#to be clear this isn't about james somerton
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A third plane has hit the towers
#philosophy tube#plagarism#hbomberguy#james somerton#content#to be clear this isn't about james somerton#but holy shit plagarists are dropping like flies
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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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The Todd in the Shadows video isn't nearly as polished as Hbomberguy's, but it's so essential for folks like myself who have watched and absorbed James Somerton's misinformation.
I used to watch his videos in the background because hey, I like queer stuff and film analysis. It was the pandemic. I needed something to fill my time. I stopped watching a while back because I got the impression that I could guess what he was going to talk about from the title and thumbnail. I don't need to learn how the Owl House was mistreated by Disney when I was there and saw it happen in real time.
But the fact that I stopped watching ages ago doesn't fix the big problem, which is that this guy spread misinformation and I absorbed it. It's been years, and I remembered what he said anymore. That misinformation is in my brain whether I like it or not. Other's have pointed out that this explains why queer internet discourse is so rancid; this guy has spent the last 6 years giving fake queer history to thousands of viewers. I don't want to spread more of those lies because I can't remember where I heard them from.
Hence the necessity of the video debunking his misinformation. Everyone who has watched his stuff needs a way to clear the gunk from their brains.
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James Somerton's "A Measured Response": A Measured Response
so I watched a reupload of the video because idk i like to torture myself. and i took a bunch of notes:
“I tried to be a voice for every member of the queer community, but that was a failed endeavour before it even started.”
what a strange way to say ‘I tried making it seem like I’m the only queer creator and stole from and actively harmed people in the queer community. knowingly. purposefully. and when I was called out in the past I tried to hide it.'
“I'm a cis, white, gay man. No matter how much I try to be a good spokesperson, I can never really, truly, understand the life experiences of other, far more put upon, members of the queer community.”
so of course I stole and hid work from the people I can't understand, gutting it of their personal experiences and refused to redirect my audience to those people so that they can enrich themselves and hear about issues pertaining them from someone who actually does understand.
“...one of the reasons I used their own words. But I should have made it clear that that was what I was doing.”
BITCH YOU STOLE. YOU GUTTED THEIR STORIES OF MEANINGFUL PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. YOU WEREN'T USING THEIR WORDS TO BE ABLE TO TALK ABOUT THINGS YOU CAN'T ENTIRELY UNDERSTAND YOU WERE MILKING THEM FOR CONTENT AND DEPRIVING PEOPLE OF ACTUAL, SOULFUL, MEANINGFUL ARTICLES AND BOOKS AND DOCUMENTARIES AND VIDEOS THEY COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING INSTEAD.
“Being a cis white man I thought I might win over some people who otherwise wouldn't listen.”
Yeah sure. Because racist transphobes are going to be watching your badly plagiarised gay film analysis.
“I would also like to apologise to Jessie Gender, who is one of the kindest people I ever met. Through my hot-headedness, I drew her into this anger spiral.”
‘through my hotheadedness.’. shirking responsibility onto an ‘ingrained personality trait of yours’ I see.
if you are so honestly sorry for being an asshole to Jessie why don't you fucking apologise to her directly? privately? not as a way to boost your own fucking image??
he's trying to earn good will by complimenting Jessie Gender “oh he knows to compliment an awesome person we have that in common I guess he can't be so bad after all” fuck you I recognise your strategies and it's gross to drag Jessie into this like that, she spoke out against you and you are trying to imply some sort of friendship or something between you. okay I cannot UNDERSTATE the way he tries to make it seem like they are close in some way and sort of drag her onto his side that's so fucking despicable. as far as I know Jessie Gender does not have a relationship with him of any kind?
once again bringing up death threats I see. obviously death threats are shite and anyone who threatens the dude in seriousness or harasses him will not see the light of heaven as Hbomberguy said but IN AN APOLOGY YOU DO NOT MAKE IT ABOUT YOU THAT'S MANIPULATION
also blaming the police for not clarifying a situation in a timely manner - the police are a flaming pile of garbage and I hope the institution explodes but NOT SAYING ANYTHING WAS YOUR CHOICE. THE POLICE DIDN'T MAKE YOU DO SHIT THERE
the problem isn't that you tried to “create a channel where all queer people could be safe”, the problem is that 1) you are a misogynist 2) you yourself engaged in transphobic behaviour and 3) you also actively supressed queer people's voices. The problem isn't that you supposedly wanted a space for all queer people, the problem is that you tried to MONOPOLISE queer literature analysis. fuck, queer doesn't look like a word anymore I've written it too many times now
(paraphrased) “I should have been helping with making queer people's voices discoverable” this makes it seem like he just didn't do anything and not like the reality that he was actively trying to rewrite history and bury LQBTQIA+ voices under his steaming pile of garbage
also BLAMING YOUTUBE AND THE ALGORITHM FOR ‘PUSHING HIM’ because he's cis and white, like maybe they did, I certainly wouldn't be surprised, but that is not why other creators suffered, a large part of that can be attributed to James Somerton stealing their work without any acknowledgement whatsoever apart maybe if they are lucky, a “based on” in the credits or their name flashing on screen for half a second.
