a reflection on MatPat's plagiarism

Hello, my name is Della, or micer2012, and 2 years ago Game Theory plagiarized three Tumblr posts of mine, making a video that now holds almost 6 million views.

My posts explaining his plagiarism made their rounds on Reddit, Tumblr and Twitter, but despite the Hermits and Pooka commenting on it (generally in support of me or saying they don’t know enough details about the situation to say either way), MatPat and his team have never owned up to anything, and no mention of my name is present on the video. The one Reddit post they made denying it (which was made before my detailed takedown, which they have never responded to (though the mods on the r/GameTheorists Reddit were kind and made sure it stayed up)) didn’t even mention me by name, just referring to me as “a tumblr user”. (Though one of the screenshotted comments in the body of the post does say my name)

This experience was baffling, but it’s overall had a positive impact on my life. r/Hermitcraft gave me a Golden Apple Award (post of the year, 2021). My inbox was filled with excited fans, wanting to ask me questions or pose their own theories, far more than the hate I got. (Though the hate I got from Game Theory fans was VERY funny. I wondered why none of them gave me shit about saying “MatPat misgendered Evil Xisuma” before realizing none of them read that far into the post.)

And getting on a more personal, and much more important note, I met most of my current online friends through this, including my partner. It helped me grow closer with my irl friends as well and gave me an entertaining story that I tell whenever I have the chance. It was one of the first things in my life that really made me feel like my talents, my autistic hyperfocusing and analyzing of things I love, could be valuable. Useful. Exploitable. It blew my mind that MatPat thought an autistic kid’s ramblings about a Minecraft Youtube joke character were good enough to steal. To put an audible sponsorship on. To get 6 million views off of.

And that’s why I’m writing this post, this update years later. As you might’ve been able to guess, Hbomberguy’s Youtube video on plagiarism reopened this wound. It was really hard for me to sit through, it took days of pausing and taking breaks, because I had experienced everything he was talking about firsthand. 

In my 10 page long takedown post, I wrote about how his rewording of my sentences made him say things that were incorrect, just like Filip did. The content farm production style that made big companies like Cinemassacre take one creator (AVGN/MatPat) and turn him and his content into a brand, a voice that reads out scripts by other people with other opinions/theories, is a history shared with Game Theory. What really hit me was Harris talking about how big creators only do this to people they think they can get away with doing it to. How they view their victims as lesser, as not deserving of their words, repackaging them as their own to give to an audience that can gain from hearing them, but deserves better than to have to listen to the original victim.

That’s the thing, I 100% think a video version of my theory to expose to a bigger community than “Evil Xisuma Fans on Tumblr” is a great idea!! Near the end of the video Harris talks about how video adaptations of things could be a great market, even an accessibility tool, and I completely feel that about my posts. I wrote them quickly assuming the reader was someone well versed on Evil Xisuma lore, after not even watching most of the CarnEvil series, and the diagrams I made to explain them are even less comprehensible. Harris makes a joke that I completely agree with, 

“I’m sure some of my videos would do very well if someone translated them into English.”

I don’t think I would’ve ever made my posts if I didn’t have autism, and a special fixation on Evil Xisuma and Hermitcraft. I made them because I felt the character was being done an injustice, and because I wanted to share with other superfans this theory that might explain it away. I do think that MatPat plagiarizing me was ableist. I used to wonder a lot if this would’ve happened if my posts were articulated better, if they had been peer reviewed, if the posts themselves had been spread to a wider audience before MatPat made his video. At one point when the discourse was fresh (before I had the time to write out my 10 page rebuttal), a bigger YouTuber (100k subs at the time) messaged me and started talking on Discord, interested in possibly making a video on the discourse, but I think my style of typing and general enthusiasm drove him away. You can tell by a single look at my blog (or my original 3 posts!) that I don’t usually type like this. This post you’re reading now has been peer reviewed and edited, and took me hours to format correctly. That video could’ve been huge, the entire outcome of this MatPat situation would probably be much different.

I also used to stress a lot about “being the one who ruined Evil Xisuma’s story”. If you didn’t know, to me S8 Evil Xisuma’s story got wrapped up pretty quickly and unsatisfying (in my personal autistic opinion). (though this might’ve been due to s8 being experimental and ending early with moon big) There was no real culmination of the plot points and arcs going on, and I don’t want to blame myself, but when Xisuma said on stream (when the MatPat thing was first going on) that he didn’t want to focus on the discourse or draw more attention to it, it makes a lot of sense to me that he just wanted to wrap it all up as quickly as possible. For a while I beat myself up about it, of ruining the story of this character I love, but it’s not my fault. If anyone’s, it’s MatPats, but I don’t think it’s useful to just blame someone else. That’s how the story ended up going, and that’s fine. This is Evil Xisuma we’re talking about, their inconsistent lore is what made them such an interesting character. And notably, Pooka made an animation with an awesome culmination of Jeff, the Dreamer, Evil Xisuma, and his own sona’s story, and it makes me so happy to watch. Whatever Pooka does is of course his own choice, but I’m glad he got to give this personal story his own ending (if it is an ending, and not just the start of a new chapter!). 

Typing this all out and getting it off my chest has made me feel a lot better. For a while I wanted to make my OWN video essay about Evil Xisuma’s lore and CarnEvil’s lore, actually going episode by episode to explain it instead of just assuming you knew as much about Evil Xisuma as I did. That idea is still not off the table, but MCYT isn’t something I’m that into right now. Maybe if something else comes out about Evil Xisuma I’ll get back on it, but for now I’m fine with letting that go. But I want to make other videos, share other theories and analysis… if I have the freetime I’d love to make YouTube videos, and if I don’t have the time I’ll continue posting to my tumblr and infodumping to my friends. Apparently my infodumping is valuable enough “content” to steal! Writing this out has made me feel a lot better though, I’m really glad I got it out.

