Steal Like An Artist: Austin Kleon at TEDxKC

[@KeyDyer]

It’s a shared language. We didn’t invent letters, but we all speak some sort of language we were taught. Love this video.

[@narrativepodcasts]

"Hoarders collect everything; artists collect selectively." 👏🏽

[@paintballgun10]

i tried explaining this to my professor. she was pissed. she said ANY idea that didn't 100% come from just my head i had to "cite my sources".. seems simple enough, right???... WRONG. Because everything i know came from something else, whether it was from a parent, grandparent, teacher, or just experience. I said "Nothing is knew under the sun." Technically NOTHING we do is original, we are just imitating. Even our own creativity is nothing more than an outflow of our Maker.

[@sharongillesp]

Think of a kaleidoscope!

[@Red_Proton]

Hint: Don't ask a teacher. Why? Because the quality of the answer is equally important as the quality of the source.

[@riteasrain]

BRAL Studios My sentiments exactly.

[@DavidDOquendo]

Just because it isn't original, and/or a remix - that doesn't mean siting sources isn't required. It is always a good idea to provide the inspiration of the work. Giving credit where credit is due is never a bad idea. If the source is your grandma, then the source is your grandma.

[@debrakelly2500]

The biggest problem is that all the data we've collected throughout our lives isn't sourced. I have ideas, but no idea where they came from.

[@MA818AM]

العرب هم من بدا هذا التلاعب بالكلمات وعندنا شعر يقراء عموديا وافقيا وعندنا ابيات تقراء من اليمن إلى اليسار وتعطي معنا وعندما تقراها من اليسار إلى اليمين تعطي معنا آخر وكل هذه الأشعار بدأت قبل كل هؤلاء حقيقة

[@aashirwadjaiswal3952]

this guy have memorised his whole book!

[@liannabeauchamps7853]

What is original though is what truly resonates with each one of us. That is what makes us unique. That is our unstealable fingerprint. Who you are can be mimicked and you can mimic others but that does no one justice.

[@NatashiaLee]

I already knew of this on a basic level, but I really liked the speech as it put it into more perspective!

[@smashingpoop]

This book changed my life in half an hour

[@rupanshisharma3960]

Mine too

[@eddycheune6547]

How broo are you Alive?

[@claudiabokk9]

Love your new book and love this presentation. Informational and transformational. Can't ask for more. All the best.

[@robertostrochovsky1857]

You have summed up creativity.

[@KBZ3000bc]

robbery?

[@luisedu10]

Awesome lecture 👏👏👏

[@CJ2CUTE]

Buy this book, buy it. Trust me

[@VishnuRamG]

Fantastic, Some videos hit you at the right times of your life This one reassured something that I was doing

[@MemphiStig]

to be clear, ak didn't steal anything, except newsprint. i mean, he used redaction creatively, without knowledge of similar 'art' that might already exist. originality is relative to the creator. newspaper blackout was an original idea to AK, but only a variant on the larger scale. it doesn't invalidate the art or the artist to invent something that isn't entirely new. and it isn't all simply outright stealing. the expectation that whatever one thinks up is fresh and new and never seen before is the illusion, not the originality or creativity of one's thoughts. the expression is what matters to the creator, and that is always valid. he's right tho. creation is often inspired and propelled and channeled by what has gone before, and thievery is a legitimate part of the trade, in proper contexts. As Bono said, 'every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief. All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief.' See also the South Park episode, "The SImpsons already did it." Maybe the best guideline is if you the creator know that your ideas were inspired by others, you should label them as such. If it was your idea without prior knowledge, tell critics to stfu. also, it's invalid to say that you're following in the footsteps of someone you never heard of, whose work never even brushed your life, tho it isn't wrong per se to place yourself in the company of similar creators. (lineage is a different issue.) Credit where credit is due, but don't lie or lie down. And face it: no matter what you the creator do or say, the haters gonna hatehatehatehatehate.

[@foggylane22]

Keith Richards and Mick Jagger cut up newspapers to come up with the lyrics for Casino Boogie when they were recording Exile on Main Street in France. I think Richards wrote that they had simply run out of ideas after doing so much recording, so they used the newspaper method.