“I should have done more to share the voices of other queer people” THAT IMPLIES YOU DID SOMETHING. YOU WERE ACTIVELY WORKING AGAINST THAT YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT-
“it was just my dweam to be a youtubew and when my videos gained twaction i felt pwessuwed to make mowe vewy quickly and that's why they wewe so shit uwu” fuck off you weren't pressured into shit you just wanted to make money and that's why you were a content mill
“early on I thought that crediting authors in the opening credits alone was enough” what about the times YOU DIDN'T EVEN DO THAT??? YOU'RE MAKING THIS SEEM LIKE THE DRAMA IS ABOUT YOU CREDITING PEOPLE WRONG WHEN ITS ABOUT YOUR SYSTEMATIC THEFT AND OPPRESSION OF THOSE YOU CLAIM TO MAKE VIDEOS FOR AND ABOUT AND THOSE YOU CLAIM TO MAKE A SAFE SPACE FOR. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK WATCHES YOUR VIDEOS?? WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID YOU CAN'T JUST PLAY IT DOWN
not him using Hbomberguy's example of the DEEP CUTS: SOCIETY AND QUEER HORROR video and claiming he credited all people in the opening scene when Hbomberguy highlighted he DIDNT EVEN CREDIT MOST OF THEM FUCK OFF ARE YOU DELUSIONAL HOW DO YOU THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THIS
I think I'm going insane this all seems so blatantly fake. he brings up the evil queens video and how he asked Sean Griffin, retroactively, permission to include his work in the video. and he shows a ‘screenshot’ of an email Griffin allegedly wrote to thank him for putting him in the title-card and that he thinks it is ‘a very thoughtful video’. only the text of the email header, such as Griffin's name, the RE:, and the To: is a lot smaller than the ‘text’ in the email, which leads me to believe that the below text is edited in some way. And with how hard James is trying to rewrite history, it wouldn't surprise me if he literally rewrote the email or cut things out to present himself in a more positive light. obviously I can't prove that the email is fake but I'll just say that I think the likelihood is very high that it is.
the way he says this also implies that he asked for permission after he made the video but hadn't published it yet. which is also blatantly false.
again trying to waltz off responsibility on nick, saying he was much more interested in production and implying that nick did all the writing .
“nick and I had both grown up poor so when I lost my job in 2021 (approx.) we of course were desperate and turned to producing videos even quicker and plagiarising the fuck out of all of them! but we can't help it we were both poor as kids!” fuck off, you weren't poor when plagiarising every-fucking-thing, this was in “the second year of COVID”. obviously if they really did grow up poor that sucks, and that's why we should eat the rich and redistribute their money. not plagiarise people who partly are poor or not financially cushy and manipulate thousands of people into believing you are the only queer creator.
also milking his mom's cancer. if you were really that worried about your financial situation, one would think that you would get an actual job for security and not put everything into your youtube career that is unstable, especially considering you've already done a lot of plagiarism and have no intention of stopping. “oh I plagiarised because my mom had cancer QAQ” that is so digusting to use a person's medical condition like that.
“i have memory issues because of a head injury i suffered as a child and that's why I plagiarise badly. see, I copy pasted the text with the intention to rephrase it later but forgot.” that would still be fucking plagiarism if he'd done that, also, if he's so aware of his memory issues and how they lead to him plagiarising, why didn't he try to work around that? leave himself notes? or tell nick to remind him to integrate actual proper credit and citations before uploading a video? mark the plagiarised stuff in the document with like highlighter or so when you're pasting it in?? oh but he didn't do all of that because he has ADHD. now, ADHD can be debilitating, but he says it's recently diagnosed so it must not have caused a lot of problems for him so far, so it's probably not severe and even if it is, it doesn't excuse him not crediting people properly. stop fucking hiding behind things ‘you can’t change' because if you truly can't you probably shouldn't be doing this in the first place.
