Have you ever written a blog post that was so "WTF"-inducing that you didn't even know where to begin? Like, how do you take all of these examples and pieces of "evidence" to bring to light a whole lot of sketchiness? Some of you will already know what I'm referring to, but the chances are the majority of you are totally unaware of the drama that went down over the weekend. I know I won't even begin to do it justice as there's so much involved and so many lies, scandals and "woe is me" pity parties, but at least I can try, right? And of course point you in the direction of other examples.
Okay, So! The internet is a big place? I'm talking really really *really* big. Thanks to the birth of the web, independent artists are now able to share their wares with people across the globe. E-commerce is booming and we're being introduced to new talent at a rapid rate. But not unlike anything else, there's also a downside to this amazing virtual world. Not only are we able to share our creations at lightning speed, but we're likely to be ripped off just as quickly. Copyright infringement is far from new, but the internet makes it so easy. See a design you like, but lack the talent to create you own? No big deal! Just screenshot that baby and pop it up in your shop! Claim it as your own! Ain't no thang! Who on Earth will notice? The 'net is far too big for anyone to know everything right?!
As someone whose livelihood depends on the items I'm able to create with my own two hands, theft to this degree really gets my blood boiling. No one deserves to pour their heart, sweat and tears into something only to have it knocked off (or outright stolen) by another person. We could go into great detail and debate about the nature of knockoffs in each and every industry, but the "independent" sector really seems to sting right? It hits close to home for so many bloggers and blog readers.
However, since the internet
is so big, most people remain blissfully ignorant of the sketchiness that goes down most days. Someone can rip off multiple (well known!) artists and designers, and their readers/customers could be none the wiser. That's basically what has happened here. After tweeting yesterday about being befuddled that so many people would still choose to support these shams,
I received an @reply from someone who expressed their belief that it happens because no one makes these people aware. Lightbulb! Of course! How could
I have been so ignorant to not think of this?! Shady things happen daily in the blog world, but rarely do you see anyone sounding the alarm and publicizing these actions. You can scour "snark" communities where the discussion is rampant, but it's stilly primarily anonymous. Why do we cower and hide from the truth? Are we afraid of being ostracized and shunned? Are we scared of being labelled a "drama mama" or "cyber bully?" Whether you have 15 followers or 15,000, it's important for each of us to stand up and voice our concern over shady practices. Especially when they immediately affect so many people in our community.
Have any of you caught on yet? Well, let's cut the crap and put it out there: "Miss Indie," Mandy Ferrugia, is under fire, and for very good reason.
After years of (in my honest opinion) shady business practices, scams galore, and a seemingly
endless string of duped customers/readers,
Mandy Ferrugia "Miss Indie" finally got the backlash many were waiting on. Earlier this weekend
Mandy launched a "design shop" where she featured multiple items that she claimed to have designed herself. She said she received so many design requests from readers and this was a great way to meet the need of her audience. That would've been well and good if 90% of the designs weren't directly purchased from
this Etsy shop. The owner of the Etsy unfortunately had a very open-ended terms of use for her pieces, but even though "small business use" was allowed, we all know that means use in logos for
your small business... not for you to re-upload with a janky font (that you also did not create) for 800% profit. Of course you can "legally" take that to mean what you want since it was in writing, but it was still a tacky move. Sure, sure, whatever. Regurgitate content all you want, you have to live with yourself. That wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back... That came in the form of her calling out an honest commenter, who brought these "mistakes" to light via a polite blog comment, a "troll." Reasonable response... pass the blame. If any of you have read Mandy's blog for a while, you'll probably note that a lot of her designs felt like watered-down versions of a much larger blog. Most of the time I chalked this up to her really looking up to this blogger, but sometimes it was hard to stomach. Still, it wasn't directly affecting my blog so I didn't worry too much about it. Mandy always seemed like a sweet girl, so whatever right? If you've followed her (now defunct) Etsy shop you might remember that
she was "stalked" and "harassed" by a fellow Etsy member, and that's why she had so many outlandish negatives in her feedback. Nevermind the fact she (allegedly) rarely sent the purchased product to the customer. She then decided to move her shop to a different e-commerce platform. This one, conveniently, didn't have a feedback system. Huh! This move raised a few eyebrows, mine included, but no one seemed to pay it much mind. She later stocked her "indie" shop with a bunch of mass-manufactured pieces from China. Hey, I'm all for wholesale relationships and I understand how retail works! I get it! I'm not against mass-produced items, but I would never claim them as handmade. That's where she messed up. Even after people called her out on this, she still claimed many of the pieces were handmade (spoiler: most weren't!). Just a week or two ago Mandy did a shop update which included over half a dozen brooches, all purchased wholesale, that featured stolen artwork.