[@KingaGorski]

We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

[@AnaPaulaOliveira-lk9yz]

Fantástica palestra! 👏👏👏👏👏

[@Lily-mf8el]

Someone from an ad agency saw a great idea when they were online and decided to adapt and change it to fit a campaign, but didn't credit the original artist that made it. An organization awarded agency for the creative execution of the idea. Somehow, it got out that the work wasn't an original work, but derived, and many people scorned the agency which let this slip past their notice. They also complained to the organization that they shouldn't be awarded for plagiarism. When I looked at that case, I had thought it was another case of tired artist spots something in that idea which could be used in a different light, but gets punished for using the material in a way which isn't different enough to be judged as a different idea. Not many would've noticed it was the same work if the ad itself didn't win the award. And even if they did, they wouldn't bother to report it. Perhaps in a world without internet, works like theirs would've passed by various scrutiny and win awards. If you plan to use something that isn't yours, give credit where it's due - and not use materials by others similarly, even if it is in a different perspective. Unless if you're paying the original creator off, or had their permission to use it. Thanks for the interesting talk. It's confirmation of what I've always thought was true. If you're still new at something, you'll have to learn from your betters till you grow out of their shadows.

[@metsrus]

Most modern human ingenuity have been shifted from creative arts to more practical things like technology and problem solving, as human emotions take a backseat to logic and reason, especially after the Industrial Revolution.

[@itsnakhasia]

He’s absolutely right! I think live in this era there’s no original idea 😂

[@rajeshenghi7471]

Thank you for teaching me to steal from people 🤯❤❤

[@josedejesus9172]

(To) "Steal" is a charged word. There are other words that fit, like "inspired" by. Did you "steal" it when you come up with it (the idea) on your own, from your subconscious like an ah-ha! moment, and you did execute it (the "art object") and later found out that the same idea was done hundreds of centuries ago? They say Picasso's friends hide away their paintings whenever he would come visit their house/studio. Also watch interviews with imfamous or celebrated forgers here on youtube and what do they say about forging Picassos? They can make a Picasso while making a pancake and they'd have a new Picasso by the time the pancake is cooked. So maybe it has something to do with "great artist steal"... etc. I think there is fundamentally wrong with that statement. For me it was just an early form of clickbait.

[@happypurpleballoons]

I think you will find the answer in the way it is described in this talk, "Imitation is not flattery. Transformation is flattery."

[@JayThomasofficial]

I have your books ! Thanks for them. My friend just bought your journal. Love your work

[@daddy3063]

"Nothing is completely original" the same meaning of my saying "ideas don't exist in only one mind'" I have said that because of the teachers saying "plagiarism".

[@rusticgoldlight]

this is simply amazing. i own the book, but i much prefer the talk!

[@Godscountry2732]

yes collective thinking,its how we move forward.We borrow,change,reinvent anything and everything.We would still be living in caves [not a bad idea in itself]but you get the idea.We build off the work of others.

[@ganesanls8723]

Awesome

[@cxcartgallerybycourtneylee8138]

Beautiful 🖤 🌞🥰 impactful 🖤 empowering 🖤

[@liliaalshamza]

I love his book!!!!

[@xXDemonWolfSkullXx]

I wish more professors understood this

[@stevenlam7990]

Wow! Incredible 🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽

[@emmelinesprig489]

exactly what i needed to hear

[@davidstewart4149]

This is an old gag we used to do with memos in our advertising agency, back in the days (mid-1980s) when memos were distributed on paper. Hard to do with email. We could get some hilarious stuff out of the most business-like memo.

[@doodleslim1408]

Even Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants to come up with his ideas.

[@abdullahnasher7975]

The hardest thing to do as an artist is deferentially seeing with a new fresh eyes the same work you have just finished. Abdullah Nasher 3d artist

[@Mikelovision]

Thanks for sharing that quote.

