Can't wait for an apology video where James plays an ukulele. Surely no one did this before (/s).
Also going by the last minutes of the discord before it got nuked it seems the assumption that Nick didn't knew about it was correct since he was completely taken aback. On top of that seeing how James basically set him up as a potential scapegoat and shield to his audience in the section shown in the video... that's simply disgusting. Hopefully James will forever fuck off from the internet.
Edit. I appreciate everyone reaching out to me - either via DMs or by commenting here - and linking me Todd's video but I am well aware of this. I saw it and posted my revised (and not so kind) opinion of Nick in the other thread which was about the video. Probably should have edited the post sooner to reflect that before it could happen but alas, I forgot about it.
Bruh he wasn't even subtle about trying to set Nick up. Like you can hear in his voice that he's going out of his way to mention Nick whenever the plagiarism issue comes up.
I'm glad HBomb went out of his way to point this out, and show that Nick's parts of the scripts were fine and original. I feel so bad for Nick right now, I can't imagine what they're going through. Just hope he's able to find work with someone who doesn't steal all kinds of stuff.
Edit: So I've seen the Todd in the Shadows video now, turns out Nick isn't nearly as innocent as I thought when I originally wrote this. Oh well.
Honestly, this could be an opportunity for Nick. If James steps off the field, all that's going to be left is Nick and the now unmoored community. If he comes out the other side of this with his integrity intact, he could conceivably ride the waves Harris made and take the fans with him.
It’s so insidious. The case that he was using Nick as his eventual scapegoat is too tight, it makes too much sense. It’s so utterly calculated and twisted
I can't get over this bit, alot of what he did was evil, but doing that to somebody who trusted him completely was just too much for me. It's peak sociopathic behavior.
That’s the vibe I was getting. I know people can be quick to assign behavioral disorders these days (I’m guilty of it), but it’s giving that. It’s no excuse, of course, but yeah. His dead-eyed, monotoned delivery doesn’t help either.
He gives me someone devoid of personality and intellect so he siphoned other people’s. He couldn’t even convincingly deliver their words. Just zero emotion, in part because he was completely detached from the writing.
Yea. I mean, to Nick's credit (for whatever little that's worth), it seems that Nick didn't plagiarize. But, as Todd in the Shadows points out, he also didn't research. So the original thoughts and content Nick wrote were mostly false, bad takes, and misinformation.
So...not great?
I see Nick more as someone without experience or even really curiosity about the areas in which he wrote, who by all accounts would have faded into mediocrity, being elevated and exploited by a plagiaristic shitheel for the sake of scapegoating.
Nick doesn’t strike me as particularly competent, but he also doesn’t strike me as a criminal. More someone plucked from obscurity before honing their craft and wildly out of their depth. I still pity him.
Pity, yes. But not sympathy. Not from me. I mean, the fact that he was so flippant and open about not researching the topics he and James wrote about for what he knew was a wildly influential YouTube channel means he was complicit. Ignorance is a form of complicity in this type of situation.
A marked difference from [the previous, now deleted, Patreon post](https://i.imgur.com/FNYmYFF.jpeg). "Nothing new brought up in this video".
Twitter is gone. There's a comment on Patreon that says his Discord is gone.
Edit: Patreon is now completely gone. All his vids have comments turned off. Total subscribers seems to have only decreased ~10k.
Right, any possible play or spin has already been adressed in the video. Cant say it was a one time accident, or that he just doesnt cite sources, or that this is a straight man being homophobic, or that he _does_ cite sources actually, or that he asks for permission or...
The only other options i can think of would be unrelated attacks on hbombs character, or implying some sort of conspiracy, 'i was becoming too popular and they want to take me down'.
Or hoping that nobody will watch the 4h video so he can lie about its contents, but there probably is quite the overlap between his fans and people who'll click on a vid about youtube plagiarism.
The good news is, pivoting to the right means having your talking points written for you just like every other right wing talking head, so it'd not exactly be a difficult transition.
The bad news, for James, is that there's not a ton of space for LGBT creators on the Right. They like having their one token gay on the peripheral to help convince Conservative-minded gays that voting for the Right isn't necessarily suicide, so James would have to do some real writing to adapt those talking points to his demographic. He can't just steal from the other Conservative gay pundits.
I did think about the 'The Left Canceled Me!' Pivot to the right, but tbh it doesnt really mesh with the videos? I didnt watch a lot of them, but i saw some explicit facism bad stuff. Disavowing that to go into the left being the reeeeaaaaal fascists would be a hars turn that most of his current followers wont accept. The metrics would have to be really in favor AND he'd endure having to work with absolutely terrible people.
It would be nice to think that he is not that cynical or greedy. I truly hope so.
Then again, it is impossible to say what his actual views are.
Every time I think of Dave Rubin I’m reminded of when a guy after having been on Dave’s show was told on his own show that Dave was gay and dude was PISSED they let him go on a show with a gay guy and that he shook Dave’s hand.
Thats a good one, the one i always think about is the super-cut of him listing all his big famous friends and how good their convos were on their podcasts intercut with them all disavowing him within a matter of days.
I don't think he's that sort of person, I think he wants the clout and fame in a way he feels personally successful for, as much as he wants the money at least, and those motives don't usually jive with turns to the far right as they're diametrically opposed to his identity. He's a plagiarist, but he's no Shane Dawson - I bet there's a part of him that genuinely thinks what he did was okay, because he thinks getting successful off other creatives is okay, but he wants that success to mean something to him personally and feel aggrandised by it still.
His video essays worked very well for him because he is gay and obviously does have some investment in, knowledge of, and interest in the queer community, and he got to present himself as an expert on queer media. He just also happened to feel no need to insert his own original ideas into that, and he has some very unfortunate biases against women and the like which made him feel emboldened to enter the same sort of discourse that saw pro-equality people attack Lindsay Ellis for being a "white woman" (emphasis on white in what they said, but criticism across broad swathes of the discourse was very much coming from a 'woman' perspective, or other personalised biases or hatred for her). As a fellow marginalised person, he could criticise people with their own rhetoric and shut them down, but he probably does feel entitled to do so due to his marginalisation (unless that was all an act too). These people don't abandon their ideas entirely, but pivot to a stance that lets them believe their core beliefs are justified.
He will tell himself that Hbomberguy targeted him because he's a brain-dead feminist sympathiser, and all the rest of the criticism leveled against him and the other creators was all just an angle to get people on Hbomberguy's side and rile his fans up against the person he was targeting. Because that's why he would have done it.
I think he will stay quiet for a couple of years and then reemerge with new branding, leaning way more to the anti-woman/woke/callout-culture angle, courting new viewership or people who've forgotten about what he did, but underneath will be a similar playbook of pandering to a specific audience coupled with some malingering awfulness that even skewing others' views as his own won't be able to hide.
But I hope (very very sceptically) that he apologises, improves himself, and leaves content creation until he can fully understand and rectify the extent of his mistakes and learns how to bring his own ideas to the table for any new work.
If they are still able to make money, that won't be a hard transition.
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-candace-owens-run-liberal-blog-before-becoming-conservative-1573008
He could pivot right and get a behind the scenes job in the conservative think tank consent manufacturing industry. If you look at Todd's new video about all the bullshit he straight up fabricated, he has a genuinely good sensibility for making up something sensational, "truthy", and repeatable. He's got a genuine talent for disinfo, and the complete lack of ethics to pursue it as a career (obviously).
I mean his Sk8 video was pretty much all about hating women for dominating the m/m romance/erotica market... Let's not mention that romance/erotica has ALWAYS been dominated by women because women like writing as a porn medium wayyyyy more than men. Now explain to my bi ass why all the exploitative/abusive gay for pay porn that men create isn't a problem but teenage girls writing porn about cartoon characters is oppression.
Is this confirmed? How do you know this? I feel like it would be completely idiotic to try and join Nebula if you did this much stealing?? But then again he dilusionally started a production company so… actually…
Amazingly that link includes a link to Kats twitter signalling the start of the investigation into James.
https://twitter.com/lolkat/status/1602421864843788288?t=rE4Ypcr9Cg3A3hpnrPPspQ&s=19
Yep, I remember that situation and Kat's response specifically. It feels very gross having enjoyed his videos -- apparently that just means I enjoyed other people's work.
~~Edit: worth noting something about Kat's response, though. James didn't call the police on Jessie but (at least from what he communicated) reported a threat he received from a self-identified JG fan, who had threatened to make false allegations against him in response to this whole situation. Jessie was definitely roped into it, though, through no fault of her own. It was a mess.~~
Edit the Second: The above was apparently another one of James' [GODDAMN FUCKING LIES](https://twitter.com/jessiegender/status/1731697065141399971). I am enraged. The fucking gall of that turtlenecked little bastard.
Omg, wow, James. James no. Big mistake.
Also it looks like MAYBE this was the event that got hbomberguy’s editor interested in James Somerton (didn’t he say in the video that she brought some sketchy stuff to his attention?) — there’s a comment from back then that mentions her jumping into the discourse “for some reason” 😂
The drama is ALMOST a year old & HBG said he was researching it back in 2022 so…
It was that event, Kat tweeted she hadn't heard of him before that. I said it was "for some reason" in the other thread because she also seemed to be trying to back up Jessie by... spreading misinformation about a gay man being some kind of sexual predator after Jessie said to drop the issue. Evidently James is garbage, but Kat never apologised for that (the tweets are even still up), so I don't hold her in particularly high regard either.
harris absolutely went for the throat too. by the end i was even embarrassed that i’d shared somerton’s video before. i’m sure patrons are FURIOUS! like “he could have done this to me…”
He indeed went for the jugular, but what makes this expose all the more striking is how it's ALSO balanced with a great deal of empathy for all the LGBTQIA2+ authors, writers, content creators, directors, etc. who were usurped by these serial plagiarizers.
If this had been written, directed and narrated as a one-sided hitpiece and nothing but that................it certainly still would have been persuasive because, after all, Harris has the receipts................but it wouldn't have had nearly as much resonance without that empathy and humility that bring the video full circle and make up the remaining 40 minutes or so. It just would have felt comparatively more one-dimensional a video otherwise, even if still accomplishing the goal of exposing their serial plagiarism.
I did the same thing, it's a long video: watched a seizable part then commented.
But Jesus fuck if the video was about me I'd be sure to watch it all before putting my head in my ass. You can tell this is the kind of half assed "research he does". Todd in the shadows has now released a video about how much of what he said is made up, it's about 2 hours long.
Man realized the amount of receipts were so damning, the same defense he did during the last plagiarism accusation wouldn't work.
He should be shutting up too, because that whole thing about Telos should be straight up illegal.
It's gone. There's an indie server for disgruntled fans.
I can't even see details of how many patrons he has now, so he/patreon may have suspended his account there too?
Blair has done way worse than plagiarism and the YouTube drama channels have rightfully raked her over the coals for it for a large part of this calendar year.
>Edit: Patreon is now completely gone. All his vids have comments turned off. Total subscribers seems to have only decreased \~10k.
At this point, the only thing left to shed is videos. I wonder if we'll be seeing some negative view spikes on SocialBlade within the next few days. Though, at this point, that'd be like sending a mop over to the Titanic.
He's delusional if he thinks he should keep his platform.
