Follow the Leader/Quotes
Word of mouth,
this is what everyone is talking about.
So you can tell somebody
to tell somebody
that the next big thing
is the same old thing.—John Reuben, "Word of Mouth"
I invented the First-Person Shooter, you know. Wish I hadn't bothered now. Have you seen how many of the things there are? I expect there's even a Space Marine in this game somewhere.
—The Lord of Games, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
The creators of the "grim and gritty" comics that followed in Watchmen's wake are like 1960s musicians who declared, "The Beatles have revolutionized popular music! We must copy their haircuts!"
—Adam Cadre
Hamilton: We're Hamilton's Hamster Helpers! We help those in trouble!
Monterey Jack: How original!
I have all these people trying to hop aboard the Arpa express hoping that they become cool like me or earn my approval which will magically make their MUGEN video career somehow. That contest I originally held for the lulz might become the mental death of me...
The success of Marvels showed the Big Two that there was a market for stories set in the past starring characters that the audience had grown up with. That (Kurt) Busiek is a fantastic writer who can push characters into the future even while tying everything into older continuity (as he did in Avengers Forever) was largely ignored. All the Big Two saw were dollar signs in stories about the past. Naturally, they went too far in one direction, and now we're inundated with these kinds of comics. It's not Busiek's fault (hence the "unwittingly" in the title), but he definitely pointed the way.
Imposter! Copycat! Your powers can't compare with mine!
A guy walks up to me and asks "What's Punk?". So I kick over a garbage can and say "That's punk!" So he kicks over a garbage can and says "That's Punk?", and I say, "No, that's trendy."
All The Little Mermaid did was put that godforsaken Disney musical 90s formula in place.
TSA Agent: NCIS? That anything like CSI?
Tony DiNozzo: Only if you're dyslexic.—NCIS, "Yankee White"
Something that jumps up from the crowd -- only to hit its head on the ceiling -- is always better in my eyes than
the games that keep their heads down and risk nothing.
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
Don't send in the clones--they're already here.
—Alan Chapman, "Everybody Wants To Be Sondheim"
"I've never seen such an obvious attempt to pander to whatever musical fad is currently being indulged in by the masses. I don't use the term "sellout" lightly, but there really is no other way to describe Korn at this point. They've not only disregarded, but trampled upon creativity, uniqueness, and genuine expression by poorly feigning artistic changes in their musical style. The only thing these transparent phonies care about is making money and staying relevant. You're not fooling anyone with two brain cells to rub together, Jonathan Davis."
"Nikola Motor Company wants to be the Tesla of trucking
But they couldn't be bothered to invent a different name."—Headline and subtitle of an article by Andrew Dalton, Engadget
Games Workshop couldn't exist without the things they've ripped off from me and Tolkien. If they'd made more of the material, I wouldn't mind. But they've dumbed it down, too. Sometimes I get weary of this crap. Other times, people remind me, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. A more sincere form of flattery than that, of course, is when they ask you first. As I've often said -- they can say it's flattery, but that's the flattery of the guy you catch in your apartment when you come home at night and he's just heading for the fire escape with your new TV. 'Great taste in TVs, man,' he says....
"It's just amazing how much YouTube wants to be like television. They ripped off YouTube Gaming from Twitch. They ripped off YouTube Red from Netflix. They ripped off YouTube TV from fucking TV! I don't understand Google's business strategy here. Why not try to become distinct from your competitors rather than making shittier versions of their products?"