[@Aummo22]

I like his book so much leanrt form it

[@express375]

I've done a few coins on this very subject. Freeform is something creatively original ,but I know where a lot of it came from :)

[@wolfgangproductions7402]

Excellent video so true.....

[@ty2u]

I like this. Now I know what I do. Thanks.

[@catjones1305]

woot woot unleash the creatve ooze

[@REEDACT]

"we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas" @SteveJobs ... I have no idea how Apple can be suing companies over the roundness of their icons at this stage..

[@ThePeterosion]

I've gotten hours of entertainment from channel surfing and assembling the short audio bits as dialog or hilarious sales pitches.

[@sunkintree]

My problem with this book/talk is that he purposefully uses the word steal as if he wants to inspire a generation of plagiarists. By reading the comments these plagiarists are happy to hear it. Even Picasso's quote wasn't meant to legitimize plagiarism.

[@AndrewHorezga]

question is do you want to be and artist or a creator?

[@adamalpha7881]

amazingly presented

[@elreaseo]

When you do the exact thing of course it's stealing, not the idea, but the whole concept and the final product that he did.. if you put those artist into a reference list.. of course the result of your product is different than the former artist.. its not stealing you borrow it..

[@mikewynne6133]

Steal Austin Ted - I Blacked out your title!

[@gavinreid8351]

William Borroughs used the cut up technique. David Bowie copied Burroughs and used the technique to write many lyrics.

[@daddy3063]

and I think some of it began in making "synthesis"

[@ridhoramadan5597]

I want this video have Indonesia Subtitle, please....

[@Dhalpourie]

Plagiarism is glorified by those devoid of creativity

[@CoxJoxSox]

That's why I stole the book :D

[@gregtheytsubscriber8746]

uh.. yey??

[@arioctober7867]

Me too lol

[@NomanKhan-pj3qx]

ha haaha...

[@dachisam]

Me too

[@AbdurRahman-ze6jb]

Pdf

[@danielaravenous]

My ten-year artist's block ended after reading Austin books. Awsome.

[@iislevinii1923]

Absolutely beautiful. I will steal this as best I can.

[@gmla2186]

"The immature artist imitates. Mature artist steal." . Love this phrase, love the video. As an artist myself i can totally relate to it. Thanks. For some reason now, i feel very inspired.

[@emilieclairehope9157]

I think that the reason the word “steal” is so essential here is because to steal is to take ownership of something that previously belonged to someone else. Imitation is merely pretending to have something that belongs to someone else. Theft inherently involves transformation; what is theirs becomes yours. When something inspires you, you must *make it yours*.

[@TheToolbox76]

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." -Albert Einstein

[@theexistentialist.5530]

The art of art is to steal creatively - not to steal directly, steal from your subconscious.

[@IanFrantz]

Excellent comment. Very true! “It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.” - Jean-Luc Godard

[@ReyeditOneRom]

Exactly.

[@thelegendrubyrodd]

i say just steal. all that other stuff is just a matter of perspective.

[@IanFrantz]

I actually bought the "Steal Like an Artist" calendar which is available for 2017. :]

[@ckminty603]

@@IanFrantz Off to a bad start, you should have stolen it.

[@MegF142857]

Inspiring and freeing concept. Not really to "steal", but instead use others' works as a tool to get your own creativity moving along. Turn and play with other people's words and ideas to find and make something new. Thanks Mr. Kleon for some history on the concept.

[@zaibshahzad5047]

Had I known this while studying architecture! I used to be so uber anxious about "plagiarism" that everything had to be original and nothing copied or transformed. But yes as an artist I've known for a long time, it's tough to get around intellectual property rights, but inspiration always comes from viewing something of personal interest, whether its in a magazine, on the street or a conglomeration of what we've seen in the real world presented in our dreams while we sleep. Thank you thank you thank you.. this is a great example of how to turn criticism into research that helps everyone else as well!

[@karlabrandao4799]

I'm an architecture student and my teacher recommended us this book in our plastic arts workshop, in my first semester. I was always so self-conscious about my work and didn't think I could be creative in any way, but this book helped me a lot. I did a lot of research and basically put pieces of things I love together with some of my own ideas and views, and it turned out great. Got my best grades in that class and my teacher loved my work. Every once in a while I read it again. One of my favorite books in the world.