“my mom really wanted me to make a movie with her life insurance but that wasn't paid out so I decided to crowdfund it. i planned to underpay the actors so hard it was under union wages. we got more money than we were expecting and upgraded to wanting to film a feature (final girl) but i didn't want to start working on it until the campaign was over for some reason that totally isn't me just wanting to exploit people for money!”
I'm not gonna go into the Telos stuff but he tries to explain it by claiming it was very unorganised and that's why they constantly ran into issues and that's why nothing ever got done and they were JUST about to start doing stuff when the Hbomberguy video released. You know what, I can believe it, although I am very doubtful considering all James ever does is lie. Idk.
once again trying to excuse his plagiarism with needing to pay two rents and thus needing to make more videos for more sponsors and not having the time to not plagiarise like please. i don't believe that they were in that dire need of money and if they were - just get a fucking stable job and put youtube on the backburner.
also once again trying to make it all about him by once again talking about his suicide attempt and death threats. like. no one should suffer through that kind of mental anguish but honestly I cannot bring myself to feel sympathy for this man. and i see this as an attempt to gather pity points.
“nick worked very hard on these videos other three years and it's unfair to [them] (james says that they're non-binary but doesn't indicate their pronouns anywhere? and in the beginning he uses they/them but later only he/him so idk what their pronouns are but it seems like they/them is at least part of their pronouns so i'm just going to use that) that they all got taken down” well y'all shouldn't have fucking plagiarised then. let this be a lesson maybe and don't fucking show your face on youtube again!
he is fucking relaunching his channel. like james. this isn't something you come back from. no one will ever be able to trust you ever again and you don't deserve an audience. he claims all the revenue will go to Hbomberguy's fund but we have no way to verify this. we have no way to know just how much he makes and how much of that is actually going to the fund. i don't trust him with any money. which is why i watched a reupload rather than the original. he's also releasing a new video he claims is entirely by him. like?????? don't???????
he also might not relaunch his existing patreon but he's still making a new one.
he claims he will “work his ass off” to make non-plagiarised videos. like that isn't “working your ass off” that's the bare fucking minimum. I really want to trust him. and I want to believe he'll actually try to do better. and maybe he will. and i believe in second chances, even for someone as despicable as him. but throughout this video he has continuously tried to play down what he did. tried to make excuses for everything. and that's why i am not going to give him a second chance. if he can't even admit what he did i don't trust him to not do it again. and i also just plainly don't want to endorse a person making such arguments.
also, he plugs his fucking new patreon right after this.
“this video is not about me promoting myself. it's about me apologising.” the only fucking person you actually ‘apologised’ to is Jessie Gender.
James Somerton: makes a billion fucking excuses. Also James Somerton: “These are not excuses. There is no excuse for what I did.”
this entire video was just a publicity stunt. he tries to humanise himself and repair his image. this is just a tool to be able to continue on and continue making money.
he also still claims the disney video was based on the Celluloid Closet and he credited the author and ignores that this wasn't the only author he fucking plagiarised in that video. he is trying to reduce his plagiarsm to incorrect crediting and mistakes and that is disgusting.
the least he could have done was mention by name out loud every author he plagiarised and what work he plagiarised. not just say “uuuh i'm sorry to everyone I plagiarised QAQ”
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First off, I really hope James Somerton is OK. And I fully intend for this to be my last post about him, at least until we hear news.
The conversation around this is around Hbomberguy's 'responsibility' over this. Which, he has none. If James chooses to take his own life, that is his decision at the end of the day. That is not hbomb's fault. I know that sounds harsh, but as a person who used to have a 'friend' who would constantly tell me that they were going to kill themselves if I didn't talk them out of it, I maintain that it's not his fault.
The narrative around it being his fault really just screams to me: how dare you call out a creator for causing harm? Don't you understand that you're causing harm? You need to be more responsible with your platform.
But I just rewatched the video today, and Hbomb is absolutely fair in his criticism. Harsh? Yes, extremely. But he's fair. He also goes out of his way to say that we should not be harassing James and nobody should go after him. And I've been in the Hbomb subreddit, there are very clear rules about posting about James (and they had died down before the second apology happened).
