The Ecstasy of Influence

In the section "The Beauty of Second Use", Lethem quotes an interaction between the Skin Horse and Velveteen Rabbit from the story of The Velveteen Rabbit on page 219. Since I was unfamiliar with the story, I looked up the book and found a website that had uploaded the pages and illustrations to the story, which I read. It turned out to be a lovely story about a toy rabbit that held fears of not being as good as the other toys and becoming "Real", and then the story follows how "the Boy" loved the Rabbit and made him Real.
Initially, I did not see why Lethem choose this story and how it connected to his point about The Ecstasy of Influence, but after rereading the section, I realized the connection lied in how the Rabbit only became Real after multiple uses and losing his shine and gleam from being a new toy. Lethem argues that, like the Rabbit, works of art, literature, etc. only become real or truly notable when they inspire others to take what has been put out there and give them another use. The Velveteen Rabbit itself has inspired 13 adaptions ranging from animated short films to musical productions.
By comparing the appropriation of a person's work to love a child gives him stuffed animal, Lethem gives this act of plagiarism a positive connotation, with the rationalizing that you wouldn't tell a child to stop loving his toy when it gets worn-out, therefore people should be able to build off of what other people before them have done.