The History of my "Stolen" Ideas

It All Started with Duck Tape

When I was a young kid, around age 10, I fell in love with Duck Tape. I taught myself dozens of crafting techniques through trial and error to learn how to fully utilize the material. Within a year, I could make anything out of Duck Tape. I made a shield, gloves, shoes, a cape, props for costumes, and toys. For the next few years, I had the same response to anyone who asked me what I wanted for my birthday or for Christmas. I told them I wanted the latest Pokémon game and tons of Duck Tape.

My favorite things to make were action figures. Ever since I was very young, I’d always been one to take things apart out of curiosity. Even with my toys, I would carve them up and splice them back together in a new form like my own Frankenstein’s monster (which inspired a future toy design I’ve made). With Duck Tape, I could create even more customized figures because I could build them from scratch.

One day, my mom told me about a competition for Duck Tape creations held by the actual company. They asked for a short description and photos of your creation. There was a cash prize offered for first place as well as a lot of free tape. I got my best figures from my room and took pictures to submit them. They were truly my best work with moving hinges, swiveling heads, and the ability to stand upright in various poses. I lost.

Which isn’t the point of this story. The real crux of the story is what happened after my defeat.

About a year after the competition, I was back in Toys R Us and saw a new display. It featured a kit released by the Duck Tape company where you can make your own figures and toys using their tape. My mom insisted this couldn’t be a coincidence, but I was a young kid with no grasp of the implication that this company might have stolen or copied my idea. I was just excited to see the cool new project.

Psychology

In middle school, a friend of mine took a psychology class. Due to my social ineptitude and natural curiosity, I’d taken a personal interest in psychology and the study of human behavior. I figured there must be some way I could learn enough about humans that I would finally be accepted as one. The only reason I hadn’t taken the psychology class that year was because I’d finally been able to take the class on Greek Mythology and they were in the same time slot.

I got excited hearing my friend talk about how fun the class was. I started thinking about my own observations of human behavior. I was especially interested in what was happening inside of my own mind as I’d started to feel things and have very concerning thoughts and ideas float around.

In my journey of introspection, I met parts of myself that seemed to hold all sorts of memories and ideas of their own. We would have discussions and debates regularly as I didn’t have many friends in the real world to hang out with. I spent most of my time in class, taking naps, and going to fencing practice. Spending time with the parts of myself in our internal world was good enough for me. It helped with the feelings of loneliness and fear.

Together, these parts of me helped me craft all sorts of interesting theories, and I decided to present one to the friend who was taking psychology. My goal was to get him to talk to the teacher about my idea to get some insight on its validity.

At lunch one day, I explained to my friend that I believed all people had three core components to their personality that drive behavior. I told him there was a part we could imagine as a sort of rulebook that gets compiled from the moment we’re born. This part documents all the things we should and should not do and will be keenly observant of aberrant behavior that could get us in trouble.

The second part was more of a dark, shadowy figure. This part wanted to simply do whatever it is the person truly desired at any given moment. This shadow part had no concern for rules or consequences. The third part was the true person who was able to take input from the rulebook part and the shadow part and then make decisions.

I started to go into the second section of my theory that discussed how I still needed to figure out when, where, and how these parts developed and how the desires of each part are decided considering people don’t all have the same shadow desires or same set of rules. My friend interrupted me and said, “That’s just the theory of Id, Ego, and Superego. You didn’t discover anything.”

He was right. I looked it up and saw that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung had already developed nearly identical concepts to everything I’d been working on for months.

Medical Devices

When I was 15, a friend of mine had foot surgery to correct an alignment issue he’d had since he was quite young. To help cheer him up during the long recovery, I went to see a movie with him.

As I stood at the front of the theater, I saw my friend, on crutches, make the long trip from the handicap space to the front doors. He wasn’t the smallest guy in the world, and I could hear his heavy breathing even from a good distance away. When we entered the theater, I noted how frequently he would take the crutches from under his arms to give his armpits a break.

I noted the sweat stain on his back from the effort of swinging his whole body around just to take a step. The most interesting thing I noted was how often he massaged his thigh during the movie. I realized it must be tight from having to hold his foot in the air all the time.