When people bring up larger creators responsibility, it always just seems to this abstract concept that nobody can really pin down. But what about James's responsibility for his behaviour? James was called out multiple times, not only by members of his audience but also by the writers he stole from. Clearly he wasn't going to stop unless it became impossible to ignore.
"Well, hbomb knows how the internet works! People were going to harrass him!" Well, so does James Somerton. He knew the risk he was taking, he knew that people were noticing the plagiarism, and yet he continued to do it. Plus being misogynistic and spreading misinformation on top. (And as pointed out by a lovely person in the replies, he regularly sent harassment campaigns against people who called him out.)
In his patreon post about making his video, Todd in the Shadows describes how this was basically an open secret among a lot of video essayists. If this was just going to remain an open secret among creators, isn't that also an irresponsible use of their platform? Shouldn't the audience of a creator be made aware of their bad behavior? Shouldn't creators hold each other accountable?
Again. I hope James is okay. I hope he logs off the internet for good. But it is not Hbomb's fault, and the answer of "well Hbomb shouldn't have done it because now James may kill himself" just feels manipulative to me. Like did y'all want him to just continue letting James steal from other creators?
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I totally understand people's concern for James Somerton, but genuinely what has he ever done to deserve this much sympathy. This man has owed the public two things: money and silence. He has given the public 4 non apologies (2 on his old patreon, 2 videos), and a constant string of self-deletion implications. He has offloaded any and all responsibility for things he did onto other people and made it very clear he isn't even smart enough to just steal all the money, take the L, and go away. Before that all he was doing was leading a one man crusade against anyone who didn't want to join the James Somerton pity party, and he's still doing it but more destructively because everyone finally sees the kind of person he is. I keep seeing people post well wishes and hope he will have a safe life, but you won't even get that me. I don't have the energy to care about This Person. I hope everyone this selfish idiot triggered this week has been taking care of themselves. I hope the people he harassed have been able to see they are and always have been bigger than him. I hope everyone who helped expose him understands that you did a necessary thing. I hope his former Co writer never has to speak to him again. And i hope nothing he does ever works ever again. I wish him nothing but existence.
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James Somerton
with the latest news still being up in the air on confirmation as to weather or not James is okay, i need to make two things abundantly clear
I hope James is okay and that he makes a quick recovery
This Is Not Hbomberguys Fault
If you think that it is then you are childish and need to expand your critical thought because IF YOU WATCHED HIS VIDEO he states specifically to NOT HARASS James and that if you do then you are no fan of his and he disowns you
Hbomberguy called MANY youtubers out, all of which making BANK on other peoples work, the whole nearly 4 hour video is about OTHER youtubers who plagiarized and stole from smaller creators just so they could make money
Hell, he even made a completely separate video on Illuminaughty, James just happened to be the biggest offender
i cannot stress enough how much i wish James were okay and safe...
But i also cant stress enough how ABUSIVE this behavior is
I have had SO MANY exs do this,
"Dont leave me or ill kill myself" "Dont say that ill slit my wrists" "Stop being mean to me or ill hang myself"
I have even had close relatives pull this shit, and the unfortunate part is that, you have to get in contact with their closest people, make sure they're okay and WALK AWAY
I truly hope he is safe and well so that he can seek therapy, he seriously, and with every ounce of love and care, NEEDS to get off of the internet.
does it hurt to be called out on your shit? ABSOLUTELY. is your first instinct to become defensive? yes. But you have to learn to take that criticism and grow from it.
Criticism isn't a death wish, its a wish to become better
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Ok now I feel okay to say this but James somertons ofmd analysis was dogshit. How are you doing a queer reading of that show and ignoring class? Like he said Izzy represents just a traumatised person not letting happy queer people be and that he needs to accept stede
And it's like dude, there are clear class tensions herre and opting into piracy rather than being forced is a privilege of th wealthy and a rich person coming into that environment would feel threatening.