Her readers quickly identified the proper illustrators of the pieces and called her out. Her response? The same old "Oh no! I had no idea!" Actually
here, this is Erin's blog post about the whole thing. She was thorough enough to actually quote Mandy directly from her blog post(s).
Erin's blog post also includes a ton of relevant links (a few of which I snagged to include here as I didn't see them myself!)
A few instances of Mandy's shady behavior:
Mandy's behavior isn't a surprise to a lot of us. We've seen what she's been doing for years now, but I think it's natural to want to avoid "rocking the boat" ya know? I unfollowed her on Twitter a long time ago, and I stopped reading her blog because it was just too much. Far too often I'd find myself rolling my eyes so far back into my skull, only a vent-sesh with my best friend via text would help. But it honestly wasn't until I got that @reply on Twitter that I realized someone (anyone! everyone!) needed to "out" this girl.
Yea, this has been going down for about 2 or 3 days now, and I first caught wind of in on our drive back home from Florida.
I sent out a passive aggressive, frustrated tweet, not really thinking anyone would "get" it. Well, they got it! Conversation started. GOMI was the only reason I even knew about it since I no longer followed her. From there it just spiraled into a whole lot of "WTF"... After tweeting with a few other people who either saw right through her or was scammed by her, I woke up at 5am Monday morning with an email from Mandy. It was a mass email, written to 5 or 6 of us she had seen converse about the "incidents" (ha yea... "incidents") She was "hurt" because she considered some of us "friends"... Um what? Girl if my own best friend was half as shady as you are, I'd call her out in a heartbeat! You're not a special snowflake. I hadn't even opened the email yet, but my Gmail app let me know there were already several mass replies. I stewed on the thought of this email for a few hours, trying to imagine the contents. It's funny because I wasn't far off. I even had Mike read through the initial email and the replies. I try not to respond too quickly because I'm not always a level-headed person when my temper gets triggered. I've spoken in haste on many occasions and it's just left me feeling somewhat empty and misunderstood. But this... oh boy... this email was a doozy! It was a full on pity party. The responses from my fellow bloggers (and friends) were all kind, but stern. I was proud of my friends for saying what they believed. No one really wants to be "that person" like I said, but sometimes you have to. The first line of my email: "Let's all stop pussyfooting around.... what you did was TACKY!" My email was a bit hot-headed and had more than it's fair share of expletives, but I felt like they were deserved. I could have just as well stated my case in a much more mature manner (which Michelle from Creature Type actually did! Good on her!) but I was mad. I was mad that my friends were ripped off. I was mad that she made it hard for
real professionals to make a living. I was mad that she gave the same sad excuse time after time.
We were a group of people who could not be considered "jealous haters" (Everyone wants to use that excuse when they get criticized online... why?!) How were we going to be shrugged off this time? Bloggers and blog readers alike were talking. It was hard to ignore the conversation. Of course it's been brought up that I'm "only now" writing about it on my blog because GOMI did (think what you want), or because someone made such a fuss, but the truth is I thought Mandy would respond to our emails. I thought she'd at least give some sort of excuse for her behavior. Replies to her initial email were hitting inboxes as late at Monday evening, so surely we'd wake up to a reply by Tuesday right? Apparently not.
