#Also I'm saying this as someone who actually watched quite a few of Somerton's videos | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

talaricula · 5 months

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Things I've seen tumblr memeing about James Somerton doing à la "How did no one see how bigoted he was!" as if those things haven't been a significant part of tumblr culture for over a decade :

Presenting untrue and bordering on conspiratorial versions of (queer or otherwise marginalised) history without any sources

Completely disregarding and disrespecting any expertise on socio-cultural topics/humanities and distrusting academics and historians (incl. acting as if no academics or historians could be queer or marginalised)

Downplaying the role misogyny played in the historical oppression of queer women and concluding that queer men must have been more oppressed than queer women

Bi women are, at best, not as queer as "real" queer ppl, and at worst, simply equivalent to straight women

Despite nominal trans inclusivity, transmasculine ppl are functionally women when convenient (combined with the above, bi transmascs are functionally straight women)

Despite nominal trans inclusivity (bis), shamelessly attacking, threatening and actively endangering any trans woman who questions them or smth they find important (often by unfairly presenting her as violent or as a threat)

Having absolutely fucking wild and reductive takes about ace ppl, the oppression they face and their place in the queer community

Stating that marriage equality is an assimilationist fight while completely ignoring its direct roots in the horrifying consequences of the AIDS crisis for partners of ppl who died of AIDS

Praising western media creators from the past for queer coding even under censure and in the same breath condemning current non western media creators for being homophobic bc their representation isn't explicit enough

Blaming China for all existing homophobic censoring in western media

Assuming all queer media would be better told by western creators and by western standards

Only out queer ppl get to tell queer stories

Heavily criticising almost all queer media created by women or ppl they see as such (see above points about trans ppl) or involving/starring a significant amount of women for any perceived or real amount of "problematicness", but fawning over and praising and negating criticism of queer media created by and starring mostly or even functionally exclusively men (even when it could be argued that, you know, not involving/seriously sidelining women is a pretty clear example of misogyny which should probably be considered "problematic")

And I'm probably forgetting stuff or there's stuff I have internalised myself and don't recognise as an issue

Like idk but I feel like the takeaway from Hbomberguy and Toddintheshadow's videos should maybe be "be aware of such patterns in your communities bc they definitely exist" and not "this guy is uniquely awful" and I feel like a lot of the discussion I've seen surrounding this has been severely failing at that. Most ppl who've spent any significant amount of time on tumblr prob either have internalised at least one of those thought patterns, have had to de-internalise them, or have had to be extremely vigilant to not internalise them (which is done by, you know, seeking out other sources, which also seemed like an important takeaway from the videos)

#Also I'm saying this as someone who actually watched quite a few of Somerton's videos #And noticed those patterns and stopped watching bc I recognised them from here #and had already learned to unlearn them after being so exposed to them here #And tbh I think anyone who hasn't had the luck or made the conscious choice to seek out ppl who pushed against those narratives #Would absolutely have fallen for this man's bullshit. Like let's not kid ourselves we see takes like this every day on this hellsite #2014 me would have. For sure.#This is next to the plagiarism issue which as Harris points out is an Internet wide issue and this includes tumblr #James Somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #This brought to you by a conversation with my wife yesterday #So many ppl on here don't deserve to meme or be this self absolvingly critical of this man #The call is coming from inside the house #The man has a tumblr it would legit not surprise me if some of the things he supposedly made up himself he did actually get from somewhere #And that somewhere was a tumblr post

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redheadlesbianfreak · 5 months

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I know that I'm a little late to the James Somerton thing but I wanted to make my own post about this. I started watching James when I was 20 during the pandemic. It made me feel comforted to watch someone talk about queer theory in film, especially because I found out so many films I never heard about. His stuff did make me very passionate about queer history as well, and led me to start seeking more of it. I took a queer literature class in University (one of my fav classes) and I started watching more queer creators.

I grew up in Texas and Mississippi (the Deep South) in a pretty conservative environment. I started to break free of that in middle school and high school, though I was still very ignorant. I think I knew I was queer for a long time, but it took me a while to come out. I felt that I was around queer people who were somewhat hostile and wouldn't believe me. This is because I identified as ace for a little while. People were either actively hostile about that or they acted like it was a dumb identity that didn't matter. I also don't know if I'm cis or not, all I know is that I really relate to the experiences of the trans community.

I kept watching James' stuff over the years. I fell for the hole "academic queer" vibe. He talked so much about queer erasure that I thought he cared deeply about it. I felt connected to the queer community when I watched his content. He talked about trans and sapphic experiences so I thought he cared about that--turns out he stole all of that. All my favorite videos of his were stolen, word for word, from queer writers. All of the passion, all of the great writing, that was stolen. I thought I was watching someone who cared about queer history, but he was actively erasing it and harming other creators.

There were some things that I noticed. He mentioned the indie movie studio and I thought that was weird. I thought his Attack on Titan video was extremely weird and made a lot of non-points. I also remember disagreeing with a lot of it because he just said a bunch of nothing. I thought that it was weird he mainly talked about mainstream culture (Disney, MCU, etc.) rather than less well known pieces of queer media. And there were quite a few videos I didn't watch because there were so many of them (not sure how I didn't suspect that he was a content mill). Some of his videos were incredibly intriguing (because he stole good writing) while others were boring, so there was a lot of inconsistency.

I'm incredibly pissed at this man, and it's hard not to be pissed at myself. I didn't watch every single video by this dude, but I did watch enough. I think that I have a lot to examine about myself when it comes to picking up racism/misogyny/transphobia. Especially when he dressed up all his points to be "progressive" and "academic." I didn't pick up on things like "bad vibes" from this man. I'm not really sure what bad vibes even look like? I also didn't pick up on the fact that his writing style constantly changed. Even with all the strange shit, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was queer and that was way too trusting and that's something I need to work on.

As for the misogyny thing, especially when it comes to queer women and trans/AFAB people. He said a lot of blatantly lesbophobic, biphobic, and transphobic things while downplaying the experiences of everyone who wasn't a cis gay. What James was saying about women in his videos is how a lot of people talk about queer women in the queer community. Especially in fandom spaces. Misogyny is so rampant on the Internet that it can be hard for me to pick up on it as a queer woman. So many people talk about how lesbians want every female character to be gay or how bisexual women are "fujoshis" constantly trying to fetishize gay men.

I hope this makes sense, but it feels like I'm being gaslit when it comes to misogyny because of how often I see it. It's hard for me to tell if I'm being oversensitive or if someone is actually being misogynistic to me. So many progressive men that I trusted have been misogynistic to me and that can be a lot. James was someone I trusted and defended. I even recommended him to people. It's something I'm still disappointed in myself for doing, but I'd like to think I've grown as a queer person since watching his channel. There are so many great queer creators out there and I definitely need to make a recommendation list in the near future.

#personal #james somerton #hbomberguy #long post #sorry to post about this so much #this whole thing really upset me #i'd also like to make a post going into fandom misogyny #especially fandom biphobia/lesbophobia/transmisogyny/etc

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