This isn't about Izzy the characters actions, or anything like that, but more so how completely ignorant it is to say that optimism/ pessimism and repressed/unrepressed homosexuality are the only things separating stede and Izzy. There's the fucking CLASS of it all. Something CENTRAL or piracy and inescapable in the text and subtext
(ETA)
James' take or more accurately the one he stole cosigned willfully ignores the class tensions present in the narrative that are, I would say even more apparent than the queer content. How are you going to be an intersectional ally and for the people if you wont engage in a topic that you have privilege in..how are uou erasing a huge aspect of queerness. It's gross negligence at best and and stealing and classism at worst
#maybe im misermembiing the video but ugh#i just thought i was being a hater and kept to myself but i feel validated now#i grew up a lil food insecure and poor and kn lots of debt and i felt so much jealousy and so out of place in certain queer orgs#bc eveyones life was so different to mine and i felt not understood and was actively excluded by some organisers#and that take of jameses(or one he cosigned) was so ignorant#of a gay man you dislike#oc#james somerton
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Re: Your James Somerton post. I noticed you censored the words k*lling and st*lking; I think people censor things like that on social media to avoid having their posts taken down or being shadowbanned, but on Tumblr it doesn't really make a difference. The algorithm here just isn't that advanced lol. Also, a lot of Tumblr users use the "Content you see" settings to filter out posts with keywords that may be upsetting to them—but this only works when keywords are an exact match. So if somebody filters the words "killing" and "stalking", but a post uses the censored "k*lling" and "st*lking", that post won't be filtered out. That can be a challenge to anyone who doesn't want to see those posts, whether they have a trauma experience or just can't handle heavy topics like that. If you wouldn't mind, would you consider using the uncensored words in your posts so that they only reach those without the content filters? I think it makes a difference and it would mean a lot 🙂. I hope you're having a good day—thanks!!
sorry about the confusion, but whenever i censor a series or a person it's not because of like. not wanting to trigger people because if it was that i'd just tag the post with a trigger warning, i censor the words because i don't want them to show up when you search ki/lling st/alking because most of the people doing that are FANS who probably don't want to see people calling their favorite piece of media shit, i do the same with h*rry p&tter or when i'm discussing a popular ship i hate because i want to be clear with people who follow me what i'm talking about but i don't want to deal with fans of that series and also it's just kinda rude in general most of the time
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watching the james somerton apology video so you don't have to. this isn't entirely comprehensive, just a summary, if you want the nuance of his exact wording please just go watch the video
opens by saying he's monetizing the video to donate the money to hbomb's team so they can distribute it to the harmed individuals, and if hbomb's team don't accept he'll be making monthly donos to wikipedia and trans lifeline going forward
talkign about how he's a bad representative of "the queer community" as a cis white gay man
he's reached out to as many people he harmed as he can, some haven't responded but others have been incredibly kind
he's extending a specific apology to Jessie Gender - he wants to be clear that he didn't report Jessie to the police, as is the common understanding, but a fan of Jessie's who sent him a death threat
wanted his channel to be "welcoming to every queer person" which is impossible - he says he should have made voices that aren't his more accessible, but he didn't
blaming the algorithm for his popularity over queer creators of colour, disabled queers, etc
he thought that crediting people in the opening credits of videos was enough, but he admits he was wrong - people should have been properly cited (personal note: come on man you went to business school. you know how citations work.)
he has obtained permission for use of sources in the past, but "most of the sources" he didn't get permission for
brought Nick on with the idea that Nick would write most of the scripts and James would voice them
james had to put out more videos to make more money because he was let go from work during covid and was also dealing with other stuff so he had to take on more of the writing (and we all know how that went)
[sic] "my intention was to use [giant blocks of text i pasted into the script] as a jumping off point that we would elaborate on when we did table reads but *I have memory issues as a result of a head injury I got as a child*"
the head injury is real, he has epilepsy as a result. I want to be clear here that we need to respect James' disabilities, regardless of how much of a plagiarist he is. however as someone with memory problems I don't buy that it caused him to entirely forget to cite sources over many, many hours of work that he did to churn out these videos.
"when it came to editing the scripts, I couldn't remember what I had written and what I had copy-pasted"
blames his unwillingness to take account of those issues by for example writing notes in the script so future james would know he copypasted them on recently diagnosed ADHD
he had to take on a bunch of additional responsibilities when his mom passed away because his father is illiterate and can't do the legal stuff you have to do when someone dies
Telos grew out of his need to crowdfund after his mom died because RBC's insurance policy was weird (and dunks on RBC which i agree with. fuck all canadian banks)
Telos was supposed to start small but the success of the campaign gave them bigger dreams for their films
he describes the plot of hsi final girl movie and then says "to those who say I plagiarized final girl by grady hendrix, read the book. it's nothing like the plot of the movie." talks about how "final girl" is a trope and if using a trope was plagiarism, then every slasher movie since texas chainsaw would be plagiarism. fair, but i'm suspicious.
