get a good IP lawyer and remind yourself that you aren’t the first, second or one-hundredth person who has had their stuff copied by a giant corporation. You don’t have to take it laying down.”

Companies: BuzzFeed
Series: Brooklyn
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