Over the next week, I worked in the garage on my new project. I’d realized there was a better way to get around after a foot or ankle surgery than using crutches. It would be much easier for the person to limp. But, in order for a person to limp without putting pressure on the injured foot, they would need a device that worked like a temporary peg leg.

I designed a contraption that attached to the thigh for stability. It had a cushion for the person to rest their knee on and a platform to rest their shin on so they wouldn’t have to engage their leg muscles to hold their foot up in the air all the time. I created my first prototype and brought it with me to school for my friend to try. He enjoyed my temporary peg leg until his foot healed.

I made an upgraded version of the device and would show it to my fellow students and other people as an example of why I needed to go to college for engineering. Strangely enough, I was in college a few years later pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering when I saw something incredible.

I was walking in the downtown area and did a double take as a man limped past me. He was wearing a temporary peg leg! It was a device that attached to his thigh, had a knee cushion, and a platform for his shin. He was moving around like it was nothing. I rushed back to my computer to do some research and discovered that someone had patented the invention and started selling it as a medical device. Each unit sold for hundreds of dollars.

Disney

Later in college, I’d changed my major to earn a degree in business instead of engineering. One of my classes had us develop a program for a major company and then create a pitch for the professor as if we were pitching this strategic initiative to the board of directors. As a huge fan of the company and the creative legacy, I told my group that Disney was a great choice. Thankfully, they agreed that Disney would be a fun company to pretend to work for. It helped when I told them that I’d already been coming up with ideas for Disney for years and kept them all in my notebooks.

We ran into a problem immediately. The project’s rules stipulated we had to create a new idea the company hadn’t already done and didn’t already announce. I thought that since I had tons of ideas written down in my notebooks specifically surrounding Disney that coming up with something they’ve never done would be easy. I was wrong.

I’d been slowly documenting ideas for Disney for over a decade that composed a list of over 20 products, processes, and concepts. I sat there growing ever more frustrated as I had to cross each idea off the list one by one. Every Google search just told me more and more about how successful my ideas had been over the past 10 years and that someone else had already done them.

My group members weren’t huge Disney fans, so they didn’t have the most up-to-date information about the crazy new innovations in the parks and movie studios. They tried to help with coming up with ideas, but Disney had already done everything we could think of. The obvious answer was some sort of physical band that used RFID for the Disney parks or an app that users could use on their phones. Disney had already made both.

Technically, Disney hadn’t done my idea involving creating a national chain of movie theaters the only show films from the Disney vault and have themed rooms to sort of emulate small versions of Disney World. However, the strategic initiative was supposed to involve some way to use technology to enhance a person’s experience, and theater technology didn’t count according to our professor.

All the other companies had been assigned to different groups, so we couldn’t switch. I’d gotten us into this mess, and I planned on getting us out of it. I was sitting in the dining hall and looking at the problem from all sorts of angles. Finally, it hit me. We were trying to add on a piece of technology to things that Disney already had. Even with my theater idea, Disney already had movie theaters inside the parks and showed movies in theaters across the world.

What we needed was to create something Disney didn’t have.

I came up with the idea for a ski resort. Even better, we could utilize Disney principles of marketing and base the resort’s designs and features on the highly successful movie Frozen. The entrance would have a replica of the ice sculpture Elsa made at the end of the film. The building would look like the castle of Arendelle. There would even be an ice-skating rink for everyone to enjoy. We decided to put the ski-resort in Canada to help drive the Disney brand more international than it already was.

Now that we had this never-before-seen Disney experience, all we had to do was find an innovative technology to enhance the experience we’d just invented!

Then one of the group members gave us the bad news. Disney had announced, just a few months prior, a new ski resort they would be building in Canada. It would be based on the hit movie Frozen and would feature a replica of the castle of Arendelle, an ice-skating rink, and the ice sculpture Elsa makes in the film. It would feature the latest travel and resort technology they developed specifically for winter activities.

Sadly, that wasn’t the only time I’ve accidentally created brilliance surrounding Disney. In the past year, my spouse and I made several trips to Disney World using annual passes. They were expensive, but the experiences and memories we created were more than worth it. As usual, I had to always be analyzing and thinking about ways to improve the park and the guest experience.