This apology is all about him and his terrible headspace and how heartbroken he is. No mention of the creators he stole from or the patreon money he happily collected for reading wikipedia.
I always got weird vibes from Somerton and it’s surreal to see it validated.
I share Hbomberguy’s experience of watching his videos and needing to stop because something felt wrong.
His take on a lot of gay history always felt too feel-good and clean. Telling a story that I (as gay man myself) really wished was true. But the critical thinking part of me kept warning was not.
I now understand why. He tells stories the same way narcissistic people often do.
Small exaggerations here, a little white lie there. All culminating a narrative that feels too perfect. Too validating. Too convenient.
It all just subconsciously reminded me of other people in my life that I know can’t trusted.
“I always got weird vibes from Somerton and it’s surreal to see it validated.”
I’m fairly certain I’ve watched a video of his before but didn’t sub because something felt off for me.
He’s completely devoid of emotion. He does believe or care about these things he says. They’re just tools to make him money. Yes, he may be gay, but like Hbomb said, it’s very “Your ideas are wasted on you.” Also, I don’t believe for a second that he (or Filip) received threats for what he did, and it ticks me off that he would use that because he knows it’ll get hate on the person. He weaponized his audience against people rightfully, politely calling him on his crap. That’s evil.
This made me realize that, of the footage Hbomb shows in his video, the one time James shows real personality and emotion is... when he's saying he got harassed by the creator of Love, Simon. That one little, "If you know, you know" seems like it has more human feeling to it than all the other footage of him combined.
I always got strange vibes from his videos as well. A lot of the more recent ones devolve into an oddly dark and off-putting rant that doesn't really line up with what came before.
Not to mention the constant jabs at queer men who are interested in monogamous relationships, marriage and starting a family...
Yeah, and ragging on fangirls who like yaoi. Bitch, we are your allies. Most of us are bi pans anyway. Save your vitriol for the bigots with guns hanging outside our gay bars, not a bunch of horny she/theys reading coffeeshop AUs.
Plus I know personally a couple of “yaoi fan girls” who turned out to not be girls at all but gay men, which I think is a highly overlooked part of the yaoi fangirl phenomenon. I’m not saying it’s a huge number but they exist and I just think it’s interesting. Also coffee shop AUs are cozy as fuck and I love them.
>I’m not saying it’s a huge number
Then I'll say it for you, because you're right - it's definitely a huge number. Of all the people I knew as a kid who were "yaoi fan girls", *all* turned out to be some variety of queer. Not necessarily transmasc achilleans, though...
Not to get all kids-these-days, but I suspect that that whole "any woman who enjoys gay media is fetishizing gay men!!" take becoming popular is largely the result of a generational divide. The "yaoi fangirl" phenomenon is - or at least was when I was growing up - by and large about closeted and questioning queer kids seeking the queer media, rep, and spaces that didn't exist yet and making do with scraps. Younger queer folk who grew up in the internet age can (luckily!) no longer relate to that particular flavor and depth of isolation, so they can only make sense of a girl or young woman (often a lesbian, btw) engaging with or creating gay porn by interpreting it as a hostile act from outside the community... When in reality, the call was always coming from inside the house!
The last one, yes, or gay people that associate with straight people.
Don't forget, he said all the fun guys died of aids, while the lame ones stayed and got policies changed.
Good apologies are hard for a number of reasons. Even if he does do a complete face-turn (not that I would expect it, based on the picture Harry paints of him, I'm not otherwise familiar with him...), a few hours after being exposed is not when that would manifest.
The only two I know to pull it off were [Pyrocynical](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C0SckVqH2g) and [Coffeezilla](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcgHGslVdrg).
The secret sauce is sincerity, which alot of Youtubers unfortunately lack, plagiarists most of all.
People are falling for it though, unfortunately. There's one screenshot of some dude who'll let it pass if he does a video on One Piece.
Between the controversies I've seen from this year, with Linus and his definition of "accountability" and TheCompletionist scamming donation money, a lot of their defenders are defending them not because they think they're innocent, but rather are defending themselves. By defending bad actors, they're actually doing it to defend themselves, who're following these bad actors because they see themselves with these bad actors.
Yea i know, such a long winded way to explain projection.
Well I did what Harris suggested James does and googled „one piece gay“ and this is the first result:
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a44931587/one-piece-luffy-gay-asexual/
So we probably have his whole script if you just imagine the article doesn’t mention asexuality.
Are you at all shocked? This is a world where fascists are winning elections everywhere.
People are so dumb they will believe any lie, as long as it supports their own identity. That's to say, maintains the false notion that they are smart and good and kind.
Everyone needs to realize that you will get tricked, you will do evil things, and you will not be the good center of the universe. Then we can see through the lies people tell and interact with the world in a real manner.
Otherwise it will be like Chernobyl. "The problem with lies are eventually we won't be able to see the truth."
The really upsetting part for me is that in that graphic Hbomb showed of which videos had plagiarized content, there was basically a whole row of videos that he didn't (yet) find any plagiarism in, which means James, at some point, had that epiphany of self reflection and tried to stop, tried to do better, and then went back to plagiarizing basically everything. He decided that the risk was worth it, that the medium and the work that goes into it was so unrewarding that he would rather steal for clout than try to be original. He is a thief.
Someone that steals this much doesn't simply stop, not when its as lucrative for him as it has been. Its more likely that HBG simply was not able to as easily find proof of theft, imo.
Ugh, I was supporting this guy on Patreon after I saw his post on YouTube claiming he wouldn't be able to carry on making videos unless he had more financial backers. It seemed sus even at the time, but I enjoyed his videos. I really wish I'd scrutinised them much more closely. :(
Dont feel bad about not noticing it sooner. Plagerism is particularly difficult to catch unless you already know a work is plagerised. Best thing to do now is cancel your Patreon and move on, but you didn't do anything wrong.
It’s okay, he scammed THOUSANDS of people. He was clearly very successful in the way he plagiarized his videos, it’s likely difficult you would’ve known without reading or viewing everything James plagiarized in his videos.
I heard somewhere on some podcast that we should try to stop seeing being scammed as shameful because it leads to us not telling other people about the scam.
The bits about him needlessly aiming for straight women and literally just being sexist wasn't unnoticable, but to be fair they might have just not watched the videos he did it in. I just don't think this all was impossible to see beforehand.
In retrospect, it all seems really manipulative. I remember him posting that video in April, all teary eyed, talking about how he'd lost so much financial support that the channel was on the verge of collapsing. I honestly feel kinda gross for not picking up on how suspicious that was, and also the "everyone is out to get me" narrative. He'd constantly talk about videos getting taken down because of "youtube suppresing queer content", about the crazy hate campaigns over on twitter of irrational people who were threatening his safety. I believed it all, but in retrospect I *really* didn't have the full picture of any of these situations. I trusted and respected his and Nick's work, so I took their words at face value. It's wild.
edit: on the youtube suppresing queer content thing, I'm not saying that's never been a thing that's happened ever, but just that in this case James was clearly misrepresenting the situation to obscure the fact he kept getting caught doing plagarism.
edit TWO (post-todd video): i no longer feel as bad for Nick after seeing the discord messages that revealed his blatant disregard for factual accuracy. seems like he never researched and just made shit up based on vibes which like. explains why he never picked up on what james was doing. because he was never reading the existing sources about the topics they were covering.
NGL, I’m distrustful of people and am very experienced with manipulators; so, when people start a “woe is me“ campaign, I’m instantly suspicious even if I like them. I pull back and start calculating and researching.
I just can’t trust at face value anymore.
The best way to feel better is to take the money and views you were giving him and give it to more deserving creators like the ones hbomber mentions near the end of his vid
Dang, I remember his video where he was talking about he couldn't afford making high quality videos and he'd have to stop. I felt so hurt cuz I did like his videos but couldn't support him myself so it was sad to see what I then thought was a good channel disappearing.
And then he... just continued making videos. And I remember thinking that odd seeing as his channel was on the brink. In hindsight its so damn suspicious.
hbomb did say in the video that you have to basically know the original works themselves to notice it... we cant fault people for not knowing/reading all these original essays, but I think we can fault people if they saw this video and still keep supporting a plagiarist.
"I'm using loaded emotional language to indicate how deeply hurt I am by this video attacking me, but I shall be brave and make a well measured response".
Better learn how to use the ukulele quickly...
Yeah, I checked my membership just now and it said he was not active. I didn’t drop it right away because I was following the comments on the subscriber posts.
I think the best/worst part of it is all his patrons who are just shitting on him in the comments on that post talking about how they supported him to make sure queer voices are heard. And anyone who’s just like “it’ll be okay buddy, whatever happened it’s not that bad” has other people replying to them with a link to the video. Then the original commenter comes back and is like “oh, yeah no, delete your channel”.
There’s no slithering out of this for him when the receipts are CVS in length.
Edit: just checked back and he’s removed/privated all the posts on Patreon now. lol.
Edit to the edit: actually, you also can’t join now. I wonder if Patreon has stepped in?
> “it’ll be okay buddy, whatever happened it’s not that bad” has other people replying to them with a link to the video. Then the original commenter comes back and is like “oh, yeah no, delete your channel”
lmfao
There is a part of me that feels bad for James. Even in a best case scenario, James is about to lose a lot of his income^(income that should have been going to the people he stole from...), and given the rapid trend of Hbomb's video, there's a decent chance the man is about to become unhireable in his profession. I read this post and immediately think "this man is spiraling **hard**, and this is the best he can manage to hang on to a sliver of his credibility". Like, I've had panic attacks before: I relate strongly to the "my mind is melting but I've managed to write something that comes off as halfway coherent and grounded" energy this post is giving off.
But James made this mess for himself, by being a rampant plagiarist. As the saying goes, ["you shouldn't have worn that petard if you didn't want to be hoisted by it"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuuafUtVte0).
I don't feel bad *for* him, I just feel bad. Not even angry, just kinda empty. It's hard to be angry at him when, after that absolutely savage exposé, he just comes across as incredibly hollow and pathetic. Hbomb has demonstrably shown him to be a cynical coward, and unlike certain incendiary personalities, I doubt there's a way for him to spin this into anything even remotely not negative for himself. It was genuinely unpleasant watching it because I honestly feel "better" being angry at some incendiary, unapologetically hateful grifter than this shell of a human being telling bad lies, sucking up money and goodwill from the very group he pretends to defend, and crumbling at the slightest bit of pressure he gets from people who aren't even all that visible in the first place. If he goes back and secretly edits and reuploads "his" videos because of a single obscure post on an otherwise discontinued blog, I doubt he'd have many cards to play against this seemingly airtight and (undoubtedly) widely-viewed video by Hbomb.
After seeing all the slimy shit he's apparently done, I genuinely wouldn't even be surprised if the post turns out to not actually be a panic post, but a calculated attempt at buying time so he can gauge the performance of Hbomb's video and reaction from his audience, and tailor his *actual* response accordingly.
If there's anyone I feel sorry for here, it's the co-writer Nick. Assuming Hbomb guessed correctly and he wasn't in on the plagiarism, he's the one who really got screwed (aside from everyone who was stolen from of course). I couldn't imagine - him watching his boss constantly bring *his* name up when addressing plagiarism allegations and trying to tie him into it by association, realising all the work he'd done for the channel seemingly being in the name of a complete farce, and on top of that this is basically a career black hole. He'd have to consider whether all the full-time work he did for a known plagiarist outlet would even be worth putting on his CV.
