#i haven't seen hbomberguy's video

[bigboobshaunt]

"The real point of Hbomberguy's video is being lost because people would rather clown on James specifically!" Nah man I think we're all just shocked by the depths of this particular example, I promise people are very much able to care about two things at once.

#hbomberguy #this is quickly becoming annoying to me as a takeaway #I haven't seen many comments that indicate they didn't get the point of the video about sourcing info and misinfo #so this feels like ppl wanting to act superior because They Understood It Better Than Others ngl

[jam-does-audio]

I fucking knew that Man in Cave video was stolen/the same thing retold. Hell

#also yes #gf #told me to watch the #hbomberguy #video #haven't seen much #but yeah #i have thoughts

[talaricula]

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

[strange-aeons]

Now it has been confirmed that InternetHistorian is far right (he is a massive fan of libsoftiktok and Tucker Carlson amongst others) seeing him celebrated in your video about My Immortal has not aged well.

I referenced Internet Historian a few times because his My Immortal series was very popular and I was aware that it was probably a lot of people's introduction to the story. That being said -- and this is me taking the opportunity to acknowledge quite a few people who have been bringing him up to me since the hbomberguy video came out -- I haven't even seen that many of his other videos. I am not heartbroken to find out he was a shitty person. I am not a fan of his. I am not about to start defending the obviously fucked up shit he has done because I was a casual viewer who liked a handful of his videos.

I'm considering going back and adding notes to the top of the My Immortal video descriptions like "Hey don't actually check out Internet Historian he turned out to be a right wing freak" but I'm also not going to beat myself up over having made a reference that aged badly. Sometimes we learn new information and change our opinions it is the most normal thing in the world????

[sparrowlucero]

Even if a creator is a bad person it's still okay to like their work. People need to mind their own business.

Honestly it's not really that sort of situation. I'll actively defend Steven Moffat here.

There was a huge hate movement for him back in the early 2010s - which, in retrospect, formed largely because he was running 2 of the superwholock shows at once, one of which went through extremely long hiatuses* and the other of which was functionally an adaptation of an already well regarded show**, making him subject to a sort of double ire in the eyes of a lot of fandom people. Notably, his co-showrunner, Mark Gatiss, is rarely mentioned and much of his work is still attributed to Moffat (and yes, this includes that Hbomberguy video. Several of "Steven Moffat's bad writing choices" were not actually written by him, they were Gatiss.)

People caricatured the dude into a sort of malicious, arrogant figure who hated women and was deliberately mismanaging these shows to spite fans, to the point where people who never watched them believe this via cultural osmosis. It became very common to take quotes from him out of context to make them look bad***, to cite him as an example of a showrunner who hated his fans, someone who sabotaged his own work just to get at said fans, someone who was too arrogant to take criticism, despite all of this being basically a collective "headcanon" formed on tumblr. Some if it got especially terrible, like lying about sexual assault (I don't mean people accused him of sexual assault and I think they're making it up, I mean people would say things like "many of his actresses have accused him of sexual assault on set" when no such accusations exist in the first place. This gets passed around en masse and is, in my opinion, absolutely rancid.)

On top of that a ton of the criticism directed at the shows themselves is, personally, just terrible media criticism. So much of it came from assuming a very hostile intent from the writer and just refusing to engage with the text at all past that.

Like some really common threads you see with critique of this writer's work, especially in regards to Doctor Who since that's the one I'm most familiar with:

A general belief that his lead characters were meant to be ever perfect self inserts, and so therefore when they act shitty or arrogant or flawed in any way, that's both reflective of the author and meant to be viewed as positive or aspirational.

An overarching thesis that his characters are "too important" in the narrative due to the writer's arrogance and self obsession

A lot of focus on the writer personally "attacking" the fans or making choices primarily out of spite.

A tendency to treat the show being different to what it's adapting as inherently bad and hostile towards the original

Just generally very little consideration of the themes, intent, etc.

This one's a little more nebulous and doesn't apply to all critique but a lot of it, especially recently, is clearly by people who haven't seen the show in like 10 years and their opinion is largely formed secondhand through like, "discourse nostalgia". Which. you know. bad.

I think these are just weird and nonsensical ways to engage with a work of fiction. I also think it's really sad to see the show boiled down to this because that era of who is, in my opinion, very thematically rich and unique among similar shows, and I hate that it's often dismissed in such a paltry way.

This isn't to say people aren't allowed to critique Steven Moffat or anything, but the context in which he basically became The Devil™ to a large portion of fandom and is still remembered in a poor light is very tied to this perfect storm of fan culture and I just don't agree with a ton of it.

