In a devastating story of academic dishonesty coming out of your living room, your friend Yuki just shared a supposed “realization” he had that was actually just something you told him two days ago.
What the hell? How can authorities let this blatant plagiarism stand?
“I’ve realized that I don’t want to go back to grad school,” Yuki told you and a group of your friends who had all come over to your house to hang out. “I should pursue my art because any moment I spend pursuing something else will feel like a waste, at least until I give it a real try.”
The group burst into a smattering of applause and “I’m so happy for you!”s, which is crazy because this is, word-for-word, what you told Yuki on Wednesday.
“I said that. I said those things already,” you whispered to reporters in the other room, where you had come to cool off, lest you lash out in a way you later regret. “I don’t know why he’s acting like this is some big life-changing moment when I literally told him to do that.”
Sources confirm at the time of his big announcement, you told Yuki that his “realization” sounded suspiciously like the advice you had given him recently.
“Yeah, sure, it’s almost the same,” he said, keenly aware that everyone else at the hang was staring at him. “But I … built upon that foundation with my own ideas! Like the ‘real try’ part – that part was new! And I moved the ideas around, so it’s actually different.”
Reporters confirm that in an “academic honesty” sense, this does still qualify as plagiarism.
“‘Built upon that foundation’ my ass!” you told reporters, throwing up your hands. “It was word for word! He didn’t introduce any new ideas or piggyback on anything I’d said. He just repeated it louder! That bitch.”
It is unclear why you are taking so much offense to this, considering your friend is following the path you suggested he should follow, but reporters understand that it’s more about the principle of the thing.
“I just can’t believe he didn’t give me credit,” you continued, exasperated. “Now, he’s going to go to live a really cool, fulfilling life, and no one’s going to know it was my idea.”
As of press time, you would not stop telling Yuki to “run that phrase through one of those plagiarism detectors and see what it spits out, bucko.”
