CREATIVE INTEGRITY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF

Thoughts on a brand copying my work (again). Free post because I wish someone had been this transparent when I was in my 20s navigating the sharky waters of Manhattan.

I originally wrote this on Friday, and waited until today to publish it just in case I had any second thoughts. Part of me wonders if I would have ever known this happened had a friend not texted me about it. This brand did not occupy brain space until about a month ago when their CEO and founder reached out to me, so by that point, who even cares, you know? On the other hand though, I feel like this happens as often as it does because people rarely speak up. As the saying goes— well, actually there’s a lot of sayings that illustrate this but— what you tolerate, you encourage. Allowing bad behaviors or situations to slide with out addressing them only reinforces their occurrence. On a more personal level, I realized that this situation was happening to me again and again and I couldn’t figure out why or what I was doing wrong. The next time that it happened, it was so blatant, so obvious, I did not think twice about confronting the situation. I wrote to the PR people, the creative director, and ended up on the phone with their CMO. It worked out well for me and when I look at it in hindsight, there was definitely a shift that followed in my work relationships and the respect I was earning as a creative multi-hyphenate. I truly believe the universe will force you to experience the same situation over and over again until you learn the lesson.

So last week I got this text.

Here is my bracelet.

Here is Dorsey’s.

There is no denying the similarities.

If a million bracelets existed like this in the market, sure. Eye roll. But they don’t.

To add insult to injury here is the text from the founder just a month earlier.

My first instinct was to reach out to the founder / CEO directly as we had already exchanged a few e-mails and made loose plans to meet. When I didn’t hear back from her I sent the below to the e-mail I found in her bio (LOL @ the AI recap).

My intention when stuff like this comes up is always to understand in hopes that there might be a way to avoid it in the future, and as an opportunity for the other party to do something about it. I always go in with the benefit of the doubt, and I always make sure that I wouldn’t mind what I am writing to be displayed to however amount of eyeballs. I don’t recommend ever starting with lawyers unless you are cool with aggressively escalating the situation by a hundred notches and are sure you are going to win (otherwise its probably not the best use of funds). Creative IP is incredibly hard to protect unless you have a patent, which is probably the other reason this happens often. This is not to say I haven’t used lawyers in the past when I felt like I wasn’t taken seriously, but again in this moment I hadn’t yet completely ruled out working with them so I thought this was the best approach.

Weird that she would have seen that I worked with other (competing) jewelry brands, but not have seen the actual work I’ve done for said brands. Weird that no one on her team from design to marketing had seen my bracelet. Spoiler alert this is not true— but if it were, as a founder, I find it really concerning that your team doesn’t know what’s going on in the market.

Anyway, the evasiveness, the deflection, the lack of any sort of recognition of reality, and then… flattery. This is a classic manipulative tactic to avoid accountability. I really wasn’t upset before, at this point I am comfortable with the reality that my work inspires others, but this really irked me. I think the feeling is more bewilderment actually. Bewilderment that people can be so dumb (and think you’re dumb), lack any sort of integrity, and then think you’ll want to work with them?

Part of me wanted to play along and overcharge her to just phone the job in, but morally I knew I would always have a bad taste in my mouth after this. So again I responded—

I’m honestly proud of this e-mail. While I did not get the recognition or recourse I was hoping for, I avoided going into business with someone whose values don’t align with mine. That level of clarity is priceless. And as someone who has done business with people I don’t really fuck with, it’s never worth it. It reminds me of this Jenny Holzer quote.

Anyway, she deflected again but this time with a little condescension to really make herself likeable.

I use an e-mail server that lets me know when someone has opened my e-mail and Meg whatever her last name is opened my e-mail 11 times throughout the day before she responded, which really makes the whole I have nothing to add all the more funny.

It bewilders me that in 48 hours she did not once to think about getting on a call with me, talk me through her inspirations, etc. It speaks volumes.

While writing this I wondered if I would regret it, if I have too high of standards of what people should be like, but then I think about how I operate and the type of person I am and aspire to be. I always go back to being the leader I wish I would have had in certain experiences, and I hope this will keep me accountable in the future if I ever find myself in the inverse situation.