[@desertstar7664]

His book is worth reading 10 times.

[@mannygonbau352]

I own it and j think I've read it more than that haha

[@KongLuvs]

+EmperorLOL Thanks for mentioning that. I had missed the fact that he had written a book by the same title as his talk. I checked it out from the library, and found it very good.

[@RokuRG]

his book is literally just what he said here.

[@ozymandiasE]

His book is literally the same thing as this speech lmao

[@victorakhere]

Make that ×2 lol

[@attgig]

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

[@JoelGarza72]

Creative Stealing = Creative Recycling. Thank you!

[@kevinwilliston9837]

He is absolutely right though, everyone emulates what they love (and even hate) whether it be music, drawing,painting sculpting writing. The way we speak and dress. What we eat and how we cook even. Everything is derived from something and it's up to us to use it tastefully. For someone to claim they're entirely original in any way is pretty ridiculous.

[@XrosM]

Sooooo does any one have any spectacular and very original ideas to share? It's for.......research...

[@pineKONEradio]

HAHA Never work for Disney . . .

[@gregtheytsubscriber8746]

it's a TRAP

[@luisrogelio98]

Nah man all my ideas are only transformations of what I stole

[@davidkrappenschitz9939]

dude same

[@Ifaii9l]

This is the first time I see the idea of stealing in a positive way

[@2adamast]

We're 12 years later and AI has entered the chat

[@motorjean3003]

i have a writer's block for more than 10 years now and after watching this video i feel inspired for the first time in a long time and am amazed how many opportunities i suddenly see where i can draw inspiration from. And what i saw as one of my weaknesses, having no original thoughts but having a good capability to come up with my version of somebody else's work, is basically what an artist does.

[@ZarHakkar]

Damn I wish modern copyright law took into account things like "love" and "respect". Unfortunately large corporations are incapable of either.

[@jakeheys8590]

POV: You're in year 11 English and your teacher linked this video for an assignment

[@TaiWaTzTV]

Today is 2022 and am watching, Amenikaribisha kwenye fikra njema

[@daddy3063]

I was going to buy the book then I got into this review saying that the whole book was explained here in this video.

[@NatalieBrownMusic]

Same

[@ArtistInNewHampshire]

Same!

[@Arifshah18]

Same here

[@donnjones6032]

true originality comes from The Universal mind.After that nothing is original.

[@omarora4590]

Every idea is twist of old idea

[@junainafamily2712]

So you wouldn’t mind if I download your book for free from a torrent site. 😜😂

[@DaveFreeComputerKnowledge]

the book changed my life and i have just found this video after 3 years.. life is so unfair indeed

[@ThreadheadTV]

Exactly! Love it. And whenever and where ever possible, give credit to the artist/person from whom you got your idea, inspiration, or tutelage. Cuz we would want the same. :) Then it truly is a win-win (etc -win).

[@creamithmanning2632]

Until you ironically get sued by an artist for stealing his/her stolen ideas.

[@silharoun]

' every new idea is a remix ' if everyone started thinking that way, we will run out of things to copy, there is inspiration and there is shamelessly stealing. i dont mean to sound mean but this is lazy and sloppy thinking, originality still exists.

[@virginiejoncas7470]

haha that was definitely a nice end! Great video!

[@stillkingcam]

Isn’t it ironic that Picasso even stole his most famous quote about stealing.

[@timojo-ibukun5264]

Who did he steal it from?

[@seanheritage]

I've been experimenting with this philosophy in the Navy while serving as a Commanding Officer with great results. We call it "Best Practice Convergence" and our team has been "stealing" the best ideas from other commands, making them our own, and then exporting them back to Fleet. Talk about an enjoyable path to deliberate progress and a shared legacy. Thanks to Austin for packaging a similar message so very well...

[@adhiperwira3523]

that is why art is an imitation of life. we just need to make a new innovation of the existing piece of art. :-?

