"internet historian's alt-right anyways" "great day to have never liked james somerton" "never even heard of illuminaughtii before this lol"

that's great buddy but don't go around thinking you're immune to this. if you're not looking for plagiarism, you likely won't notice it unless its egregiously obvious. hell, you've probably consumed plagiarized content without even realizing it. even hbomb pointed out that these people disguised what they presented pretty well as long as you didn't try and dig deeper. don't come away just thinking of this as a callout piece, take this as an important lesson about vetting your sources. if googling scripts in quotes was enough to expose the original, we should all start doing that shit!!

edit: it got a little too doomer-y a little too fast so one quick addition

this is hbomb's curated playlist of queer creators, many of whom were victims of plagiarism

this is producer kat on reddit calling for any more plagiarism discoveries and for queer content creators to be uplifted

please take some time to uplift these creators and recommend any you know! if you can help uncover more of the original creators whose work was lifted that would be great too :)

UPDATE- From Hbomb's twitter: "We're in the process of cataloguing everyone James Somerton plagiarised and finding their contact information. Which is quite a task, so to help us out: If you see this and happen to be one of the people Somerton stole from, please email us at [email protected]"

edit 2:

like witnessing the french revolution beheadings firsthand in the 1800s

youtube drama is very downplayed when it comes to its impact on tumblr (discussion of it usually ends as rapidly as it begins) so the fact that hbomberguy has been the top trending tag for several days now shows how much of an impact his video essay has made on the writing and video community as a whole. his video has spread so much awareness over the rampant plagiarism issue that has been festering under people’s radar for years now while dozens of youtube “creators” make six figure salaries off other peoples words and research. he effectively took off so many people’s rose tinted glasses and made us all blatantly aware of what an absolute shitshow this problem is now in modern media and how manipulated content has become

if you’re wondering how it’s going, internet historian fans have resorted to making up qanon conspiracy theories about hbomb

My favorite part of the hbomberguy video is when he said "it's hbombin' time" and hbombed all over iiluminaughtii's, Internet Historian's, and James Somerton's careers

Um, about that….

James Somerton and Internet Historian

Hbomberguy

They mightve stolen other people's writing but he stole their subscribers

Hbomberguy's latest video is the closest thing to watching an actual murder without anyone getting physically hurt. Criminals are very lucky Harry didn't get into law.

hbomberguy's videos are always so entertaining because I see the title and I'm like "oh wow this seems like a cool topic" and then like 2 hours later I'm left with a burning hatred for somebody I didn't even know existed lmao

did an insane double take during the new hbomberguy video not only because he called out internet historian for some crazy plagiarism, but also because he had a separate dislike of the same guy for the *exact same thing* that put me off his channel for ages (his dashcon video)

I saw a YouTuber arguing that Internet Historian did nothing wrong because it fits the definition of "transformative work" so it's not plagiarism and hbomberguy is inserting himself in an argument where he has no business being because it was all settled ages ago etc.

And

Buddy

As someone who spends a lot of time in "transformative works" as a category, that defense is infinitely flimsier when you are making money on it, especially the thousands that went on here. This is an adaptation, not a free use transformative work. You know how movie rights can be millions? Or more? Yeah.

Remember the 1980s lawsuit that started the dang video?

I mean it's also morally reprehensible, whether or not it's legal, but also: do not weaken my transformative work defense by applying it to this.

NGL I hope LegalEagle weighs in on this, he's talked a lot about lawsuits that address copyright infringement in the YouTube community, and I feel like plagiarism is adjacent-but-different enough to deserve its own, especially in light of this.