Seeing as I don’t know this person, I don’t know what I was expecting, but a good leader would have said something like ~ wow. I totally see what you mean / the similarities and can understand why you might think that. I’m not sure how this happened, let me talk to my design team— or I actually was inspired by x, y, and z, can we please get on a call? I would hate for this to jeopardize the possibility of us working together~ there are plenty of other routes she could have taken.

When I was younger I used to get really upset about stuff like this. Mostly it was about not being compensated for my ideas and my work. I felt like I didn’t have any power, I wasn’t being seen or recognized (deliberately), and at the hands of people I thought I had a good, respectful working relationship with. I thought they valued me just as much as I valued them. This is actually one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in business and something I tell my friends constantly— unless it’s your company or you have ownership / a vested interest in the success of the company, do not bend over backwards or go above and beyond proving yourself to/for people. We all do it expecting that one day the favor will be returned, that our hard work will be recognized, but the reality is that the more you do outside of your scope of work the more they take you for granted.

Actually Emma Grede touches upon this in this podcast. A lot of employers will sell you this concept of being a “family”— you’re not. You are in an employer-employee relationship. Do not let yourself be fooled. This doesn’t mean you can’t be warm or love your job and love the people you work with, but as soon as you put your job or boss on a pedestal you blur your boundaries and it will almost always end in resentment.

The reality is that most of us are disposable. There is always someone cheaper or easier to work with (read: take advantage of). If you’re truly talented, good at what you do, and enjoyable to work with, the other reality is that you’re actually incredibly hard to replace. Unfortunately a lot of people in positions of power don’t have the foresight to realize you can’t just copy and paste talent and impact, and that’s what ultimately leads to their demise.

I have learned to draw very clear boundaries when it comes to working relationships and I can share more of what that looks like if that’s of interest to you.

Circling back to the reason why I am even telling you all of this. I wish I had been empowered to stand up for myself more when I was younger. Maybe if I saw more people doing it I would have felt less scared to do so. Maybe if more people were standing up for themselves, companies would think twice before just ripping others off. Megan / Dorsey actually copied someone else I know and when I asked our mutual friend what she did about it, she said nothing— “she’s too shy.” This person has a big platform and an impressive background in the industry. It kills me that she didn’t think she was enough of a powerhouse on her own to say something.

People will truly try to get away with as much as you let them.

When you’re the little guy against a corporation, it’s daunting, and I think I used to also get scared about it jeopardizing future work. I am so thankful for how much I don’t give a fuck about the latter now. I don’t want to get off topic here, but if you do great work and are a great person— your reputation will speak for itself, and you will always have work. Similarly people are always like well what if they say something bad about me to which I say— the people who know you, will know that’s not the full story. And as I’m sure we’ve all heard a million times before, if someone is speaking poorly about you to others it says more about them than you. I think it’s also important to remember that all of these happenings are filtering the good from the bad. While it can suck and feel really uncomfortable, its ultimately for the best.

Lastly and just to reiterate, I’m not exposing these e-mails to cancel someone. Depending on how long you’ve been following me you know I don’t believe in cancel culture, but I do believe in accountability, creative integrity, and protecting my work. Again, this company or the founder were not on my radar before they reached out to me so I am sure I will forget about them again soon enough, but I think these e-mails are a great example of how to approach a similar situation, and how to not. Hopefully this will also inspire people to just hire the talent you are looking to emulate.

And don’t get me wrong, there are some great leaders out there. And I do sometimes work with friends who I bend over backwards for, but it is so, so important to be discerning. Dianna Cohen comes to mind. We met each other while we were both still in college and have known each other for 10+ years at this point. She brought me into work on the campaign for Crown Affair’s launch and many other things since. Sometimes there is a budget for me, sometimes there is not enough, but she is always transparent. Most importantly she is always very thoughtful with me and behaves in a way where I know I am valued and appreciated.

Ok this is much longer than I was anticipating— if anyone has any questions navigating something like this, using lawyers, etc please feel free to ask!