In some ways, the most interesting thing about Ben Domenech's plagiarism is its discovery. If you're a young writer reading this blog, tattoo this on your typing fingers: The internet never forgets.
It's not that Ben's plagiarism ceased, as it's appeared to continue, in slightened form, even after graduation from William and Mary. But the bulk of it certainly took place there, much of it in meaningless movie reviewettes for the school paper, writings that Domenech, almost certainly, assumed were irrelevant nothings long ago lost to the mists of history. And yet here they are: resurrected, and shuffling forth to eat Ben's face.
Sorry, but zombie analogies are fun.
It is a bit of a scary thought, though. Most of us don't plagiarize, and, in any case, we shouldn't, so I've relatively little sympathy for cut-and-paste pieces that get inconveniently control-V'd later in life. But with so many hungry young writers founding blogs and spitting out quickly-conceived, occasionally inadvisable posts to feed their readerships, there's a lot of embarrassing material out there for those seeking to dig it up. The electric paper trail we're leaving is beyond voluminous, and the nature of the medium virtually assures that some of our droppings along the road will be, in retrospect, intellectually bankrupt, or intemperate, or obviously wrong. God knows I've got a few of those floating around. I started doing this at 18, and despite how little I know now, I knew a helluva lot less back then.
A California political operative I know has a maxim he likes to repeat: Don't ever write it if you can say it, don't ever say it if you can whisper it, don't ever whisper it if you can imply it, don't ever imply it if you can nudge it, don't ever nudge it if you can wink it, and don't ever wink it if you can help it. I thought it a pretty ugly piece of advice, but spot-on if you wanted to enter politics. It's why I decided to become a writer instead. But man is my generation, packed full of LiveJournals and MySpaces and blogs and e-mails and messageboards, going to get bit in the ass by that aphorism.
