Cheers to the Copycats

It's hard for me to believe that I've been working in the advertising biz for more than 17 years ... that's more years than some of you have been alive. I'm not sure which is more astounding to me ... the fact that I've worked in the ad world for that many years or that so many of my readers are young folks. I've seen a ton of changes in the way businesses market themselves since I first started out as a proofreader all those years ago, not the least of which is the incredibly fast-paced explosion of social media as a means to share information. If you know anything at all about Facebook or Twitter or Reddit or any of the gazillion other social sites, you know that it doesn't take long for things to spread like wildfire once they are posted. Trust me, I know that to be true ... boy, do I ever know that to be true in a big, huge, gigantic way.

When I was in Canada at Christmas visiting my oldest son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, it didn't take me long to become completely enamored with some of the adorably precious things she would say. Okay, okay ... I loved every single word that came out of her mouth and still do ... duh. One night as I was sitting on the couch with Matt and Becca after C.J. had gone to bed, I logged into Facebook to see what was going on with everyone back in the states (that's what the Canadians call the U.S., you know ... the states). On a whim, I decided to post a simple conversation C.J. and I had earlier in the day ... one that ended with her saying, "I Ghee's buddy." I was so surprised when the number of "Likes" on my status began to climb ... and climb ... and climb ... people loved it. That simple post began what has now evolved into weekly posts recounting parts of my weekly Skype conversations with my precious C.J. And people love them; in fact, I've started getting messages asking me to put my "Chats with Boo" into a book ... maybe that's not such a bad idea, eh?

Recently I've noticed that quite a few of my Facebook friends have been posting status updates that are quite similar to my chats with C.J. ... conversations with their kids or grandkids. If they had been doing those kinds of updates before, I never noticed it ... and my initial reaction was ... well ... ummm ... I was a wee bit irritated that they were copying my idea. Actually, that's kind of an understatement ... I was stinking ticked off that they were stealing my awesomely original and incredibly genius idea. But the more of the conversational updates I read, the more I realized that it was really pretty darned cool that other people had been inspired by my chats with C.J. ... inspired enough to perhaps pay a little more attention to their own conversations with the little guys and gals in their lives.

You see, here's the thing ... I've gone from arrogance to humility in regard to my Facebook status updates with my baby girl C.J. It doesn't matter whose idea was whose first or who recounts the most clever or humorous stories ... all that matters is that families and friends talk to one another ... that families and friends listen to one another ... that families and friends love one another. That's why people like my conversations with Boo ... because they know those chats are about love.

Cheers to the copycats ... cheers to the copycats, indeed.