talks about the details of having to move to ontario for better opportunities
realized that making movies is a lot more expensive than he originally thought and thus had to make more movie ideas (?? not sure about the logic here but ok)
James and Nick were both involved in writing scripts n stuff
"the intention was never, EVER, to take the [telos] money and run"
James regrets moving to Ontario
James is working with a producer now and is actually making something from Telos - he will make no money from this project
"I am not nor did I ever intend to be paid money from Telos"
stresses again that he and Nick needed to crunch to make videos to make more money and get more sponsors
describes his apology in december as "horrendous"
begins detailing his suicidality
people found James' address, he claims people showed up at his house while he was hospitalized for suicidality (I want to be clear: this is fucked, the people who did this should be shamed)
he's reactivated some videos on his channel that "dont' have plagiarized content" and has done some heavy editing on other videos so they only contain original content and revenue will be going to either Hbomb's team or the charities mentioned above
he's going to be releasing a new video written by him with cited sources
he has no sponsors now
"we didn't intend to have misinformation in past videos" - it was never malicious
he won't be relaunching his patreon but starting a new patreon account if people want to support him
hes going to "work his ass off" to earn people's trust again
"there is no excuse for what I did"
reiterates that he thought putting names in opening credits was fine
"I thought it was ok to [plagiarize vito russo] because the book was out of print and he had passed away"
he wants to make a documentary video about vito russo
"I want to do the work. I want to prove not just to you, but to myself, that I can do the work"
"I can't get across how sorry I am"
#mads.txt#absolutely bonkers.#im glad he's apologetic but dude. you didn't plagiarizepeople bc you have a brain injury
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Not to defend James Somerton, but my memory of the Coppola film was that it was relatively more faithful to the books than other film adaptations. "Relatively" being the key word here, as this isn't a high bar to clear: compare the Wikipedia plot summaries between the Lugosi, Lee, Langella, and Coppola films. Unlike the others, it does mostly keep the characters and plot events intact, while adding a lot of other nonsense on top. Again, this is compared to the other movies and my memory of a movie I haven't seen in over a decade. They were all pretty loose in adapting the book.
I don't want to give Somerton partial credit for this when so much else he said was so terribly wrong, but in the interest of being fair, out of all the errors he made, I'd mark it as a relatively minor one. Much worse is his "Gary Goldman is the first fuckable Dracula" claim. Even if you discounted Lugosi and Lee because they were portrayed as villains and the audience wasn't supposed to be attracted to them (you'd be wrong, but you could technically make that claim), Langella's character was explicitly presented as romantic and sexy in the 1979 film (and since I hate the Coppola film, I'd personally argue that Langella did a better job than Oldman in that department). Then there's also Love at First Bite (1979), a comedy featuring Dracula as the romantic lead. There's more, but I'm limiting this to films I have personally seen. Nothing in the Coppola film was particularly novel or original; its changes and additions were following trends that started decades prior.
Spreading misinformation on vampires isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but this is a subject I'm somewhat knowledgeable about, and I needed to get this out of my system so I could move on.
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this isn't like at a super serious pitch or anything, but i do actually find kind of disturbing sometimes avoidance of mentioning "death" in speech. saw a post about james somerton claiming that he "attempted" and he "made an attempt" -- in context its clear that james somerton is claiming that he tried to commit suicide (how true that claim is, is outside of the scope of this Tumblr Post)--but the word "suicide" is completely avoided, as if not saying the thing avoids conjuring the specter of it (still clearly there, however, as the idea must be communicated).
and it made me think of how apparently its a trend in tiktoks and stuff (i don't go on that thing but im told) to censor references to death and killing with the word "unalive" -- which ive seen in some youtube videos recently as well.
i find it disturbing because death is a natural part of life. we have to confront it nearly every day. people close to me have been dying all my life. its always here with me. i will die, you will die. not "unalive," not any sanitary marketable thing, its here always and its better to face it head on and embrace it as a part of life than sweep it under the rug and act like even the mention of the thing is a "bad word."
just really bizarre to me
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okay so i know I'm some random. guy. on the Internet but my stupid brain finds all of my opinions important enough to post on aforementioned internet so I wanted to weigh in on hbomberguy new video because it's really fucking funny. here are some disorganized thoughts.
first off, hi. I'm Shroomi, I'm 16, and I'm a video essayist. i was inspired to pivot to video essays around a year ago by (originally) illuminaughtii, Harris Boober the Guy, and mainly Philosophy Tube. video essays are some of my favorite things, and I watch a lot of them.