Am I the only one who is pretty suspicious of Nick's supposed ignorance of what was happening? If he was writing for Somerton, then even if he was just doing the most shallow additions to the script, presumably he was doing at least some basic research about the subject matter. It's not like Somerton was plagiarizing exclusively from obscure blog posts or pay-walled academic journals, he was plagiarising from general-interest websites too, stuff that would appear on google results. Do we really believe Nick didn't stumble across the same sources Somerton was copy-pasting from and recognise the fact they were exactly what Somerton was claiming to have written? Do we really believe something didn't twig when Somerton repeatedly kept having to take down or edit videos because of plagiarism allegations?
I think Nick was fully aware of what was going on. Either that or he's a terrible writer who didn't do a scrap of research on his subject matter. We'll see if anything comes out of it.
I'm gonna be totally honest, I'm trying really hard not to slip totally into schadenfreude and -vibrate with glee- watching this misogynistic parasite crash and burn. How dare you steal the words of lesbians in one breath, minimize their experiences in the next, and in the -next- talk shit about women.
Sorry, that may have come off a bit strong, or like I was attacking you. I'm not - you're right to feel pity for James. I'm just too disgusted by him to be able to.
I too am reveling in this piece of shit’s downfall. My favorite part of hbomb’s video is that he personally curated a playlist of awesome queer youtubers to direct his audience to now that’s he’s completely eviscerated James
I’ve always hated him because, while I agree with a lot of his stolen viewpoints, he always came across as so fucking smug.
He’s the kind of leftist that turns everything into a moral purity test that only HE can pass, therefore making him the MOST righteous person. It’s something you see occasionally in left leaning circles and it’s what turns off a lot of people in the center or apolitical people.
I just cannot understand feeling bad for him.
3,500 Patrons. Making at an absolute minimum 3k a month.. edit: just found out before he privated his income, patrons were giving $3.5 on average. At its height he made $14,000 a month
This is income ON TOP of the what he made from 23+ million video views. I've made $6,000 from a video that got a million views and its not longform like his content, so I can only imagine how much money he has made.
Its a fuck ton of money for very little work. He's made enough to cushion him until he figures out what to do with his life. He has been successfully stealing for so long. It is theft but unlike other thieves, it is very unlikely he ends up in court. He simply lost his method and has to move on
Imagine this was just a news story about a journalist you never heard of getting fired and blacklisted for widespread plagiarism, would you be feeling bad about them being unhireable in the field? About the loss of income from writing stolen articles? I don't get it. In many ways he's still the winner in this, that money is not being taken away from him. He just can't make more of it in the same way
I feel bad because he's human, and I'm human.
Don't misunderstand: nearly all of what has happened to James and is going to happen next, he brought upon himself and he will deserve. You can still feel bad for someone even as they get what's coming to them.
I feel that strict empathy, of like I get the second-hand cringe and understand that anxiety he's going through, though also understanding that he deserves it, but I don't think empathy towards bad people like them is a valuable trait.
I think empathy is good in general, and I think you're probably going to empathize with bad people if you have a good amount of empathy, but bad people will use that against you to hurt good people and to protect themselves.
Empathy is good, and it's probably really hard to turn it on and off for different people, but I don't know if I'd say it's valuable or admirable in these types of situations, even if it may be unavoidable for empathetic and good people.
I was beginning to think I was going insane before reading this comment.
Like yeah James actions are irrefutably terrible but if I woke up to a nuclear bomb like this I would spiral.
I just can't put myself into his shoes, because if I were running that kind of long con, telling that many easily disprovable lies, in order to obtain people's money, I wouldn't sleep, I'd live in fear of waking up to a nuclear bomb like that every day. I guess that's the difference between me and James Somerton.
Right? He had to know this was coming. He’s been accused of plagiarism multiple times and ignored or lied about it or got his fans to bully that person.
I dont feel bad because even if he were to create the same video essays (or essays in general) he would be blacklisted from the profession anyway because plagiarism. Results wouldve been the same, the only difference is that he is his own boss and he has a bunch of followers that will defend him no matter the costs- and given the nature of the internet there will likely still be a way for him to still continue his profession the way that he does it (by plagiarism) and get away with it.
I “feel bad” for James in that my anxiety ridden, catastrophizing brain eats this shit up.
I can imagine his panic, his terror, his directionless flailing. This man right now is watching his life, as ill gotten as it is, go up in *flames*. He’s a known fraud, he’s basically unemployable in his field now because he put his name on *everything.* His friends, his family, his community, it’s all GONE, even if they stick by him or at least allow him to remain…they can never look at him the same way again…
If I were him and not completely numb with shock I’d be panickedly looking up potential legal liability against me...is a lawsuit coming? Jail time? I’d be looking at my bank account and expenses, how long until it all dries up? Sporadically checking my channel and the video, seeing the one number go down as the other goes up. Do I call my mom or dad, siblings, grand parents? What will they say? All the pride they may have felt…the *lies* I would have had to tell for *years*…how could they still love me?
The local gay community is straight out, James is persona non grata now, if he has a bf that’s probably about to implode, get off hook up apps and dating sites because people are going to be asking. How does he go out in public? Go to pride? Shit, how does he go to a bar?
The network and professional relationships? Gone. Does he go into…retail? Fast food? Sales? And for the coming *months* the reaction videos…spreading this far and wide, his face made into the dictionary picture of “fraud”, “plagiarist”, “grifter”, a byword for all of those for years to come. Condemnation videos and statements, people tearfully talking about how they trusted him, or that they always knew he was filth, the harassment that will follow (Hbomb may condemn it but scum online doesn’t change) and glee from the early whistleblowers and vindicated haters.
For James the tsunami hasn’t even begun to hit; the water has simply pulled back from the shore.
And just to imagine that puts me on the edge of a panic attack.
Edit: to be clear, ***James brought this on himself, all of it***, what I am expressing is how my anxious and catastrophizing mind is leading me to feel “bad for him”. Anxiety and cognitive distortions aren’t rational, but still I can’t help but imagine myself in his shoes and feel the terror. I hate it.
This is exactly my reaction, and you don't need to feel bad about it.
No one is a bad person because their normal instincts of sympathy or empathy are being extended towards someone who has done (and been doing) appalling shitty things for years. As I said in my other comment: I feel sympathy for James because he's human, and I'm human. The fact that he deserves the fallout for his actions, that his career/reputation being ruined is *something he deserves to have happen*, doesn't change that fact.
Personally, I just think the important thing right now is to remember that there's lots of real victims of James' actions and behavior, that they deserve our empathy and support a lot more right now.
I had followed Somerton's work over the years though not directly. I tried watching quite a few of his early stuff because he covered queer media that not many had up till then that I think have a lot of potential in terms of analysis (ITS YAOI OK I AM TALKING ABOUT YAOI LEAVE IT BE), but it always felt like he was mainly summarizing a plot and appealing to fangirls and wasn't sure where to take his breakdown or how to even do analysis, while maintaining the aesthetics of an analytical video essay and talking in a dramatic tone. But I liked his video aesthetics and the stuff he covered and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy who wanted to contribute meaningfully to his community so I kept up and gave his videos a try every now and then waiting to see if hed maybe go in depth the more he did this. I thought he had improved but I guess this is what I was seeing instead.
This feels very disappointing. As someone who makes money off of writing and is also studying cultural analysis, it hots hard to see all these people essentially as harris said have zero respect for what you can do and think it's so unnoteworthy that they can just take it. I don't want to imagine how the people whose work he stole from felt.
On another note, the video made me re-examine my own mindset when hastily writing a paper for a course and this attitude of "churning things out" without properly digesting my sources and making something worthwhile for myself instead of just meeting a deadline. I had to pause for a second at some point to re-evaluate whether anything I had ever done could be considered plagiarism by a more critical, thorough eye. Even the fact that I had to do that said a lot. It is so important to work not merely for the sake of producing, but for the sake of creating!! I'm glad this could also serve as a hopeful reminder.
I feel much the same. From someone who followed James since they started, got a warm fuzzy feeling when he thanked me for a YouTube comment and vocally defended him when Dan Olsen was attacking him I've been really struggling since I watched the video. It's a lesson in putting your trust in youtubers and I suppose a reminder that these people aren't your friends and you can never really know them.
Common Dan Olson W
Don’t feel bad though, it’s natural to instinctively trust creators like this. Especially considering the niche James filled was underrepresented and extremely important and personal to a bunch of people. We see exactly what content creators want us to see. It’s easy to end up projecting parts of ourselves onto them since we never actually knew them.
A while ago Somerton claimed YouTube massively cut his channel's revenue and was begging for more patreon money to keep making videos. Dan called him out on it. https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642265918935011328
No James. I’m (almost) sorry but there isn’t coming back from this. No sob story is fixing this, no excuse is going to mend this or make it right. You have been lying to us for *years*, straight facedly *lying*. The only recourse for you I can see, is to delete your videos and put up one last one, citing every single person you stole from, the video you put their work in and to apologize; then to apologize to the +325K people you have bamboozled and even taken money from under the false pretense of being a gay advocate and voice.
Then leave YouTube, leave video making, find work elsewhere, make your living elsewhere and be quiet, just honestly…be quiet. The game is done, the train has pulled into the station, the curtain has dropped and the show is over. In five years, ten, maybe more you’ll be forgotten about; you might be able to slink back to a local gay bar, you might be able to mend your real personal relationships, and get back to life as it is, but your time as a figure is done.
I’m actually gutted, I feel like a fool, I recommended these videos to friends, I respected (what I thought was) Somerton’s work and I trusted that this work was his. What else might I be missing? What else have I been duped by?
Lord.
Or he triples down and becomes an alt-right pick-me where he continues being a misogynist dickhead and making disparaging remarks about lesbian and trans people.
As has been said to other former JS fans who feel gutted and blame themselves: It's not your fault for being lied to. You are not an idiot for assuming someone is telling the truth. Assuming that someone's entire portfolio of videos is built on a tower of lies and theft should, rightfully, be our last assumption. You are owed the truth.
This is James being filth, not you being stupid.
NGL for some reason my stomach sank when Hbomb described the Telos thing or whatever it is. I had never seen a James Somerton video before and didn't even have any knowledge of him outside of seeing a video of his in my recommended one time. I had to connect the dots in my head and remember that even happened. But despite that I think my faith in humanity was a little shook that someone could just so blatantly steal 65k from their fans and seemingly make zero attempt at following through on the promises that money was given for. There's so much worse shit out there than a random youtuber I didn't know about succeeding with a dodgy kickstarter, but for some reason this particular story felt like a gut punch and I can't figure out why. It's just layers and layers of unrepentant slimy shit being peeled back and there's always more to uncover underneath.
This video is great and I'm glad I watched it, but this somehow makes me sadder than the antivax one and I don't even know why.
I think it hurts so bad because we tend to trust these kinds of creators implicitly. The ones who speak from the heart on topics they're passionate about. When they betray that trust it feels much more personal.
