Why chasing "originality" is a lie

There’s a dirty little secret no one tells you when you start making things for a living:

You will never make anything truly original. Ever.

I know. Fkn brutal. (and great for imposter syndrome, you’re welcome.)

Almost every song you love, every movie that wrecked you, every article that made you feel seen: all of it is kind of stitched together from what came before. Like an emotionally resonant Frankenstein. Maybe not as green or ugly. 

This isn’t a flaw. It’s simply just the nature of things.

As Kirby Ferguson’s documentary Everything Is a Remix puts it, all creative work builds on something else.

The act of “creating” is just… borrowing with style. I guess?

In music, this is obvious. Sampling. Covers. Interpolations. In fashion, it’s freaking blatant. Entire cycles are just trends on a 20-year delay. Even in tech, “new” products are culminations of existing tools (looking at you, every AI startup ever).

And in marketing, it’s the oxygen we breathe. The scroll is just the same ideas, re-dressed. One meme template in 400 brand voices. One TikTok trend re-shot until the pixels give out. “Repurposing content” is literally the business model.

Which brings me to the question I keep tripping over: When I sit down to write an article, how much of what I’m saying is mine? Is my opinion really my own, or just a mash-up of everything I’ve read, liked, bookmarked, and quietly absorbed from the digital ether?

In the old world, this might have been called plagiarism. In the new world, it’s called being “part of the conversation.” But where is the line?

Here’s the paradox. In art, remixing is celebrated. We praise Quentin Tarantino for stealing from ’70s exploitation films, Beyoncé for sampling Donna Summer, TikTok creators for “adding their own twist.” But in writing or thought leadership? We get precious about originality. As if having a totally pure, uninfluenced idea is even possible in 2025, when we’re all mentally marinating in the same internet soup.

It genuinely eats me up sometimes. Particularly when we need to produce so much, so often, tossing between the most insane creative blocks, struggling to make anything, and feeling “too influenced” by what everyone else is saying to the point where I wonder: am I allowed to make/ say/ write this?

Aaand this the part where imposter syndrome starts gnawing at the edges. 

When every idea feels like it’s been done, the brain starts whispering: Maybe you’re not creative at all. Maybe you’re just recycling smarter people’s work. You overthink, over-research, over-polish. You convince yourself that if you can’t be the first, you shouldn’t even bother being the next. And that spiral is a huge creativity killer. It pushes you into safe, forgettable work that feels “correct” but never hits.

But the crazy thing is, nobody in history has made anything in a vacuum. The best ideas are a culmination of influence, reference, and personal filter. The goal isn’t to erase what inspired you. It’s to own how you’ve transformed it.

The truth that I’ve come to realise is that the value isn’t in being first. It’s in being useful.

In taking an existing thread and weaving it into something sharper, funnier, more relevant for your audience right now. Nobody cares that you weren’t the first person to talk about something. They care that you made it click for them, today, in their feed, in a way that felt human and worth reading.

Which is why, if you work in marketing, and you’re anything like me (overthinker, duh) this mindset shift is everything. Instead of agonising over “is this my idea?” ask:

• Did I add something new? A fresh example, a different angle, a sharper frame.

• Did I make it work here? For this platform, this audience, this moment.

• Did I make it mine? My tone, my humour, my worldview baked in.

Originality in the digital age is not about being untouched by influence. It’s about having taste (as I’ve mentioned). Knowing what to keep, what to cut, and how to combine ideas so they actually land.

Everything is a remix. The question isn’t whether you’re borrowing (it’s a little too late for that). Instead, it’s whether you’re making something worth borrowing from.

And above all else, making it yours.

It’s the way you combine, twist, and filter influences through you. Your lived experiences, your taste, your specific way of noticing things. That’s the real differentiator. That’s the important stuff.

Your version should feel unmistakeably yours. A little weirder, sharper, funnier, kinder – whatever feels true to you. Something your friends could read and say: only they could’ve written this.

The internet doesn’t need you to invent fire. It needs you to take the existing spark and set your corner of the world alight. That’s the real mark you leave in a saturated world. 

-Sophie Randell, Writer