In February, 30-year-old Namrata from the Netherlands tweeted an empowering and poetic quote to an alleged ex about becoming a doctor a decade later. Her tweet has gone massively viral, with now over 121,000 retweets.
Namrata told BuzzFeed News she first heard a friend utter the quote before she tweeted it — but she really can't "even remember," she said.
But less than six hours after she tweeted, a user called her out and implied she stole the tweet from the popular account The Scribbled Stories. They included screenshots of the original post and quote.
@candinam Slayed alright
The original post from The Scribbled Stories, a popular social media account that crowdsources lines from amateur writers, showed that it was published a day before Namrata's tweet.
And soon, people started to use the quote format to clown her for lifting the tweet.
@aaliznat @Psilosophy @Ace_Of_Pace Spoke to my ex after 10 years. "Original or Copied?" She asks Copied. I said.
"Spoke to my ex after 10 hours. 'Verified or deactivated?' She asks. Suspended. I said."
@kitAnurag @aaliznat @Ace_Of_Pace Spoke to my ex after 10 hours. "verified or deactivated?" She asks Suspended. I said.
Amid all the backlash, Namrata not only appeared unfazed — she seemed to be going along with the narrative of her tweet and responding to people's applause and compliments.
@FuschiaScribe well he lied.. and I slayed.. We are even now!
@prachishukla22 @Vacuumed_mind thank you 😁. It's always fun messing with exs.
When pressed about these exchanges with people, Namrata said she believed there was nothing wrong about what she was doing — she simply felt the tweet pertained to her life.
@MolllyMack he was flabbergasted.. and I was happy
"That tweet does show a very familiar passage of my life," she said, and she felt OK about furthering the narrative with responses.
"He was flabbergasted," she responded to someone's tweet asking if the "ex" was surprised she became a doctor.
Namrata said she didn't know about the original post from The Scribbled Stories "until it went viral on Twitter" and people showed her the receipts. When she realized they were copies, "I didn't feel good about it," she said.
@candinam @FuschiaScribe cheating, cheating? No papa Telling lies? No papa
"I apologized for it," she added.
The Scribbled Stories told BuzzFeed News they believe the tweet was directly stolen. And while their posts have gone viral separately via their channels, they feel Namrata has taken most of the credit for it.
"It was our content and she got all the recognition and we couldn't do anything about it," the account's chief curator said in a statement. "But on the other hand, we felt good that one of our MicroTales is now the second most retweeted tweet in India."
Namrata is mostly firm in her stance that she doesn't believe content or fodder on the internet is "intellectual property." She fired back at critics claiming she plagiarized, and said it's common for people to take each other's tweets without attribution. "It's open access internet," she said.
@candinam delete this tweet else I'm filing an FIR for theft of intellectual property.
"You want your intellectual property safe and sound [then] write it down in a diary or copyright it, don't publish it on the internet," she said.
"All these people who are saying stuff about me have stolen or copied tweets and posts at one time or other," she added.
Namrata said her online musings and tweets have been stolen in the past, too, "and no one cared."
@Ace_Of_Pace the above tweet is copied?
"Just because this tweet is getting retweeted suddenly people have grown their conscience," she said.
Nearly a month and a half later, her tweet is still being shared at a fast rate, with many people — who may or may not know it's an unoriginal tweet — calling her "goals."
literal goal https://t.co/uXQXQVYjj7
Or "the best tweet" they've seen.
This is still the best tweet of 2017 so far https://t.co/ePoKgHIZss
But as many blind praises as there are, some people are still trolling her other tweets — as Namrata's "doctor" tweet is not only still up, it's still pinned to the top of her page.
.@candinam Did these help you study hard and become a doctor ?
The most retweeted and brutal comeback called into question whether she is a doctor based on a photo she shared working in an office cubicle. Namrata told BuzzFeed News she "will be able to confirm [her doctorate] in a few months," in an email, but she did not immediately follow up when asked to clarify what she meant.
@candinam Namrata, you literally work in an office. Stop stealing posts off facebook for retweets and do some work
She did, however, address all of the drama around the tweet with a few, curt thoughts:
"The tweet is not copied per se, because I didn't know about it 'til much later " she said.
"Yes, I do feel bad about it," she concluded.