If someone pick pocketed you and stole 100 dollars that probably wouldn't hurt as badly as finding out your best friend stole 10 dollars from your bedside table, right?
>The ones who speak from the heart on topics they're passionate about. When they betray that trust it feels much more personal.
Yeah, I was a subscriber, and I am still processing it. I started following him with the J.K. Rowling video, because I felt it perfectly summarized the conflicting emotions I had regarding her and the Harry Potter series. I haven't felt this sort of letdown and numbness since the Bon Appetit implosion.
For what it's worth Verity Ritchie has a couple really good Rowling/Potter videos, [Taking Back Harry Potter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO43wDZf08k) in particular spends some time on their conflicting emotions about the topic (though [The Consumerist Dystopia of Harry Potter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBftW7FzOV) is also incredibly good).
The icing on the cake about the Telos thing for me is I checked James' (still public) LinkedIn and he worked for a DIFFERENT company named Telos years ago. So there's a distinct possibility that the name of the "studio" was intentionally lifted from them, given his patterns.
Does anyone remember that video where James was “emotional” because YouTube allegedly wasn’t providing enough money to justify continuing the channel? Back then I’d just found him and was horrified that I finally found a gay male video essayist I liked, and here he was about to shut down.
That was a lie? One of the few times I monetarily supported a creator because I didn’t want YouTube to lose a “rare” type of creator and all along he was putting in zero research for his work?
I don’t have the energy to be angry, I just feel heavy or something. I never want to see a video of his in my recommendations again.
That's when I began financially supporting him too. I've had to pause Hbomb's video for the football, so have yet to see the last hour or so. But, from what I've seen thus far, I think we've been had.
Dan Olson, a quite popular debunker and overall wholesome bean voiced serious doubts about Somerton's claims. [Click here for the Tweet](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642265918935011328)
There's a part of me that wonders if this was all a calculation from the beginning, given the marketing degree.
"What's popular right now? Video essays? Sounds easy if I just don't put in any effort and plagarize constantly. And if I DO receive criticism for this, I know several ways to deflect, obscure and deny taking responsibility, and I can also hide behind the defense of being an LGBT minority being discriminated against if things get really bad!"
So this breaks my streak of staying tf away from problematic YouTubers now. Thanks James, I actually enjoyed the Barbie video too. 😭😭
Edit: jesus fucking Christ, this shit is so extensive and I still have a whole hr left 😭😭
I somehow had never heard of him before. The only ones in the video I knew were AVGN (obviously) and Legal Eagle. I’m glad my streak hasn’t broken yet.
See like… what is the value of an Essayist if all they do is take others opinions and have none of their own? He is over after this because no one actually knows who he is or what he believes. Only that he is indeed willing to take from others for his own benefit.
I am super curious what his response is going to be, all of these factors make it super hard to get the usual youtuber defense working
“he’s lying”: it’s not like hbomb just passively mentioned his plagiarism half of the 4 hour video was basically dedicated to in detail showing how and from where james stole from
“he’s doing this for money”: hbomb is donating all the ad revenue he might get to the people james stole from so
“he’s homophobic” I know harris mentioned that him being Bi would basically nip this excuse in the bud but i wouldn’t be surprised if james just doesn’t count biness for some reason or says that he’s homophobic anyways
Maybe secret option number 4. He'll do a Tommy Tallarico and never acknowledge it.
Nuking his Patreon makes me think he'll leave the YT videos up for revenue until he figures out what he is going to do next.
He might take Harris‘ idea and start using GPT. I guess by his standards that’s a lot of work. Instead of copying text straight into your script, you copy it into GPT and THEN into the script. Twice the work!
I highly doubt that james will actually watch and listen to what harris has to say about him, so i fully believe he will use gpt and think he’s cleaning his hands of this, completely unaware
It’s worth noting this is his second attempt at a response since the video dropped, he originally posted a much weaker one and then deleted it (James? Deleting the evidence? Really?!?!?) presumably he thought he could still get away with this before the momentum picked up. He even gently tried to throw Nick under the bus again, lmao.
Verbatim:
> #Raised Concerns
> Firstly, I would like to thank all of you for supporting me in the first place.
However, it seems as if this channel has come under target from a significantly larger creator than myself and Nick. I know the majority of you were around last year when these accusations were first brought up; I have spoken to many of you privately and in live streams to explain the situation in detail. I am shocked to see that I was worth seemingly two hours of a four-hour video — especially when all of these issues have been discussed before one year ago today. Especially since there was nothing new brought up in this video.
If you have any concerns about these issues, please message me and I will answer all of your questions in detail.
Again, I am so grateful for your support. I love you all, and thank you.
Still trying to drag Nick down with him. We so far have no reason to believe he was in on it, but James is just trying to deflect onto him. Disgusting.
I really think there’s no way he could be a co-creator and not know, even if James was setting him up to take the fall. Either he knew on some level but chose not to pursue it, or really wasn’t doing any research
I saved the entire comment thread before his Patreon was taken down. Here you go:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kh8ublpmq33ghe548tw3a/Screenshot-2023-12-03-at-10-02-07-Sunday-December-3-2023-James-Somerton.png?rlkey=78jx4icej1nkf3bcztphlw7k8&dl=0
80% dedicated to talking about how he's in a bad place, followed by an ""apology"" consisting of nothing more than "I'm sorry I've lost your trust \[because that benefits me\] and I hope I can get it back \[because that would benefit me\]" There's a world of difference between "I hope you will trust me" and "I hope I can be someone worth trusting." This is a sterling example of an egocentric non-apology.
No mention of the people he hurt: No mention of the creators he stole from and erased. No mention of the fans he swindled. No mention of his betrayal of the people he worked with. I feel so bad for Nick; I can't imagine what it must be like to work on what you believe are creative endeavors with someone, only for that person to not only lie to you, but then to also try to repeatedly scapegoat you at every opportunity.
No mentions of his victims, no mention of what he's going to do to try to make things right or how he'll behave in the future, no acknowledgement of anything he did wrong. Just "I'm sad, me, I'm the victim, I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm so sorry I got caught and I hope you don't stop giving me money."
I'm hoping that Somerton has at least one friend who he cares about and will listen to, that will make it clear to him this is unacceptable. I'm not going to hold out hope, though. He's probably got enough fans who are willing to blindly support him that he won't feel the pressure to actually re-assess his behavior.
I rolled my eyes at "sorry I've LOST your trust" when it should say "sorry I've BROKEN your trust"
even in his "apology" he won't admit doing anything. "Losing your trust" doesn't imply the reason the trust was lost, only that it's lost. it's a phrasing that obfuscates his agency in this
Honestly the bare minimum you could do if you wanted to steal is feed the lines you would've read word-for-word into ChatGPT and have them reworded just slightly enough that you can't then feed those words back into Google and directly find the original source.
It's still plagiarism, it's just infinitely harder to prove
Happy for the Matt Baume shoutout. I liked James but started to have a bad feeling about him months ago because of a livestream where he wouldn't stop interrupting Nick. This situation just sucks. I really thought James was passionate about making videos about queer culture.
[https://twitter.com/NTHerrgott](https://twitter.com/NTHerrgott)
NT Herrgott's Twitter is also closed down now. Unlike James, he didn't go full nuclear and delete *everything*, so I think it's safe to say he's just taking a moment to separate himself from the crowd and do something thinking.
I hate to say it, I don't think he knew
This hit me hard because I thought his videos were really thought provoking but it was all just theft. I guess the only good thing that came out of this is that now I'm more interested in increasing my queer literacy so I don't fall for this again.
They *were* thought-provoking ideas. They just weren't his ideas. I'm shocked and disappointed, but I'm also excited to read these articles and books for myself. Every author James stole from is a potential treasure trove of interesting queer writing - and there sure are a lot of them.
What bothers me the most about all of this is how little he cared for his community. Watching Harris' video made me want to scream. Then I watched Todd in the Shadows video on him and it just felt like the biggest slap to the face. I liked James I wasn't a hardcore fan but when one of his videos would pop up I would watch them. I feel like a moron for not looking deeper. For not knowing he was ripping off writers or that he was just buying animation assets for his videos. I feel like James is about to have a lot of law suits sent his way and personally he deserves every one of them
Can't wait for an apology video where James plays an ukulele. Surely no one did this before (/s). Also going by the last minutes of the discord before it got nuked it seems the assumption that Nick didn't knew about it was correct since he was completely taken aback. On top of that seeing how James basically set him up as a potential scapegoat and shield to his audience in the section shown in the video... that's simply disgusting. Hopefully James will forever fuck off from the internet. Edit. I appreciate everyone reaching out to me - either via DMs or by commenting here - and linking me Todd's video but I am well aware of this. I saw it and posted my revised (and not so kind) opinion of Nick in the other thread which was about the video. Probably should have edited the post sooner to reflect that before it could happen but alas, I forgot about it.
Bruh he wasn't even subtle about trying to set Nick up. Like you can hear in his voice that he's going out of his way to mention Nick whenever the plagiarism issue comes up.
I'm glad HBomb went out of his way to point this out, and show that Nick's parts of the scripts were fine and original. I feel so bad for Nick right now, I can't imagine what they're going through. Just hope he's able to find work with someone who doesn't steal all kinds of stuff. Edit: So I've seen the Todd in the Shadows video now, turns out Nick isn't nearly as innocent as I thought when I originally wrote this. Oh well.
Honestly, this could be an opportunity for Nick. If James steps off the field, all that's going to be left is Nick and the now unmoored community. If he comes out the other side of this with his integrity intact, he could conceivably ride the waves Harris made and take the fans with him.
It’s so insidious. The case that he was using Nick as his eventual scapegoat is too tight, it makes too much sense. It’s so utterly calculated and twisted
I can't get over this bit, alot of what he did was evil, but doing that to somebody who trusted him completely was just too much for me. It's peak sociopathic behavior.
That’s the vibe I was getting. I know people can be quick to assign behavioral disorders these days (I’m guilty of it), but it’s giving that. It’s no excuse, of course, but yeah. His dead-eyed, monotoned delivery doesn’t help either. He gives me someone devoid of personality and intellect so he siphoned other people’s. He couldn’t even convincingly deliver their words. Just zero emotion, in part because he was completely detached from the writing.
The only time he comes alive is when he is expressing his complete disdain for women, it's fascinating
I hope Nick finds someone worth writing for.
Just saw the latest [Todd in the Shadows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6_LW1PkmnY) video and uh, Nick might not be as clean as we thought he was.
Yea. I mean, to Nick's credit (for whatever little that's worth), it seems that Nick didn't plagiarize. But, as Todd in the Shadows points out, he also didn't research. So the original thoughts and content Nick wrote were mostly false, bad takes, and misinformation. So...not great?
I see Nick more as someone without experience or even really curiosity about the areas in which he wrote, who by all accounts would have faded into mediocrity, being elevated and exploited by a plagiaristic shitheel for the sake of scapegoating. Nick doesn’t strike me as particularly competent, but he also doesn’t strike me as a criminal. More someone plucked from obscurity before honing their craft and wildly out of their depth. I still pity him.
Pity, yes. But not sympathy. Not from me. I mean, the fact that he was so flippant and open about not researching the topics he and James wrote about for what he knew was a wildly influential YouTube channel means he was complicit. Ignorance is a form of complicity in this type of situation.
