[Blazing Questions] Inferior Imitations (Part 1)

Started this post on Aug. 4, set it aside and decided now would be a good time to finish it. I seem to be on a blogging roll... I hope my readers will keep up.

Being bored at home, I decided to troll around AOL for a bit looking for interesting conversation. As I revisited my old virtual haunts from my high school era I found them deserted and empty. As I ventured down into the electronic depths I soon discovered the mass majority of activity dedicated to offering or gaining the pleasures of lust. Weather it was SxyGRL80809 offering me a view of a 21 year old virgin on a web cam or TllDrKnHndsm looking for 19/f/pic, it was almost entirely dedicating to vicious pursuits. I finally was able to strike up a good conversation with a young woman from VA, which proved very interesting about the objectivity of art and why The Mona Lisa is smiling. This got me thinking back to the good'ol Plato dialogue about imitations and their inferiority ( I will assume for the sake of the discussion that imitations are inferior, if you would like to dispute that… Talk to me). So I devised a bit of a thought project along those lines.

Why do imitations work?
Because they are accepted on some level by the consumer (general term I will use for recipient, consumer, audience, viewer, etc).

Why are they accepted?
Acceptance seems to be based on two criteria. The first, an understanding that the thing ( I am using" thing," though I think these are in fact general principles that apply not just to physical objects, etc but also to emotions and actions) is in fact an imitation of another. Second, an understanding about the thing's quality, based on the first understanding.

Ok, so we have four possible scenarios, right?

1. The consumer is ignorant of the thing's being an imitation and therefore does not see, or possibly does not even look for, a difference in quality between the imitation and original. (See: Fake Drugs)

2. The consumer is ignorant of it's being an imitation and knows or discovers a difference in quality between the imitation and original, which would probably cause one to immediately suspect the first criteria. (See: That Prada Bag may cost you)

3. The consumer understands the product to be an imitation and does not realize or understand the inferiority of the imitation, probably due to an ignorance of the original being imitated or a lack of careful examination of the imitation (though I am very open to other possibilities).

4. The consumer understands the product to be an imitation and acknowledges its resulting inferiority.

I will continue to expand on the possibilities of these four scenarios including examples that apply and the ramifications there of. If anything comes to mind, please suggest it as I hope to branch this topic out for a while.