[@powerpath659]

Hey this was my Speech!

[@MartaniPanganSehat]

I read his other book, Show Your Work in my friend's villa in Bali. It's a good handy book that I think we've used it to promote agriculture product from our garden. Like it. I hope to read this Steal Book too.

[@henrywarmoth1792]

Brandon Sanderson wrote in his book, The Way of Kings, *spoilers* "What is it that men value in others? . . . If an artist creates a work of powerful beauty - using new and innovative techniques - she will be lauded as a master, and will launch a new movement in aesthetics. Yet what if another, working independently with that exact level of skill, were to make the same accomplishments the very next month? Would she find similar acclaim? No. She'd be called derivative. . . . in the end, what must we determine? Is it the intellect of a genius that we revere? If it were their artistry, the beauty of their mind, would we not laud it regardless of whether we'd seen their product before? But we don't. Given two works of artistic majesty, otherwise weighted equally, we will give greater acclaim to the one who did it first. It doesn't matter what you create. It matters what you create before anyone else. So it's not the beauty itself we admire. It's not the force of intellect. It's not invention, aesthetics, or capacity itself. The greatest talent that we think a man can have? . . . Seems to me that it must be nothing more than novelty." Go read that book. It's fantastic and Sanderson is great.

[@JakeChallenor]

Just read the book, now enjoying Austin's TEDx talk on the same subject - 'Steal Like an Artist'. Watch >>

[@comontoshi]

KNOW THE HISTORY OF YOUR CRAFT!! I learned that back in the late 1970’s. The so-called KZbin “creators” are at best nothing more than copycats . . .

[@jobedahsultanamim]

Read Steal Like An Artist. And i absolutely loved it. And loved this video!!

[@jubayerahmed8126]

Orginality Is Unditected Plagarism.

[@HoppyBunny.]

I sure wish a lot of modern artist would bother stealing how to draw and paint well

[@BenHall289]

Why? Drawing and painting "well" has been done to death. Maybe modern artists see more value in challenging old tropes and ideas of virtuosity.

[@sharongillesp]

There's room for all!

[@metsrus]

@@BenHall289 but where is that line between ingenuity and mediocrity.

[@BenHall289]

@@metsrus visual art and painting isn't just a means of representation anymore. We've had cameras for a long time now. There's good and bad in all forms of art of course or rather some art is more affective to a larger number of people than other art. It's all subjective of course and that's for the experiencer to decide what speaks to them. Personally I find most traditional paintings dull and were I a painter I'd see no value in pursuing that type of art. Marcel Duchamp, fluxus and dada changed the art world for the better as far as I'm concerned.

[@TechTalkXplore]

♨️👍

[@bachinjazz]

I love this. Frederic Chopin 'stole' the idea for his famous Fantasie Impromptu--a Romantic piece used by those who audition for university-level piano courses--adding his own tone, style, and harmonies, from a piece both rhythmically and technically complex, a piece that acts as a third movement for the "Sonanta quasi una Fantasia;" the third movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata."

[@linsildiedar]

As an artist of poetry... this is NOT how i create. This is just re-inventing. He doesn't know what a real artist is. Be careful who tries to TEACH you something. You can create by emptying ones mind and letting the artistry FALL into your head.

[@ahnasimmons468]

"i steal everything i possibly can from them" the police near the door: so do we arrest him or not?

[@naincyjainx]

Wow. I had an impression that stealing ideas, copy others is the bad thing. But voila, Its an ART. 😁

[@milind-9683]

watch it at 1.75x. And you are welcome! :)

[@michaelangelo253]

lol thanks

[@cmdejong6813]

We read, we look and we listen and we add our personal handwriting to our creations. If we don't we just copy. We want to create something new. We think we are original. At the beginning of this speech I was sceptic, but he has a point. This is really an eye opener.

[@SonicXRage]

Imagine a line that is neither curved nor straight. You can't. We can only create using what we've seen before.

[@CONEHEADDK]

I hate writing - like in HAAATE - and now I'm writing a book.. Oh the irony........