im homeschooled, so I end up spending most of my time on YouTube. when you watch as much as I do, it's normally really easy to tell when someone does not care about what they are doing. i inevitably discovered James Somerton around a year ago through his Killing Stalking video, and it became very apparent to me that he was using a genuine crisis of media literacy to push a misogynistic agenda. that's all I remember from that video (and I'm not rewatching it)-- he made no good points, no clippable quotes, just... really hated teenage girls? for some reason?
this is a common thread in specifically white queer media, to direct an unreasonable amount of hate towards straight women, or those we perceive as such (the author of Love, Simon is a good example of his contempt). it's rooted in misogyny, as is everything. this is a common thread in Somerton's videos, it seems. I'll admit my knowledge of his videos is meager at best, but I have watched enough of his content to tell he is stuck in this phase of the white queer journey. he still has many internal (though he externalizes them quite a bit) biases to work through before he can even be a good video essayist. good media is unbiased media, and he has a clear bias. bro hates women. well, that may be an overstatement, but he seems to have this contempt and disregard for women and their ideas.
I'm not going to pretend the Killing, Stalking video and his contempt for the fanbase wasn't at least a little deserved. for those who aren't fatally online, Killing, Stalking is a gruesome account of a (fictional) abusive relationship. the fanbase, however, treated it as a love story. since Somerton's video on the subject came out, the fanbase has largely died down, which is honestly a good thing, but the amount of hatred Somerton seemed to have for these teenage girls who failed to understand the true meaning of Killing, Stalking was unprecedented. I found it odd to look at his subscriber count and find it over 100k; why would such a large YouTuber cover something so niche? but it is clear now to me that he was trying to push this gentle version of misogyny.
this isn't even mentioning the true subject of hbomberguy's video, plagiarism. as a previously dedicated Illuminaughtii fan, i should be talking about that. but I'm stuck on the contempt for women.
I'm probably gonna rewatch the video and reblog an addition after I sleep I've been awake for like 20 hours so apologies if this is poorly worded
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I used to like James somertons stuff until it became abundantly clear he's a one trick pony who won't shut up about the hays code. Like ok we get it gay people weren't allowed on TV and no one wants to date you
This!!! I don't hate him, I think he has some good videos, but he's one of those essayists who over-intellectualizes his feelings. Another thing that turned me off of him was his asinine "only boring gays were left after AIDS that's why they advocating for boring heteronormative stuff like military service and marriage" take. He seems to think being gay and wanting a monogamous relationship is some kind of sin, at least for gay men. And he does that whole "there's inherently something different about queer people" shit and romanticizes having a "queer found family" aka being disowned by your biological family when this isn't his experience. If it was he'd know you are more likely to be taken advantage of than find a "queer family",
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I find it sort of funny that a bunch of white antizionists are constantly like "Magneto is right" even though he was modelled by Chris Claremont off of Menachem Begin, the, you know, founder of Likud
Anon, let's be clear. Magneto isn't based on ANYONE.
Not Malcolm X, Not Menachem Begin, Not Meir Kahane and Not even Valerie Solanas
With that out of the way I want to see your point of analysis which can get interesting. See this* fascinating essay by Ami Eden for the Forward comparing Irving Goldberg and Meir Kahane to Charles Xavier and Magneto, respectively. The best part is the response** by IRVING GOLDBERG HIMSELF who responds with "Sadly I can kinda see the parallels" (a paraphrase and NOT a direct quote)
White Western Antizionist goyim (or Pro-pals as I derivisely call them) have the worst most basic and bloodthirsty analysis of media. They are the Lily Orchards and James Somerton of media analysis (See what I did there?). They don't actually care about MENA or Global South politics they just want a scapegoat for their ills and they've rediscovered "blame the Jews"
There's thing "my blorbo would agree with my moral views" brainrot which is especially egregious when your blorbo is a war criminal who constantly endangers civilians. I find the whole discourse of "consuming pure media and not stanning villains" incredibly reductive. "you can't like Magneto he'd be pro-israel" is the dumbest argument I've even heard NO MATTER where you stand politically. "you can't like a character because of how he'd hypothetically react to modern politics?" Come on! It makes no sense. It's three layers of supposition and "have you stopped drinking konyak on sundays".
Another thing I'll point out is "anti sjw" creators who stan Magneto not realizing he's everything they hate. These people are also firmly on the "Magneto is white because I said so". Cool, half the people in his backstory would disagree but YOU white comic fan MUST be right.