* I'm sure most people have seen the way long running shows and hiatuses will cause people to fall out with a show, with some former fans turning around and joining a sort of "anti fandom" for it while it's still airing. That happened with both these shows. ** Doctor Who will change it's entire writing staff, crew, and cast every few years, and with that comes a change in style, tone, theme - the old show basically ends and is replaced by a new show under the same title. As Steven Moffat's era was the first of these handovers for the majority of audiences, you can imagine this wasn't a well loved move for many fans. *** I know for a fact most people have not sought out the sources for a lot of these quotes to check that they read the same in context because 1) most of them were deleted years ago and are very difficult to find now and 2) many of them do actually make sense in the context of their respective interviews

#and yeah i think the hbomberguy video is kind of bad #I can pull up examples but a lot of what he's saying is very rooted in this sort of critique #maybe most egregiously he sometimes just explains something very poorly or outright incorrectly to make it seem worse or more nonsensical #ex. saying a scene in doctor who 'steals a huge chunk of the plot' when it's less than 30 seconds long #saying two characters randomly start hanging out again while not mentioning the episode entirely dedicated to this #or the way her decision to keep hanging out with him is the emotional turning point of the entire season #etc etc etc.

[sadiewayne]

this needs to be said and i haven't seen anyone say it

if you are sat there saying you should've known about anyone mentioned in the hbomberguy video (especially jimmy)...

no, you shouldn't have

it is not your responsibility as a viewer to fact-check a youtuber who makes video essays for a living. they exploited you and everyone else and non of it is your fault

you are a victim of their greedy self-centred behaviour and were exploited for money

you are not a bad person for enjoying content you thought was genuine

you are not part of the problem

here's the video

here's todd in the shadows video

here's the playlist of great queer creators

#hbomberguy #james somerton #illuminaughtii #internet historian #everyone else he covered #i definitely spelt iiluminaughtii wrong but idgaf it’s deserved #iiluminaughtii

[eyecantread]

In case James Somerton tries to release a second manipulative apology video, here's some stuff I haven't seen shared on Tumblr. In the initial wake of HBomberguy's video release on December 3, Somerton made the following post to Patreon that was quickly deleted:

Here he dismisses Plagiarism and You(tube) as "not bringing up anything new since the last time he was accused of plagiarism" and tries to pull the same victim card as before when he complained that a "big creator was unfairly targeting him." This is a rehash of previous controversies and criticisms he's received such as when he went after Nebula for "not wanting to platform him because he's queer (lol wut)" in 2022 and lashing out at Dan Olson on Twitter when Dan called him out for the Patreon shit in April 2023 (James begged his viewers to support him on Patreon because he claimed to be in dire financial straights and then bought a $5k+ camera). The man is very versed in DARVO.

The Ace Couple, a pair of Asexual podcasters (who you should totally listen to btw) detailed the Nebula debacle in a recent episode, as well as their own interaction with Somerton as financial backers of his film project who disagreed with the content of one of his videos. The issue? Aside from the shenanigans with Telos, the Indiegogo film studio the Ace Couple backed, Somerton had said in a video that asexual people don't get sent to conversion therapy, which is categorically not true. Naturally, he resorted to his tried and true tactic of accusing the Ace Couple of attacking him.

He then released a second statement later in the evening of the release of Hbomberguy's video:

All of this on top of him subtly throwing his cowriter under the bus for it in his apology video! Statements like, "I'm not trying to throw Nick under the bus" don't work when you also say things like, "things that weren't true I didn't write or believe made it into the videos!" What other conclusion are viewers supposed to make about shit like 'American soldiers lusting after Nazi bodies' and the snarking misogyny that can't be traced back to a source other than Nick wrote it? Somerton is using Nick as a fall guy and trying to gaslight everyone into thinking he's not and it's transparent and pathetic.

The man absolutely does not deserve another chance and any claims he makes that he is seeking money to reimburse the queer creators he erased by plagiarizing their work should not be trusted. The guy has zero credibility, don't give him the benefit of the doubt.

#lgbtqia #Hbomberguy #James Somerton #jenny nicholson #Dan Olson #Folding Ideas #Twitter #Reddit #Patreon #Todd in the Shadows #video essayist #Youtube

[indigoire]

Watched someone streaming and responding to the newest James Somerton apology video, because I need a filter between me and Somerton's whiny excuses, and it's funny how much the apology video played out exactly like hbomberguy predicted, even with Somerton acknowledging he watched the "Plagiarism and You(Tube)" video! Somerton clearly skipped over the beginning with Filip, where the plagiarist's apology playbook is laid out.

"A thing *happened* because of magical forces out of my control, and I was stressed because of x, y, and z, and I never meant to hurt anyone (ignoring the fact this went on for literal years with no remorse shown at any point before the callout), and there were DEATH THREATS after I was exposed (pivoting to being the victim, as well as ignoring the harassment he unleashed on his detractors), and all I've ever wanted was to make content, please let me make more content, pleeeease. 🥺"

I sincerely hope no one fell for this sob story, though I'm sure there were people who haven't seen the callout and will swallow these lies. But it really smacks of playing the victim while pretending to own up to your "mistakes". Can you even call them mistakes when it appears his entire career hinged on stealing? Can he actually write an original script?

Curious though I may be, I don't trust Somerton further than I can throw him, he's truly a con artist trying to save his reputation at this point.