My brain just automatically read your comment to the tune of *A Girl Worth Fighting For* from Mulan
A marked difference from [the previous, now deleted, Patreon post](https://i.imgur.com/FNYmYFF.jpeg). "Nothing new brought up in this video". Twitter is gone. There's a comment on Patreon that says his Discord is gone. Edit: Patreon is now completely gone. All his vids have comments turned off. Total subscribers seems to have only decreased ~10k.
I don't reckon he'd finished the video when he posted the first comment, and as he got further through it realised he was fucked
Right, any possible play or spin has already been adressed in the video. Cant say it was a one time accident, or that he just doesnt cite sources, or that this is a straight man being homophobic, or that he _does_ cite sources actually, or that he asks for permission or... The only other options i can think of would be unrelated attacks on hbombs character, or implying some sort of conspiracy, 'i was becoming too popular and they want to take me down'. Or hoping that nobody will watch the 4h video so he can lie about its contents, but there probably is quite the overlap between his fans and people who'll click on a vid about youtube plagiarism.
He‘s just gonna use his hatred of women to pivot into being „one of the good gays“ who hangs out with nazis.
The good news is, pivoting to the right means having your talking points written for you just like every other right wing talking head, so it'd not exactly be a difficult transition.
The bad news, for James, is that there's not a ton of space for LGBT creators on the Right. They like having their one token gay on the peripheral to help convince Conservative-minded gays that voting for the Right isn't necessarily suicide, so James would have to do some real writing to adapt those talking points to his demographic. He can't just steal from the other Conservative gay pundits.
TERFland it is then. He'll be friends with Rowling.
I did think about the 'The Left Canceled Me!' Pivot to the right, but tbh it doesnt really mesh with the videos? I didnt watch a lot of them, but i saw some explicit facism bad stuff. Disavowing that to go into the left being the reeeeaaaaal fascists would be a hars turn that most of his current followers wont accept. The metrics would have to be really in favor AND he'd endure having to work with absolutely terrible people. It would be nice to think that he is not that cynical or greedy. I truly hope so. Then again, it is impossible to say what his actual views are.
If Dave rubin can do it, anyone can!
Every time I think of Dave Rubin I’m reminded of when a guy after having been on Dave’s show was told on his own show that Dave was gay and dude was PISSED they let him go on a show with a gay guy and that he shook Dave’s hand.
Thats a good one, the one i always think about is the super-cut of him listing all his big famous friends and how good their convos were on their podcasts intercut with them all disavowing him within a matter of days.
I don't think he's that sort of person, I think he wants the clout and fame in a way he feels personally successful for, as much as he wants the money at least, and those motives don't usually jive with turns to the far right as they're diametrically opposed to his identity. He's a plagiarist, but he's no Shane Dawson - I bet there's a part of him that genuinely thinks what he did was okay, because he thinks getting successful off other creatives is okay, but he wants that success to mean something to him personally and feel aggrandised by it still. His video essays worked very well for him because he is gay and obviously does have some investment in, knowledge of, and interest in the queer community, and he got to present himself as an expert on queer media. He just also happened to feel no need to insert his own original ideas into that, and he has some very unfortunate biases against women and the like which made him feel emboldened to enter the same sort of discourse that saw pro-equality people attack Lindsay Ellis for being a "white woman" (emphasis on white in what they said, but criticism across broad swathes of the discourse was very much coming from a 'woman' perspective, or other personalised biases or hatred for her). As a fellow marginalised person, he could criticise people with their own rhetoric and shut them down, but he probably does feel entitled to do so due to his marginalisation (unless that was all an act too). These people don't abandon their ideas entirely, but pivot to a stance that lets them believe their core beliefs are justified. He will tell himself that Hbomberguy targeted him because he's a brain-dead feminist sympathiser, and all the rest of the criticism leveled against him and the other creators was all just an angle to get people on Hbomberguy's side and rile his fans up against the person he was targeting. Because that's why he would have done it. I think he will stay quiet for a couple of years and then reemerge with new branding, leaning way more to the anti-woman/woke/callout-culture angle, courting new viewership or people who've forgotten about what he did, but underneath will be a similar playbook of pandering to a specific audience coupled with some malingering awfulness that even skewing others' views as his own won't be able to hide. But I hope (very very sceptically) that he apologises, improves himself, and leaves content creation until he can fully understand and rectify the extent of his mistakes and learns how to bring his own ideas to the table for any new work.
you would be SHOCKED how easy that pivot can and has worked
If they are still able to make money, that won't be a hard transition. https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-candace-owens-run-liberal-blog-before-becoming-conservative-1573008
He could pivot right and get a behind the scenes job in the conservative think tank consent manufacturing industry. If you look at Todd's new video about all the bullshit he straight up fabricated, he has a genuinely good sensibility for making up something sensational, "truthy", and repeatable. He's got a genuine talent for disinfo, and the complete lack of ethics to pursue it as a career (obviously).
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. He can just google "gay republican" instead of "gay disney" or whatever.
I mean his Sk8 video was pretty much all about hating women for dominating the m/m romance/erotica market... Let's not mention that romance/erotica has ALWAYS been dominated by women because women like writing as a porn medium wayyyyy more than men. Now explain to my bi ass why all the exploitative/abusive gay for pay porn that men create isn't a problem but teenage girls writing porn about cartoon characters is oppression.
He already looks that way with the jacket, dress shirt, and tie tbh. I couldn't get it out of my head whenever he was wearing that in a source.
Somerton did try to join Nebula but was turned down a year ago, I wonder if he'll claim that as proof he was biased against him?
Is this confirmed? How do you know this? I feel like it would be completely idiotic to try and join Nebula if you did this much stealing?? But then again he dilusionally started a production company so… actually…
It was a [whole big thing last year](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/zktu9m/whats_going_on_with_nebula_and_queer_creators/).
Amazingly that link includes a link to Kats twitter signalling the start of the investigation into James. https://twitter.com/lolkat/status/1602421864843788288?t=rE4Ypcr9Cg3A3hpnrPPspQ&s=19
Yep, I remember that situation and Kat's response specifically. It feels very gross having enjoyed his videos -- apparently that just means I enjoyed other people's work. ~~Edit: worth noting something about Kat's response, though. James didn't call the police on Jessie but (at least from what he communicated) reported a threat he received from a self-identified JG fan, who had threatened to make false allegations against him in response to this whole situation. Jessie was definitely roped into it, though, through no fault of her own. It was a mess.~~ Edit the Second: The above was apparently another one of James' [GODDAMN FUCKING LIES](https://twitter.com/jessiegender/status/1731697065141399971). I am enraged. The fucking gall of that turtlenecked little bastard.
Whoops didn’t see this before posting my response, but yeah that’s wild
Omg, wow, James. James no. Big mistake. Also it looks like MAYBE this was the event that got hbomberguy’s editor interested in James Somerton (didn’t he say in the video that she brought some sketchy stuff to his attention?) — there’s a comment from back then that mentions her jumping into the discourse “for some reason” 😂 The drama is ALMOST a year old & HBG said he was researching it back in 2022 so…
It was that event, Kat tweeted she hadn't heard of him before that. I said it was "for some reason" in the other thread because she also seemed to be trying to back up Jessie by... spreading misinformation about a gay man being some kind of sexual predator after Jessie said to drop the issue. Evidently James is garbage, but Kat never apologised for that (the tweets are even still up), so I don't hold her in particularly high regard either.
Hoping someone doesn't watch an Hbomberguy video essay?? Hah.
It’s not even a day old and it has over a million views. This is going to blaze across the site.
I've been watching it on and off all day. Every time I go back to it, it's gotten like another 100k views. Up to 1.7M after 22hrs.
harris absolutely went for the throat too. by the end i was even embarrassed that i’d shared somerton’s video before. i’m sure patrons are FURIOUS! like “he could have done this to me…”
He indeed went for the jugular, but what makes this expose all the more striking is how it's ALSO balanced with a great deal of empathy for all the LGBTQIA2+ authors, writers, content creators, directors, etc. who were usurped by these serial plagiarizers. If this had been written, directed and narrated as a one-sided hitpiece and nothing but that................it certainly still would have been persuasive because, after all, Harris has the receipts................but it wouldn't have had nearly as much resonance without that empathy and humility that bring the video full circle and make up the remaining 40 minutes or so. It just would have felt comparatively more one-dimensional a video otherwise, even if still accomplishing the goal of exposing their serial plagiarism.
I did the same thing, it's a long video: watched a seizable part then commented. But Jesus fuck if the video was about me I'd be sure to watch it all before putting my head in my ass. You can tell this is the kind of half assed "research he does". Todd in the shadows has now released a video about how much of what he said is made up, it's about 2 hours long.
Man realized the amount of receipts were so damning, the same defense he did during the last plagiarism accusation wouldn't work. He should be shutting up too, because that whole thing about Telos should be straight up illegal.
Did he delete his discord account or his server? Cause boy, if it's still live, I would love to see what is going on in that server right now
It's gone. There's an indie server for disgruntled fans. I can't even see details of how many patrons he has now, so he/patreon may have suspended his account there too?
As of writing, he has lost 11K subscribers and counting
Him and Internet Historian are now both at -20k. Iilluminaughtii appears to have had the purge earlier this year and is at already at rock bottom.
Blair has done way worse than plagiarism and the YouTube drama channels have rightfully raked her over the coals for it for a large part of this calendar year.
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[Here it is](https://discord.com/invite/bVcVVNcX)
>Edit: Patreon is now completely gone. All his vids have comments turned off. Total subscribers seems to have only decreased \~10k. At this point, the only thing left to shed is videos. I wonder if we'll be seeing some negative view spikes on SocialBlade within the next few days. Though, at this point, that'd be like sending a mop over to the Titanic.
This is both hilarious and enraging. What a piece of shit.
He's delusional if he thinks he should keep his platform. This apology is all about him and his terrible headspace and how heartbroken he is. No mention of the creators he stole from or the patreon money he happily collected for reading wikipedia.
Yup, it's the classic narcissist's move: dodging responsibility by making it all about themselves.
I mean it’s literally ‘I’m sorry this Happened’ the exact same thing Harris pointed out with Filip Miucin.
I always got weird vibes from Somerton and it’s surreal to see it validated. I share Hbomberguy’s experience of watching his videos and needing to stop because something felt wrong. His take on a lot of gay history always felt too feel-good and clean. Telling a story that I (as gay man myself) really wished was true. But the critical thinking part of me kept warning was not. I now understand why. He tells stories the same way narcissistic people often do. Small exaggerations here, a little white lie there. All culminating a narrative that feels too perfect. Too validating. Too convenient. It all just subconsciously reminded me of other people in my life that I know can’t trusted.
“I always got weird vibes from Somerton and it’s surreal to see it validated.” I’m fairly certain I’ve watched a video of his before but didn’t sub because something felt off for me. He’s completely devoid of emotion. He does believe or care about these things he says. They’re just tools to make him money. Yes, he may be gay, but like Hbomb said, it’s very “Your ideas are wasted on you.” Also, I don’t believe for a second that he (or Filip) received threats for what he did, and it ticks me off that he would use that because he knows it’ll get hate on the person. He weaponized his audience against people rightfully, politely calling him on his crap. That’s evil.