A few girls who I was talking to on Twitter said she emailed them on Monday, in response to them winning one of her giveaways yet never receiving the prize. Hmm, weird how someone could just totally ignore the initial inquiries all together, but "all of a sudden" remember them when they start getting vocal, right? She has a way of magically spinning these things. "I have so many haters!" she'll cry. Since when is wanting a prize you rightfully won being a "hater?" People would link her to the GOMI article and she'd call them a troll, delete the comments and then block them. Yikes! Talk about censorship.
To be honest, I never had the intention to write this post.
I've written one like it before, and it was just as stressful and tiresome to compile. I know I've left out a lot of evidence and facts and firsthand accounts on her scams, but there's only so much you can do. It's like kicking a dead horse. I don't
like outing people, but I guess if you don't want the world to know you're shady, don't do shady things right? If it hadn't been for
this @reply on Twitter, I probably would've let the thing die. But that's the problem - we're all too quick to say "eh, enough with that!" I don't have the biggest blog in the world, but I know I share a decent amount of readers with Mandy. If even one person can be made aware of her shadiness, and then be directed to
legitimate independent artists, awesome! It's worth it. Regardless of who wrote the "outing" first or who had the guts to stand up and point the finger, what really matters is that readers are finally being made aware. How can we expect people to boycott these scam artists if we don't alert them? We need to take away the anonymity of call outs and not be scared of the backlash. I'll cause side eyes and scoffs the world over with this post, I'm sure. But at least X amount of people will be able to decipher the evidence how they wish. You can only make educated decisions when you have the facts in front of you. Well, here they are. I tried my best to stay away from personal bias and only link to evidentiary pieces. I don't believe in bullying or body shaming or any kind of ridiculous non-constructive criticism online (even though I'm guilty of it myself, both anonymously and not. especially in the heat of the moment), but I do fully believe in the power of free speech and having the ability to a forum discussion on things like this.
I could go on and on and on about how much it sucks to be a maker when you're surrounded by people like Mandy, but that'd just get boring fast. (This probably already did!) But she's not the only one. The internet is full of people like her. Some of them are even more successful. The only way their shenanigans can be unraveled is if people have the guts to speak up. I'm not trying to be a saint or hero by sharing any of this. I'm simply following in line with several other people who had the guts to come out. I'm not the first and (hopefully) I won't be the last. I know a post like this is very out of character for LCH and it may not even seem relevant, but I share a large portion of Mandy's audience and so many of my friends (and even designers we stock in our own "indie" store) have been directly affected by her behavior. I'm all for people learning from their mistakes... but how many times do you need to make the same one? After years of watching her do things like this, I'm just so fed up. Take it for what you will. I had considered posting the emails for public viewing, but I didn't want to seek out permission from each contributor to post them. I felt like posting them without their consent, even with their personal information redacted, would be invasive. Had my email response to Mandy been met with a response, I probably wouldn't have even written this post. But it's an important topic that should be addressed openly more often. Here's to hoping that each of these articles will spark more open conversation within the blogging and small biz world.
The most frustrating thing about this whole situation (at least for me?): Mandy has yet to address ANY of these accusations. She deleted her blog post(s) and disabled her design shop. She refused to email any of us back after she started the dialogue. She's pretending it never happened by sweeping it under the rug.... in typical Mandy fashion. She simply deletes things that don't "look good" and goes about her business. Well, the internet never forgets...
Man, what a boring post. So long and no pictures! Sorry!
ETA: Apparently Mandy just blogged "her side" of the story and published it an hour or two after I scheduled my post. You can believe what you want... obviously I'm trying to "insinuate" things that totally aren't true. Ehhhhhh.
PS: Here's a great post Heather (from Just Lovely) shared with me about copying online. There are some really rad links in it, too!
