Everybody has that one aunt who loves forwarding inspirational e-mails to everyone in her address book. I get a few e-mails like that week and out of politeness I usually give them a quick glance.  The other day I got one of these messages and just as I was about to click the “archive” button, the words “video contest” got my attention.  Here’s what the e-mail said:

This is Very Clever…

A palindrome reads the same backwards as forward.  This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite too. This is only a 1 minute 44 second long video, but it is brilliant.  Make sure you read as well as listen…forward and backward.This is a video that was submitted in a contest by a 20 year old.  The contest was titled “u @ 50″ by  AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause.  So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and watch it.

Here’s the video that was included with the e-mail:
 

 
If you look at the traffic data for this submission you’ll see that it slowly gained in popularity and then took off a few years after it was uploaded.  That little video has now been viewed more than 16 million times! A lot of people who have been leaving comments for this video said they were students and that their teacher made them watch “Lost Generation” in class. This simple and ingenious message really seems to have struck a cord with people.  When I first saw this submission I just couldn’t believe that a random 20 year old could come up with such a brilliant and beautiful idea.  I was so impressed with this 5 year old, non-winning video contest entry that I knew I had to share it on the blog.

And of course after I spent 2 minutes researching the origin of this video I discovered it was a complete and total f-ing rip off. Here’s the award-winning commercial from Argentina it was based on:
 

 
I guess that explains why the viral video didn’t win 1st place in the AARP contest.  This kind of copying isn’t exactly plagiarism but it’s still totally uncool.  And the artistic thievery here kind of negates the positive message a bit, don’t you think? But if your sweet old aunt e-mails you this “inspirational” video you shouldn’t tell her it’s a rip off. That would just break the old girl’s heart. She might be so disillusioned that she’ll swear off “cute” forwards and start sending more mass e-mails about how Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim who planned the Dark Knight mass shooting in Aurora, CO so he’d have an excuse to take away our guns.