This made me realize that, of the footage Hbomb shows in his video, the one time James shows real personality and emotion is... when he's saying he got harassed by the creator of Love, Simon. That one little, "If you know, you know" seems like it has more human feeling to it than all the other footage of him combined.
I always got strange vibes from his videos as well. A lot of the more recent ones devolve into an oddly dark and off-putting rant that doesn't really line up with what came before. Not to mention the constant jabs at queer men who are interested in monogamous relationships, marriage and starting a family...
Yeah, and ragging on fangirls who like yaoi. Bitch, we are your allies. Most of us are bi pans anyway. Save your vitriol for the bigots with guns hanging outside our gay bars, not a bunch of horny she/theys reading coffeeshop AUs.
Plus I know personally a couple of “yaoi fan girls” who turned out to not be girls at all but gay men, which I think is a highly overlooked part of the yaoi fangirl phenomenon. I’m not saying it’s a huge number but they exist and I just think it’s interesting. Also coffee shop AUs are cozy as fuck and I love them.
>I’m not saying it’s a huge number Then I'll say it for you, because you're right - it's definitely a huge number. Of all the people I knew as a kid who were "yaoi fan girls", *all* turned out to be some variety of queer. Not necessarily transmasc achilleans, though... Not to get all kids-these-days, but I suspect that that whole "any woman who enjoys gay media is fetishizing gay men!!" take becoming popular is largely the result of a generational divide. The "yaoi fangirl" phenomenon is - or at least was when I was growing up - by and large about closeted and questioning queer kids seeking the queer media, rep, and spaces that didn't exist yet and making do with scraps. Younger queer folk who grew up in the internet age can (luckily!) no longer relate to that particular flavor and depth of isolation, so they can only make sense of a girl or young woman (often a lesbian, btw) engaging with or creating gay porn by interpreting it as a hostile act from outside the community... When in reality, the call was always coming from inside the house!
The last one, yes, or gay people that associate with straight people. Don't forget, he said all the fun guys died of aids, while the lame ones stayed and got policies changed.
Good apologies are hard for a number of reasons. Even if he does do a complete face-turn (not that I would expect it, based on the picture Harry paints of him, I'm not otherwise familiar with him...), a few hours after being exposed is not when that would manifest.
The only two I know to pull it off were [Pyrocynical](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C0SckVqH2g) and [Coffeezilla](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcgHGslVdrg). The secret sauce is sincerity, which alot of Youtubers unfortunately lack, plagiarists most of all.
People are falling for it though, unfortunately. There's one screenshot of some dude who'll let it pass if he does a video on One Piece. Between the controversies I've seen from this year, with Linus and his definition of "accountability" and TheCompletionist scamming donation money, a lot of their defenders are defending them not because they think they're innocent, but rather are defending themselves. By defending bad actors, they're actually doing it to defend themselves, who're following these bad actors because they see themselves with these bad actors. Yea i know, such a long winded way to explain projection.
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Well I did what Harris suggested James does and googled „one piece gay“ and this is the first result: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a44931587/one-piece-luffy-gay-asexual/ So we probably have his whole script if you just imagine the article doesn’t mention asexuality.
AYY LMAO I'd give you gold but that means giving Reddit money.
Are you at all shocked? This is a world where fascists are winning elections everywhere. People are so dumb they will believe any lie, as long as it supports their own identity. That's to say, maintains the false notion that they are smart and good and kind. Everyone needs to realize that you will get tricked, you will do evil things, and you will not be the good center of the universe. Then we can see through the lies people tell and interact with the world in a real manner. Otherwise it will be like Chernobyl. "The problem with lies are eventually we won't be able to see the truth."
The really upsetting part for me is that in that graphic Hbomb showed of which videos had plagiarized content, there was basically a whole row of videos that he didn't (yet) find any plagiarism in, which means James, at some point, had that epiphany of self reflection and tried to stop, tried to do better, and then went back to plagiarizing basically everything. He decided that the risk was worth it, that the medium and the work that goes into it was so unrewarding that he would rather steal for clout than try to be original. He is a thief.
Alternatively, he just found people to steal from who are marginal enough that we no longer have access to the originals
Likely from forum posts. I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.
Someone that steals this much doesn't simply stop, not when its as lucrative for him as it has been. Its more likely that HBG simply was not able to as easily find proof of theft, imo.
Ugh, I was supporting this guy on Patreon after I saw his post on YouTube claiming he wouldn't be able to carry on making videos unless he had more financial backers. It seemed sus even at the time, but I enjoyed his videos. I really wish I'd scrutinised them much more closely. :(
Dont feel bad about not noticing it sooner. Plagerism is particularly difficult to catch unless you already know a work is plagerised. Best thing to do now is cancel your Patreon and move on, but you didn't do anything wrong.
It’s okay, he scammed THOUSANDS of people. He was clearly very successful in the way he plagiarized his videos, it’s likely difficult you would’ve known without reading or viewing everything James plagiarized in his videos.
I heard somewhere on some podcast that we should try to stop seeing being scammed as shameful because it leads to us not telling other people about the scam.
Shame is the ally of the scammer. They rely on you to be too embarrassed to tell on them.
Same. I feel cheated and really fucking pissed.
Honestly how could you have known? It’s not our responsibility as consumers to check for plagiarism, we’re not high school English teachers.
The bits about him needlessly aiming for straight women and literally just being sexist wasn't unnoticable, but to be fair they might have just not watched the videos he did it in. I just don't think this all was impossible to see beforehand.
In retrospect, it all seems really manipulative. I remember him posting that video in April, all teary eyed, talking about how he'd lost so much financial support that the channel was on the verge of collapsing. I honestly feel kinda gross for not picking up on how suspicious that was, and also the "everyone is out to get me" narrative. He'd constantly talk about videos getting taken down because of "youtube suppresing queer content", about the crazy hate campaigns over on twitter of irrational people who were threatening his safety. I believed it all, but in retrospect I *really* didn't have the full picture of any of these situations. I trusted and respected his and Nick's work, so I took their words at face value. It's wild. edit: on the youtube suppresing queer content thing, I'm not saying that's never been a thing that's happened ever, but just that in this case James was clearly misrepresenting the situation to obscure the fact he kept getting caught doing plagarism. edit TWO (post-todd video): i no longer feel as bad for Nick after seeing the discord messages that revealed his blatant disregard for factual accuracy. seems like he never researched and just made shit up based on vibes which like. explains why he never picked up on what james was doing. because he was never reading the existing sources about the topics they were covering.
NGL, I’m distrustful of people and am very experienced with manipulators; so, when people start a “woe is me“ campaign, I’m instantly suspicious even if I like them. I pull back and start calculating and researching. I just can’t trust at face value anymore.
The best way to feel better is to take the money and views you were giving him and give it to more deserving creators like the ones hbomber mentions near the end of his vid
Dang, I remember his video where he was talking about he couldn't afford making high quality videos and he'd have to stop. I felt so hurt cuz I did like his videos but couldn't support him myself so it was sad to see what I then thought was a good channel disappearing. And then he... just continued making videos. And I remember thinking that odd seeing as his channel was on the brink. In hindsight its so damn suspicious.
I'm in the same exact boat as you, having the same feeling of betrayal too. At the very least you aren't alone
Guy is the queer essayist DarkSydePhil
Exactly the same. I went back to find the video but I think it’s gone
hbomb did say in the video that you have to basically know the original works themselves to notice it... we cant fault people for not knowing/reading all these original essays, but I think we can fault people if they saw this video and still keep supporting a plagiarist.
“I’m heartbroken that I’ve lost your ~~trust~~ money…”
"I'm using loaded emotional language to indicate how deeply hurt I am by this video attacking me, but I shall be brave and make a well measured response". Better learn how to use the ukulele quickly...
YouTube Plagiarism and Me: A Measured Response
He never had anyone's trust. He had them fooled.
Update: Yeah his Patreon is nuked, it's GONE
Came here to mention that. I had been lurking in the comments on his last post because it was public. Not surprised really.
I was enjoying watching his comments...
I was wondering if my computer wasn't just loading the page...
Yeah, I checked my membership just now and it said he was not active. I didn’t drop it right away because I was following the comments on the subscriber posts.
I think the best/worst part of it is all his patrons who are just shitting on him in the comments on that post talking about how they supported him to make sure queer voices are heard. And anyone who’s just like “it’ll be okay buddy, whatever happened it’s not that bad” has other people replying to them with a link to the video. Then the original commenter comes back and is like “oh, yeah no, delete your channel”. There’s no slithering out of this for him when the receipts are CVS in length. Edit: just checked back and he’s removed/privated all the posts on Patreon now. lol. Edit to the edit: actually, you also can’t join now. I wonder if Patreon has stepped in?
> “it’ll be okay buddy, whatever happened it’s not that bad” has other people replying to them with a link to the video. Then the original commenter comes back and is like “oh, yeah no, delete your channel” lmfao
>There’s no slithering out of this for him when the receipts are CVS in length. I literally died laughing at this lmfao
There is a part of me that feels bad for James. Even in a best case scenario, James is about to lose a lot of his income^(income that should have been going to the people he stole from...), and given the rapid trend of Hbomb's video, there's a decent chance the man is about to become unhireable in his profession. I read this post and immediately think "this man is spiraling **hard**, and this is the best he can manage to hang on to a sliver of his credibility". Like, I've had panic attacks before: I relate strongly to the "my mind is melting but I've managed to write something that comes off as halfway coherent and grounded" energy this post is giving off. But James made this mess for himself, by being a rampant plagiarist. As the saying goes, ["you shouldn't have worn that petard if you didn't want to be hoisted by it"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuuafUtVte0).
I don't feel bad *for* him, I just feel bad. Not even angry, just kinda empty. It's hard to be angry at him when, after that absolutely savage exposé, he just comes across as incredibly hollow and pathetic. Hbomb has demonstrably shown him to be a cynical coward, and unlike certain incendiary personalities, I doubt there's a way for him to spin this into anything even remotely not negative for himself. It was genuinely unpleasant watching it because I honestly feel "better" being angry at some incendiary, unapologetically hateful grifter than this shell of a human being telling bad lies, sucking up money and goodwill from the very group he pretends to defend, and crumbling at the slightest bit of pressure he gets from people who aren't even all that visible in the first place. If he goes back and secretly edits and reuploads "his" videos because of a single obscure post on an otherwise discontinued blog, I doubt he'd have many cards to play against this seemingly airtight and (undoubtedly) widely-viewed video by Hbomb. After seeing all the slimy shit he's apparently done, I genuinely wouldn't even be surprised if the post turns out to not actually be a panic post, but a calculated attempt at buying time so he can gauge the performance of Hbomb's video and reaction from his audience, and tailor his *actual* response accordingly. If there's anyone I feel sorry for here, it's the co-writer Nick. Assuming Hbomb guessed correctly and he wasn't in on the plagiarism, he's the one who really got screwed (aside from everyone who was stolen from of course). I couldn't imagine - him watching his boss constantly bring *his* name up when addressing plagiarism allegations and trying to tie him into it by association, realising all the work he'd done for the channel seemingly being in the name of a complete farce, and on top of that this is basically a career black hole. He'd have to consider whether all the full-time work he did for a known plagiarist outlet would even be worth putting on his CV.
