This is something that’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine – and there’s an online and digital PR lesson for companies here too – this idea that if you aren’t on the internet (or it isn’t on the internet) then it never happened.

The very nifty The FutureBuzz site runs a lot of good articles and today it had a decent one on the Whiteboard Girl (which seemed so obviously a fake I can’t believe people fell for it.) but where it fell down was in saying that the stunt by had ripped off a photographer called Andrew McDonald.

Now that’s fine. Andrew did it before them, but where’s the proof that the team even knew of what Andrew had done (love the lost camera idea though) or that Andrew feels they ripped him off? It’s far more likely that they got the idea from Bob Dylan. After all, it’s been done enough times since (and for all I know Dylan wasn’t even first).

It’s a danger for many reasons even before we consider the old ‘those who don’t learn their history are doomed to repeat it’ saying. We live in an age where people go ‘give credit where it’s due’ constantly – so be online so people can credit you and others can check you out – but also know your history. If you know your history you know what’s worked in the past, what hasn’t and so on.  It also stops you looking like an idiot when you make false claims. Also, perhaps people shouldn’t accuse others of being rip-off merchants without actually checking out if they did rip someone off?

(to be fair, Andrew Singer has responded to me on Future Buzz:

I think it’s something that Andrew and I will have to disagree on, though his main point about not getting credit for work done is bang on. Anyway, here’s some videos to pass the time…