Copy Culture is My Love Language

By Lauren Kesterson

Founder, Museum of Me

Somewhere along the way, "copy culture" became a dirty phrase. Like, if you're drawing inspiration from someone or somewhere else, you're doing life wrong. Uncreative. Unoriginal. A little sad or desperate. I'd like to push back on that type of thinking. Especially as a millennial mom with approximately two brain cells to rub together on any given day.

Here's what no one tells you about motherhood: the research never stops. What to feed them, whether to sleep-train or not, which diaper cream won't give them a rash, what's actually worth the price tag, and what's just good marketing by an influencer online. Before I had kids, I had all kinds of opinions. Now I have questions, and I need someone who's already done the work just to tell me the answer because I don’t have time to fall this rabbit hole myself.

I've spent years in the weeds on beauty, wellness, style, home, and anything else that caught my attention. What I kept noticing is that the most useful thing I could do wasn't invent something new. It was to curate. To say: I tried it, I vetted it, here's what works. Copy this step by step. 

Here is what copy culture really is: it's trust. When you find someone whose taste you respect, whose life resembles yours in some way, and they say this is worth your time and money, you're not blindly copying. You're making an informed decision based on knowing, liking, and trusting that person. It’s influencing 101. It’s not about being lazy but having a point of view that aligns with what you want.

We've always done this as a society. We watched our mothers, our friends, the women a few steps ahead of us, and thought: I want that, or I want a version of that. Pinterest is a billion-dollar business built entirely on this exact ideal. Mood boards exist because humans are wired to collect what resonates and build something that looks like their own life. That's not copying. That's curation.

What is worth paying attention to isn't if you’re being original or copying. It's conscious versus subconscious choices surrounding that thought process. There's a version of copy culture that's just consuming without thinking, buying things because someone said to without asking if it actually suites your lifestyle. That version doesn't serve you, but finding people who've done the work, whose judgment you trust, and taking what applies? That's one of the smartest things a woman can do.

The women who helped me most in my motherhood journey weren't the ones with the one of a kind ideas. 

They were the ones who said, "Here's what worked for me, check it out.” The pediatrician's recommendation passed in a group chat. The nap schedule that actually stuck. The thirty minute dinner that didn't require a million ingredients, when everyone is crying, including me. All of it, while very unoriginal. Boring. Uninspired. Brought joy to my life in some way.

Copy culture exists to be a resource. Not to tell anyone who to be, but to hand over the research so you can spend your energy on the things that actually require your energy. The things only you can do.

This isn't a detour to a less authentic life. For moms especially, done right, it's how you get to a more authentic one faster and with a lot more brain cells left over for the parts of your life that are entirely yours.

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www.mymuseumofme.substack.com