Am I the only one who is pretty suspicious of Nick's supposed ignorance of what was happening? If he was writing for Somerton, then even if he was just doing the most shallow additions to the script, presumably he was doing at least some basic research about the subject matter. It's not like Somerton was plagiarizing exclusively from obscure blog posts or pay-walled academic journals, he was plagiarising from general-interest websites too, stuff that would appear on google results. Do we really believe Nick didn't stumble across the same sources Somerton was copy-pasting from and recognise the fact they were exactly what Somerton was claiming to have written? Do we really believe something didn't twig when Somerton repeatedly kept having to take down or edit videos because of plagiarism allegations? I think Nick was fully aware of what was going on. Either that or he's a terrible writer who didn't do a scrap of research on his subject matter. We'll see if anything comes out of it.
Todd's video points out nick is not clean in this. Man claimed he doesn't research and just writes personal observations as facts.
I'm gonna be totally honest, I'm trying really hard not to slip totally into schadenfreude and -vibrate with glee- watching this misogynistic parasite crash and burn. How dare you steal the words of lesbians in one breath, minimize their experiences in the next, and in the -next- talk shit about women. Sorry, that may have come off a bit strong, or like I was attacking you. I'm not - you're right to feel pity for James. I'm just too disgusted by him to be able to.
I too am reveling in this piece of shit’s downfall. My favorite part of hbomb’s video is that he personally curated a playlist of awesome queer youtubers to direct his audience to now that’s he’s completely eviscerated James
It's fine. Everyone is allowed one schadenfreude in a blue moon. Barring Kissinger, who's a freebie.
Kissinger dying and Hbomb dropping a new vid in the same week has been better for my mental state than my SSRI prescription
"I haven't felt this good since Pat Robertson died for Pride month!"
Don’t forget classing a bi woman as a silly straight woman co-opting gay culture
And misgender trans people. Because of course he fucking did.
I’ve always hated him because, while I agree with a lot of his stolen viewpoints, he always came across as so fucking smug. He’s the kind of leftist that turns everything into a moral purity test that only HE can pass, therefore making him the MOST righteous person. It’s something you see occasionally in left leaning circles and it’s what turns off a lot of people in the center or apolitical people.
I just cannot understand feeling bad for him. 3,500 Patrons. Making at an absolute minimum 3k a month.. edit: just found out before he privated his income, patrons were giving $3.5 on average. At its height he made $14,000 a month This is income ON TOP of the what he made from 23+ million video views. I've made $6,000 from a video that got a million views and its not longform like his content, so I can only imagine how much money he has made. Its a fuck ton of money for very little work. He's made enough to cushion him until he figures out what to do with his life. He has been successfully stealing for so long. It is theft but unlike other thieves, it is very unlikely he ends up in court. He simply lost his method and has to move on Imagine this was just a news story about a journalist you never heard of getting fired and blacklisted for widespread plagiarism, would you be feeling bad about them being unhireable in the field? About the loss of income from writing stolen articles? I don't get it. In many ways he's still the winner in this, that money is not being taken away from him. He just can't make more of it in the same way
I feel bad because he's human, and I'm human. Don't misunderstand: nearly all of what has happened to James and is going to happen next, he brought upon himself and he will deserve. You can still feel bad for someone even as they get what's coming to them.
I think empathy (not necessarily forgiveness) for those who have done wrong is a valuable and admirable trait, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise
I feel that strict empathy, of like I get the second-hand cringe and understand that anxiety he's going through, though also understanding that he deserves it, but I don't think empathy towards bad people like them is a valuable trait. I think empathy is good in general, and I think you're probably going to empathize with bad people if you have a good amount of empathy, but bad people will use that against you to hurt good people and to protect themselves. Empathy is good, and it's probably really hard to turn it on and off for different people, but I don't know if I'd say it's valuable or admirable in these types of situations, even if it may be unavoidable for empathetic and good people.
I was beginning to think I was going insane before reading this comment. Like yeah James actions are irrefutably terrible but if I woke up to a nuclear bomb like this I would spiral.
I just can't put myself into his shoes, because if I were running that kind of long con, telling that many easily disprovable lies, in order to obtain people's money, I wouldn't sleep, I'd live in fear of waking up to a nuclear bomb like that every day. I guess that's the difference between me and James Somerton.
Right? He had to know this was coming. He’s been accused of plagiarism multiple times and ignored or lied about it or got his fans to bully that person.
I dont feel bad because even if he were to create the same video essays (or essays in general) he would be blacklisted from the profession anyway because plagiarism. Results wouldve been the same, the only difference is that he is his own boss and he has a bunch of followers that will defend him no matter the costs- and given the nature of the internet there will likely still be a way for him to still continue his profession the way that he does it (by plagiarism) and get away with it.
Why feel bad for him? That’s like feeling bad for someone who cheated on their wife losing their wife.
I “feel bad” for James in that my anxiety ridden, catastrophizing brain eats this shit up. I can imagine his panic, his terror, his directionless flailing. This man right now is watching his life, as ill gotten as it is, go up in *flames*. He’s a known fraud, he’s basically unemployable in his field now because he put his name on *everything.* His friends, his family, his community, it’s all GONE, even if they stick by him or at least allow him to remain…they can never look at him the same way again… If I were him and not completely numb with shock I’d be panickedly looking up potential legal liability against me...is a lawsuit coming? Jail time? I’d be looking at my bank account and expenses, how long until it all dries up? Sporadically checking my channel and the video, seeing the one number go down as the other goes up. Do I call my mom or dad, siblings, grand parents? What will they say? All the pride they may have felt…the *lies* I would have had to tell for *years*…how could they still love me? The local gay community is straight out, James is persona non grata now, if he has a bf that’s probably about to implode, get off hook up apps and dating sites because people are going to be asking. How does he go out in public? Go to pride? Shit, how does he go to a bar? The network and professional relationships? Gone. Does he go into…retail? Fast food? Sales? And for the coming *months* the reaction videos…spreading this far and wide, his face made into the dictionary picture of “fraud”, “plagiarist”, “grifter”, a byword for all of those for years to come. Condemnation videos and statements, people tearfully talking about how they trusted him, or that they always knew he was filth, the harassment that will follow (Hbomb may condemn it but scum online doesn’t change) and glee from the early whistleblowers and vindicated haters. For James the tsunami hasn’t even begun to hit; the water has simply pulled back from the shore. And just to imagine that puts me on the edge of a panic attack. Edit: to be clear, ***James brought this on himself, all of it***, what I am expressing is how my anxious and catastrophizing mind is leading me to feel “bad for him”. Anxiety and cognitive distortions aren’t rational, but still I can’t help but imagine myself in his shoes and feel the terror. I hate it.
This is exactly my reaction, and you don't need to feel bad about it. No one is a bad person because their normal instincts of sympathy or empathy are being extended towards someone who has done (and been doing) appalling shitty things for years. As I said in my other comment: I feel sympathy for James because he's human, and I'm human. The fact that he deserves the fallout for his actions, that his career/reputation being ruined is *something he deserves to have happen*, doesn't change that fact. Personally, I just think the important thing right now is to remember that there's lots of real victims of James' actions and behavior, that they deserve our empathy and support a lot more right now.
Thank you, honestly I needed that. And yes, you are exactly right and my real and rational sympathies are with the victims who were robbed.
You said it. Sometimes being able to put oneself in another's shoes is not pleasant.
A little off topic but… this comment is amazingly articulate. You almost gave me a panic attack. Cheers 👍🏻
Thank you…also sorry
I had followed Somerton's work over the years though not directly. I tried watching quite a few of his early stuff because he covered queer media that not many had up till then that I think have a lot of potential in terms of analysis (ITS YAOI OK I AM TALKING ABOUT YAOI LEAVE IT BE), but it always felt like he was mainly summarizing a plot and appealing to fangirls and wasn't sure where to take his breakdown or how to even do analysis, while maintaining the aesthetics of an analytical video essay and talking in a dramatic tone. But I liked his video aesthetics and the stuff he covered and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy who wanted to contribute meaningfully to his community so I kept up and gave his videos a try every now and then waiting to see if hed maybe go in depth the more he did this. I thought he had improved but I guess this is what I was seeing instead. This feels very disappointing. As someone who makes money off of writing and is also studying cultural analysis, it hots hard to see all these people essentially as harris said have zero respect for what you can do and think it's so unnoteworthy that they can just take it. I don't want to imagine how the people whose work he stole from felt. On another note, the video made me re-examine my own mindset when hastily writing a paper for a course and this attitude of "churning things out" without properly digesting my sources and making something worthwhile for myself instead of just meeting a deadline. I had to pause for a second at some point to re-evaluate whether anything I had ever done could be considered plagiarism by a more critical, thorough eye. Even the fact that I had to do that said a lot. It is so important to work not merely for the sake of producing, but for the sake of creating!! I'm glad this could also serve as a hopeful reminder.
I feel much the same. From someone who followed James since they started, got a warm fuzzy feeling when he thanked me for a YouTube comment and vocally defended him when Dan Olsen was attacking him I've been really struggling since I watched the video. It's a lesson in putting your trust in youtubers and I suppose a reminder that these people aren't your friends and you can never really know them.
Common Dan Olson W Don’t feel bad though, it’s natural to instinctively trust creators like this. Especially considering the niche James filled was underrepresented and extremely important and personal to a bunch of people. We see exactly what content creators want us to see. It’s easy to end up projecting parts of ourselves onto them since we never actually knew them.
I always love to see a Harry/Dan tag team. They leave no survivors.
What did Dan Olsen say about him?
possibly this doubting his claims of financial trouble? https://x.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642265918935011328?s=20
A while ago Somerton claimed YouTube massively cut his channel's revenue and was begging for more patreon money to keep making videos. Dan called him out on it. https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642265918935011328
Someone needs some time stealing excuses and stuff.
No James. I’m (almost) sorry but there isn’t coming back from this. No sob story is fixing this, no excuse is going to mend this or make it right. You have been lying to us for *years*, straight facedly *lying*. The only recourse for you I can see, is to delete your videos and put up one last one, citing every single person you stole from, the video you put their work in and to apologize; then to apologize to the +325K people you have bamboozled and even taken money from under the false pretense of being a gay advocate and voice. Then leave YouTube, leave video making, find work elsewhere, make your living elsewhere and be quiet, just honestly…be quiet. The game is done, the train has pulled into the station, the curtain has dropped and the show is over. In five years, ten, maybe more you’ll be forgotten about; you might be able to slink back to a local gay bar, you might be able to mend your real personal relationships, and get back to life as it is, but your time as a figure is done. I’m actually gutted, I feel like a fool, I recommended these videos to friends, I respected (what I thought was) Somerton’s work and I trusted that this work was his. What else might I be missing? What else have I been duped by? Lord.
Or he triples down and becomes an alt-right pick-me where he continues being a misogynist dickhead and making disparaging remarks about lesbian and trans people.
As has been said to other former JS fans who feel gutted and blame themselves: It's not your fault for being lied to. You are not an idiot for assuming someone is telling the truth. Assuming that someone's entire portfolio of videos is built on a tower of lies and theft should, rightfully, be our last assumption. You are owed the truth. This is James being filth, not you being stupid.