If anyone ever wants to talk to me about the things I’m obsessed with, or reach out to me as a source in a bigger discussion about Game Theory or other channels, my inbox is more than welcome :] Thank you for reading! 

Sincerely, a tumblr user.

stobbles and blockdown? 👉👈

blockdown talking about just how much drift smells (all the villagers have heard of this rant at least 5 times)

could u assign the bloodliners? 👀

OUGHHH

Brooke and Drift are definitely in Equestrian, horse girls

Blockdown I can see fencing, but he'd win gold à la Steven Bradbury

Frog is also in fencing cause I think it'd be funny

Sev, I can't stop picturing her as a snowboarder, she's snowboarder to me <3

Wax I'm assigning table tennis. It seems like a chill sport and it really isn't, just like him.

Mr Beardstone in sport climbing*

Stobbles in hockey <3 in my head he's built like a hockey player

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I GOT @micer2012  IN OUR FRIEND GROUP’S SECRET SANTA SO

HERE U GO BESTIE HAVE A SKIZZLEMAN <3

skizzleman! :|>

First impression: wait what do you mean the s in ZIT(S) doesn’t stand for sarc. who is this other guy

Impression now: he flexed and the sleeves fell off. very much Blorbo Of My Friends, i don’t watch him but he seems very neat and i love seeing what other people do with his character!

Favorite moment: i don’t have a specific one but i do think him being in dogwarts was just. very enjoyable to have him there. what an absolute lad of a guy

Unpopular opinion: i don’t know his character well enough to have one baybee!!! i default to other people on this! it lightly annoys me when people make him out to be impulse’s Entire Character And Only Real Friend even when he’s not relevant to the series/scene at hand, but that’s a pretty lukewarm take tbh

Favorite relationship: n/a because i do not know enough about him and i’m not inclined to default to “him and impulse” because of the thing mentioned above. that said i love when people pair him up with other people he’s interacted with like Once it is delightful to see

Favorite headcanon: you know what i do love enderman skizz actually he looks very polite

Idea for a story: what if skizz... had a Gun. i think it’d be neat to take the joke headcanon i had of “skizz and oli are totally both in double life and also they’re partners, trust me” and turn it into an actual story, ngl. am i going to do that? probably not. do i still think it conceptually owns? yeah

tim bisley and daisy steiner are lesbians to me its just that daisy hasnt given herself the opportunity to think about it yet. shes a Modern 21st Century Woman she just... yknow... doesnt have the time for a boyfriend again. soso busy... and tim hasn't realized she needs to transition about it.

What is Jeff the minions backstory?

someone can correct me if they want bc there is a LOT and im paraphrasing it from memory but. jeff lost a bet with dionysus (like. the god. dionysus) and became his minion, hence the name. he was like. sealed away? when king midas washed his hands of the midas touch (again just. greek mythology stuff). fast forward to like. hermitcraft. and a couple of members tried to sell cursed gold and accidentally released jeff who proceeds to like. prank them i guess. with farm animals.

from there i guess hes just like. around. does some fcked up stuff in the carnevil series (i have not fully watched the old ones but i rlly should if i wanna claim to be a stan.) becomes the 'evil voice' in ex's head that basically makes him. yknow. Evil. hangs around ominously in the background of season 8 a little. also seems to be haunting pooka himself? y'know. normal recurring villain things /hj.

also he can summon farm animals. not backstory but its funny.

anthony padilla ily but i am cringing with every fiber of my being right now

We were opposites at birth I was steady as a hammer No one worried 'cause they knew just where I'd be And they said you were the crooked kind That you would never have no worth But you were always gold to me

-"Always Gold", Radical Face

This is. I think it was a year ago that Della (@/Micer2012) told me about this song and how it was so Imp n Skizz core, especially with our headcanons. Yea no. no that was right 100%.

(Reblogs with Tags/Comments are appreciated. Wordless version under the cut. Thankyu)

ALL MY CORNETTO FANDRAGONS :3 nicholas is born on feb 14, and gary king (my favorite) is a gen 1 born on jan 3rd, garys birthday!

silliest goober (secret santa gift for @micer2012 !!)

for requests, skizzleman? 👀 maybe with logic or pearl if you want, i miss their interactionsssss

his 3L skin is really ominous ngl :)

2c blockdown? :|>

My favourite guy ever

Orientation HCs/the orientations for our rewrite for the main 5!

Kai: greyromantic, asexual, queerplatonic, xenogender

Cole: lesbian, asexual, queerplatonic, transfem (mostly the fault of our friend @micer2012 )

Jay: biromantic, asexual, transmasc

Lloyd: aroace, transmasc

Zane: demiromantic, asexual, queerplatonic, agender, xenogender

Rewrite belongs to me, @twigs-sprigs , and @galaxygermdraws ! The art is by germ, he gave me permission to post it.

Ldshadowlady #4 artist… live ur best life king (also, what’s ur #6 song?)

lol i think it's solely due to me putting the empires musical on on loop on one of my drives from college to my parents house

#6 is my crt! found it through this amazing amv by @micer2012. ive listened to dream puzzles so much since... cant wait for their next album <3

helsknight voice: i hope you’re having a Shitty day i’m having a Horrendous day as well

REAL