The source that I chose to examine was "God's Little Toys," written by William Gibson for Wired. This article is one of the many that Lethem chooses to 'plagiarize' in his essay "The Ecstasy of Influence." In this article, the author talks about his own experience of using snippets of other works in his own writing, even unconsciously. He also talks about this idea of "recombination," or deconstructing a work and improving on it, providing examples in various industries of how improving on previous works benefits everyone. Additionally, the need to legislate new innovations after is important so that we don't stifle progress in our society. Stylistically, the author uses a personal example to introduce the idea before providing evidence for his claims. Personally, I really enjoyed reading his perspective on our changing landscape. With the Internet creating new forums for people to innovate together, creating something entirely new out of something old. His examples of how people have done this for certain movies that they like was also relatable to me, as I've seen such collaboration and recombination on social media platforms such as Tumblr. I do think, however, that it is important that as we continue to shift to more of an "active" audience, we strike a balance between constant innovation and credit where its due.
Gibson, William. "God's Little Toys." Wired, 1 Jul. 2005, https://www.wired.com/2005/07/gibson-3/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2016.
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