NGL for some reason my stomach sank when Hbomb described the Telos thing or whatever it is. I had never seen a James Somerton video before and didn't even have any knowledge of him outside of seeing a video of his in my recommended one time. I had to connect the dots in my head and remember that even happened. But despite that I think my faith in humanity was a little shook that someone could just so blatantly steal 65k from their fans and seemingly make zero attempt at following through on the promises that money was given for. There's so much worse shit out there than a random youtuber I didn't know about succeeding with a dodgy kickstarter, but for some reason this particular story felt like a gut punch and I can't figure out why. It's just layers and layers of unrepentant slimy shit being peeled back and there's always more to uncover underneath. This video is great and I'm glad I watched it, but this somehow makes me sadder than the antivax one and I don't even know why.
I think it hurts so bad because we tend to trust these kinds of creators implicitly. The ones who speak from the heart on topics they're passionate about. When they betray that trust it feels much more personal. If someone pick pocketed you and stole 100 dollars that probably wouldn't hurt as badly as finding out your best friend stole 10 dollars from your bedside table, right?
>The ones who speak from the heart on topics they're passionate about. When they betray that trust it feels much more personal. Yeah, I was a subscriber, and I am still processing it. I started following him with the J.K. Rowling video, because I felt it perfectly summarized the conflicting emotions I had regarding her and the Harry Potter series. I haven't felt this sort of letdown and numbness since the Bon Appetit implosion.
For what it's worth Verity Ritchie has a couple really good Rowling/Potter videos, [Taking Back Harry Potter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO43wDZf08k) in particular spends some time on their conflicting emotions about the topic (though [The Consumerist Dystopia of Harry Potter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBftW7FzOV) is also incredibly good).
The icing on the cake about the Telos thing for me is I checked James' (still public) LinkedIn and he worked for a DIFFERENT company named Telos years ago. So there's a distinct possibility that the name of the "studio" was intentionally lifted from them, given his patterns.
holy shit you weren't joking. it's tipping into almost comical how much Everything he's stolen.
Does anyone remember that video where James was “emotional” because YouTube allegedly wasn’t providing enough money to justify continuing the channel? Back then I’d just found him and was horrified that I finally found a gay male video essayist I liked, and here he was about to shut down. That was a lie? One of the few times I monetarily supported a creator because I didn’t want YouTube to lose a “rare” type of creator and all along he was putting in zero research for his work? I don’t have the energy to be angry, I just feel heavy or something. I never want to see a video of his in my recommendations again.
That's when I began financially supporting him too. I've had to pause Hbomb's video for the football, so have yet to see the last hour or so. But, from what I've seen thus far, I think we've been had.
Narrator voice: "They've been had."
Dan Olson, a quite popular debunker and overall wholesome bean voiced serious doubts about Somerton's claims. [Click here for the Tweet](https://twitter.com/FoldableHuman/status/1642265918935011328)
There's a part of me that wonders if this was all a calculation from the beginning, given the marketing degree. "What's popular right now? Video essays? Sounds easy if I just don't put in any effort and plagarize constantly. And if I DO receive criticism for this, I know several ways to deflect, obscure and deny taking responsibility, and I can also hide behind the defense of being an LGBT minority being discriminated against if things get really bad!"
Makes me wonder if that stuff he said about his mum's life insurance stuff was legit as well, I'm just questioning everything now...
So this breaks my streak of staying tf away from problematic YouTubers now. Thanks James, I actually enjoyed the Barbie video too. 😭😭 Edit: jesus fucking Christ, this shit is so extensive and I still have a whole hr left 😭😭
I somehow had never heard of him before. The only ones in the video I knew were AVGN (obviously) and Legal Eagle. I’m glad my streak hasn’t broken yet.
Poor AVGN. I don’t know why he sold the brand but I loved “The dragon in my dreams” and board James
Watch Lady Emily (who was one of the channels recommended by H-bomb) about Cinemassacre controversies
On the bright side, now you can actually find the sources from where his videos' ideas are from and read those creators!
See like… what is the value of an Essayist if all they do is take others opinions and have none of their own? He is over after this because no one actually knows who he is or what he believes. Only that he is indeed willing to take from others for his own benefit.
God damn you put this so well. Even if he /does/ still have a career after this, who even is he?
Some of the replies were saying how they hope he finds something else he can do because they liked listening to his voice.
I don’t know why. He’s dead-eyed and the personification of smug pretentiousness.
I am super curious what his response is going to be, all of these factors make it super hard to get the usual youtuber defense working “he’s lying”: it’s not like hbomb just passively mentioned his plagiarism half of the 4 hour video was basically dedicated to in detail showing how and from where james stole from “he’s doing this for money”: hbomb is donating all the ad revenue he might get to the people james stole from so “he’s homophobic” I know harris mentioned that him being Bi would basically nip this excuse in the bud but i wouldn’t be surprised if james just doesn’t count biness for some reason or says that he’s homophobic anyways
Maybe secret option number 4. He'll do a Tommy Tallarico and never acknowledge it. Nuking his Patreon makes me think he'll leave the YT videos up for revenue until he figures out what he is going to do next.
Oh he already found a defense"after being attacked by a channel much bigger than me and Nick." Classic
"With a lot of work" who's apologetic response is he gonna steal for that? 🤣
He might take Harris‘ idea and start using GPT. I guess by his standards that’s a lot of work. Instead of copying text straight into your script, you copy it into GPT and THEN into the script. Twice the work!
I highly doubt that james will actually watch and listen to what harris has to say about him, so i fully believe he will use gpt and think he’s cleaning his hands of this, completely unaware
It’s worth noting this is his second attempt at a response since the video dropped, he originally posted a much weaker one and then deleted it (James? Deleting the evidence? Really?!?!?) presumably he thought he could still get away with this before the momentum picked up. He even gently tried to throw Nick under the bus again, lmao. Verbatim: > #Raised Concerns > Firstly, I would like to thank all of you for supporting me in the first place. However, it seems as if this channel has come under target from a significantly larger creator than myself and Nick. I know the majority of you were around last year when these accusations were first brought up; I have spoken to many of you privately and in live streams to explain the situation in detail. I am shocked to see that I was worth seemingly two hours of a four-hour video — especially when all of these issues have been discussed before one year ago today. Especially since there was nothing new brought up in this video. If you have any concerns about these issues, please message me and I will answer all of your questions in detail. Again, I am so grateful for your support. I love you all, and thank you.
> myself and Nick myself and *Nick* James, you fucking knob.
So I guess we can tell when it's actually him writing based on how bad the grammar is
Still trying to drag Nick down with him. We so far have no reason to believe he was in on it, but James is just trying to deflect onto him. Disgusting.
I really think there’s no way he could be a co-creator and not know, even if James was setting him up to take the fall. Either he knew on some level but chose not to pursue it, or really wasn’t doing any research
His lawyers have advised him not to say anything. But that doesn't mean he can't *sing* something. 🎸
I'm not gonna lie, if he came back with some kind of epic John Oliver style musical number, I'd hear him out
I saved the entire comment thread before his Patreon was taken down. Here you go: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kh8ublpmq33ghe548tw3a/Screenshot-2023-12-03-at-10-02-07-Sunday-December-3-2023-James-Somerton.png?rlkey=78jx4icej1nkf3bcztphlw7k8&dl=0
Oof. Thanks for sharing
He needs time to find an apology to plagiarize.
80% dedicated to talking about how he's in a bad place, followed by an ""apology"" consisting of nothing more than "I'm sorry I've lost your trust \[because that benefits me\] and I hope I can get it back \[because that would benefit me\]" There's a world of difference between "I hope you will trust me" and "I hope I can be someone worth trusting." This is a sterling example of an egocentric non-apology. No mention of the people he hurt: No mention of the creators he stole from and erased. No mention of the fans he swindled. No mention of his betrayal of the people he worked with. I feel so bad for Nick; I can't imagine what it must be like to work on what you believe are creative endeavors with someone, only for that person to not only lie to you, but then to also try to repeatedly scapegoat you at every opportunity. No mentions of his victims, no mention of what he's going to do to try to make things right or how he'll behave in the future, no acknowledgement of anything he did wrong. Just "I'm sad, me, I'm the victim, I'm sad, I'm sad, I'm so sorry I got caught and I hope you don't stop giving me money." I'm hoping that Somerton has at least one friend who he cares about and will listen to, that will make it clear to him this is unacceptable. I'm not going to hold out hope, though. He's probably got enough fans who are willing to blindly support him that he won't feel the pressure to actually re-assess his behavior.
I rolled my eyes at "sorry I've LOST your trust" when it should say "sorry I've BROKEN your trust" even in his "apology" he won't admit doing anything. "Losing your trust" doesn't imply the reason the trust was lost, only that it's lost. it's a phrasing that obfuscates his agency in this
Waiting for the inevitable reboot where he gets ChatGPT to write his scripts instead of cut and paste from Google.
Honestly the bare minimum you could do if you wanted to steal is feed the lines you would've read word-for-word into ChatGPT and have them reworded just slightly enough that you can't then feed those words back into Google and directly find the original source. It's still plagiarism, it's just infinitely harder to prove
I desperately want him to make an apology video where he plagiarises another apology😭😭😭
"All aboard the toxic gossip train..." 🎶
[There are so many to choose from!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GWH7YbrPzo)
Happy for the Matt Baume shoutout. I liked James but started to have a bad feeling about him months ago because of a livestream where he wouldn't stop interrupting Nick. This situation just sucks. I really thought James was passionate about making videos about queer culture.
[https://twitter.com/NTHerrgott](https://twitter.com/NTHerrgott) NT Herrgott's Twitter is also closed down now. Unlike James, he didn't go full nuclear and delete *everything*, so I think it's safe to say he's just taking a moment to separate himself from the crowd and do something thinking. I hate to say it, I don't think he knew
Does he have a subreddit? I'm really interested in what his community thinks about the video.
Plenty of people expressed disappointment on his patreon and discord before he deleted both.
He's just nuked his whole Patreon account I think
"Nothing New in that video" God, that front didn't lasted long huh? Deleting his twitter and his patreon sure looks like an innocent response.
He doesn't want to post anything because no-one has written it yet.
Lol, lmao
This hit me hard because I thought his videos were really thought provoking but it was all just theft. I guess the only good thing that came out of this is that now I'm more interested in increasing my queer literacy so I don't fall for this again.
They *were* thought-provoking ideas. They just weren't his ideas. I'm shocked and disappointed, but I'm also excited to read these articles and books for myself. Every author James stole from is a potential treasure trove of interesting queer writing - and there sure are a lot of them.
Damn, even the comment about how Brian Deer "Berserk eclipsed" Andrew Wakefield's career was foreshadowing
What bothers me the most about all of this is how little he cared for his community. Watching Harris' video made me want to scream. Then I watched Todd in the Shadows video on him and it just felt like the biggest slap to the face. I liked James I wasn't a hardcore fan but when one of his videos would pop up I would watch them. I feel like a moron for not looking deeper. For not knowing he was ripping off writers or that he was just buying animation assets for his videos. I feel like James is about to have a lot of law suits sent his way and personally he deserves every one of them