Lastly "Magneto was Right" was started by Grant Morrison who famously hated the character and was coined by a Morrison's character Quentin Quire. Quire, who Colin, host of the Cerebro podcast memorably described as "a gay alt-right grifter" and a "magneto tankie".
"Magneto is/was Right" is the Che Guevara t-shirt of activism (see what I did there?) so Pro-Pals (or even clueless Jews) using it as a rallying cry is a case of "congrats you recreated the torment nexus" and "1984 wasn't an instruction manual, you fool!"
Personally, I don't think he cares much for human politics post the events of the flashback in UXM 161 (which does begin in a Israeli hospital for Holocaust survivors with severe mental illness) and have a whole essay on that. However, other jumblr users disagree with me because we're a) Jews b) don't actually live in an echo chamber
So if you come to my inbox (on anon no less) telling me 'Magneto is the X of Y', I want to see your reasoning. Like when I say 'James Somerton; you immediately think of bad faith media criticism bigotry and plagiarism or when I say "Che T-shirt" and you immediately think of capitalist preformative activism that disguises itself as 'socialist action'.
I have a whole essay about why Moon Knight and Magneto are the same archetype. I have a whole list of similarities but then I go in at how they're different.
Please send me the similarities anon. I want arguments. Maybe even a chart or a venn diagram. I can't agree or disagree if I am given nothing to agree or disagree with. The argument on its face? I don't see the correlation.
read the Forward comparing Magneto to Kahane not once but TWICE here:
*https://forward.com/culture/film-tv/8878/orthodo-x-men-1/
**https://forward.com/opinion/7470/orthodo-x-men-on-screen-and-off/
#magneto#social commentary#media analysis#media analysis with cecil#my essays#magneto meta#asks#answering asks
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📺🤮
When i check out a YouTube channel i havent tried before, and they start talking about "we're not like the MAINSTREAM MEDIA because we have a DIVERSITY of political opinions", why does that set off my dog whistle alarms? I feel like most times i hear that, it turns out they're an outlet that allows for bigotted, elitist classist views. And then i went to look up this particular channel's Wikipedia. Yes, it was founded by a guy with tenture as a film critic. I started watching this particular vid of his because he had quotes from insider sources who work at Disney. But i also remember how he's been making several distasteful statements in recent years. Probably safer to add this channel to my list of YouTube channels to avoid.
I swear, it's always safer to stick to YouTubers who are queer or are a constantly vocal ally to non dominant social groups. Otherwise, I'll just be listening along and then hear something jarringly...distasteful...🤢 First time, it's "did i hear what i thought i just heard?" Second time, "isn't that a dog whistle used by bigots?" Third time, "omg I don't think they're using it ironically! I need to get out of here! Omg i just wanted to listen to a video essay about superheroes!"
The only healthy/productive "diverse opinions" are an INCLUSIVE diversity in perspectives of cultures that does NOT tolerate bigotry. Like that old saying: the irony of tolerance is to be intolerant of intolerance. Yeah, the world is shades of grey, not absolutes, and that's how to stamp out bigotry. So when i hear a channel imply that they might tolerate perspectives that actively disdain and try to take away people's human rights---just because they're different from the "norm" (white cishet Christian male)---for the sake of "a diversity of opinions"? Then it's time to run far away from that YouTube channel.
EDIT 8:52 AM 12/6/2023:
After the whole James Somerton thing, it's become clear to me that simply being queer isn't a reliable signal for a safe YouTuber. My general rule has always been to evaluate YouTubers by how much empathy they have for all people. Do they catch themselves to ensure they always speak with inclusivity? Do they give their opposition the benefit of the doubt? Do they show a general concern for all groups, even the ones they aren't a part of? After the vlogbrothers showed how it's done, I usually watch for the same type of vibe. I didn't think Somerton passed; actually I thought he spoke with a lot of passive-aggressive hostility in his tone. But a lot of the information he gave was good, so I pushed through my discomfort with his tone. But I should have listened to my instincts. Now my only consolation is that it's ok for me to like most of what Somerton said in his vids, because most of those words WEREN'T HIS. They were stolen from much better authors, activists, documentarians, and video essayists. So I don't have to feel bad that I liked those ideas. I just have to watch them from their actual sources instead. I'm so glad hbomberguy made a playlist of recommended video essayists.
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