I reasoned it made no sense for the Autopia cars in Tomorrowland to still be gas powered. They traveled in a set distance and always returned to some sort of docking station. It would be better for the planet and the guests (because of the reduced noise and smell) if the cars were electric. Plus, it helped fit better with the theme of building a better tomorrow. Months later, Disney announced that all the Autopia cars would be decommissioned and replaced with electric versions.

I thought it seemed silly that there weren’t more experiences that allowed guests to just walk around and look at awesome things. Something for older guests to enjoy without standing in line. By the end of the year, Disney built walking experiences in EPCOT and Animal Kingdom.

I told my spouse it was a shame the classic Disney villains had such little representation when it came to the parks. Sure, they often made small cameos and appearances in a section of the storybook rides and shows, but I thought there ought to be whole sections of the parks dedicated to villains. I imagined the striking colors of Maleficent, Jafar, and Dr. Facilier lighting up the night using the same glowing effect featured in Pandora. I thought about fun rollercoasters based on a villain and how perfect it seemed to attach a thrill ride to such thrilling characters. Just a month ago, Disney announced they would be building a Villainsland in the Magic Kingdom.

As soon as I heard the news about Villainsland, I ran into our bedroom and started loudly espousing to my spouse how it had happened again. They couldn’t stop laughing at how ridiculous the situation was. I told them how, at this rate, we were pretty much guaranteed to see Disney announce they were redoing the Journey Into Imagination ride to feature the characters of Inside Out.

It’s yet another idea of mine. I figured you could use the characters of Inside Out to guide you through Imagination land and the islands of personality like we see in the films. After the ride, you would exit into a room that’s designed like their headquarters. You could move dials and switches on the control panel, walk around the life-size set and take pictures, and play with some cool gadgets that give information about how all the different emotions inside of us work together.

The big selling point would be a station where guests could take a number of photos or videos, similar to photopass and the magic shots, in a small studio. Afterwards, they could get the photos as-is using regular purchasing methods. However, they could also spend a little extra money and buy a Core Memory. Just like in the film, you would get this huge glowing orb that plays either a short film on loop or a slideshow of photos from your day in the park. Wouldn’t that be cool! You would be able to display a Core Memory of your time in the park in real life based on this thing they dreamed up for the movie.

Conclusion

Time and time again I’ve put my ideas and inventions into the universe only to see someone else make money from the same idea. Toys, apps, books, processes, and products have all made their creators fortunes while I’ve let mine sit in my notebooks for decades doing nothing but sounding cool.

In High School, I fell in love with a video game that had over 100 characters to play. I, of course, looked at all the characters to analyze what made them fun, analyze how the story elements attracted people to them, and analyzed design elements and features of their gameplay and mechanics. I took that information and designed my own characters for the video game and described them in great detail.

I was showing my self-made character concepts to some friends at school, who also played the game, when one of them asked what seemed like an obvious question. “Why did you waste your time making all of that? They’ll never actually use any of your ideas.”

I was too shocked to know how to answer him. Plus, I didn’t even have an answer. I never stopped to ask myself why I made all the things I made. To me, it was like trying to answer why I bothered to breathe. Thankfully, a different friend offered a quick and perfectly crafted answer.

He said, “Rivahn can’t simply enjoy. They have to create.”

It remains, to this day, one of the only times someone told me something about myself I didn’t already know. It’s also completely true. I’ve made toys, video games, card games, board games, artwork, journal templates, essays, articles, clothing, desk toys, knick-knacks, Excel workbooks, novels, hundreds of characters, dozens of worlds, new manufacturing processes, investment strategies, test taking strategies, prototypes, fitness regimens, psychological theories, shoes, medical aids, and more.

The list of what I’ve made cannot end.

I’ve made so many things that I’ve never been able to fully compile a complete list. Every time I try, I’ll find an old creation I’d forgotten about a few days later and then find another forgotten idea a day after that and then some story I’d written a week after that.

Creating is like breathing to me. If I stop making things, it will be the last thing I do.