This isn't even touching on the insane claims that having ADHD/epilepsy/a prior traumatic brain injury can make it so you forget you did plagiarism. Like. My god.

#James Somerton #just another blogger throwing my opinion onto the pile #but seriously watching hbomb's vid after that sob story is so enlightening #Harry has had Jimmy-boy's number down for a while lol #hbomberguy

[th3-pr1ckly-pr1ck]

I'm curious...

Reblog to have a wider audience >:]

#my post #poll #pathologic #pathologic classic hd #pathologic 2 #daniil dankovsky #artemy burakh #clara saburova #hbomberguy #pathologic game #eva yan #georgiy kain #maria kaina #victor kain #peter stamatin #andrey stamatin #sticky #murky #aglaya lilich #alexander block #alexander saburov #katerina saburova #ice pick lodge

[nubinublado]

Hbomberguy's vid really solidified a lot of sneaking suspicions I have about james somerton

Like, honestly, out of all the queer youtuve video essayist (for which there are many) I haven't seen a single one who complained about not making a lot of money *nearly* as much as James.

Like don't get me wrong content creators deserve to make money off their work and it is fucked how youtube supresses and demonitizes queer content

But james definitely crossed lines telling his audience "give me money or else I'll have to quit youtube forever!!"

#hbomberguy #james somerton #i don't know man #maybe your content is just mediocre and isn't complelling anyone to pay for it #not to mention how he blatantly saw himself as superior to other creators b/c he's an *actual gay man*

[karatam]

Top 5 video essays. Go!

oh this is such an interesting questions hmmmmmmmm

(my problem is that I'm an idiot who has not maintained a playlist or anything of my faves, which I'm going to do starting now lmao)

not in any particular order, though I ended up with more than 5:

Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs by Folding Ideas. Does a great job at explaining what they are and how they work, and particularly how they don't work. Talks about the toxic culture that surrounds them and now they're often just scams. I've rewatched it twice.

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3 by hbomberguy. Starts off as a light-hearted look into who made that ubiquitous sound effect. Goes right off the deep end into the teeming insanity of the liar at the centre of it all. Incredible and utterly unhinged.

Disney Channel's Theme: A History Mystery by Defunctland. Related to #2 in general idea, but totally different in execution. Starts off by trying to find who composed a short little jingle used by the Disney Channel. Ends up a study of being an artist and what that means. I cried.

Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History by Defunctland. A truly interesting look at the history of the management of queues at amusement parts, culminating in the FastPass, for better or worse.

The Church Play Cinematic Universe by Jenny Nicholson. Not a video essay like some others on this list, but simply one of the most entertaining 80 minutes I've ever spent. A weird church puts on incredibly elaborate plays based on existing IP by twisting every story into a christmas or easter play.

The Rise, Lies, & Demise of Jan Hendrik Schön by BobbyBroccoli. Actually a three part series about a man who almost faked his way to a Nobel Prize in physics.

The Bob Emergency: a study of athletes named Bob by Jon Bois. Another two-parter. This is exactly what it says on the tin. It looks at the rise and fall of the number of athletes named Bob.

Into The Omegaverse: How a Fanfic Trope Landed in Federal Court by Lindsay Ellis. Truly batshit, truly incredible. Everyone needs to watch this at least once.

The Failure of Victorious and The End of Victorious by Quinton Reviews. These are a combined 13.5 hours about a show that I only kind of watched. And yet I was fascinated.

An appropriately unhinged recap of Pretty Little Liars by Mike's Mic. Like above, a truly batshit recap of a batshit show that I didn't really watch. Honestly it's more fun when you haven't seen it, because every new plot point is like being hit in the head by a baseball bat.

I Debunked the Entire Manosphere by munecat. A terrifying but funny examination of that part of the internet that I've been trying very hard to avoid.

The Making of Horizon Zero Dawn by noclip. One of my favourite games and a very interesting look at the process of bringing a video game from pitch to end product.

#ask #Anonymous #video essays

[thefloatingstone]

Have you seen Hbomberguy’s new video about plagiarism in the YouTube community? It's disheartening as shit, especially with the revelations regarding the Man in a Cave video by Internet Historian…

Ah no I haven't. HBomberguy is a little hit and miss with me. I enjoy his content when he covers media but I tend to avoid his larger topics as a whole.

Also, didn't we just go through an entire scandal of Illuminaughtii accusing Legal Eagle of plagarism because one of his editors asked her editors what generic video plugin they use to do the highlighter effect in adobe premiere?

To what extent does HBomberguy classify "plagarism"? What does he say counts as plagarism and what does he feel does not? Because as far as I am aware the only real plagarism is if you copy someone else's script verbatim for entire paragraphs. Otherwise the concept of plagarism gets very murky and confused.

And then, like I said, you get people like Illuminaughtii calling people plagarists for using the same basic editing plugin as her videos.

Unless we are talking about copying someone's writing verbatim, then the concept of plagarism in videos becomes a lot more murky. It's a very grey area and in most cases what one person counts as plagarism another person would not.

So I don't know how I'd feel about HBomberguy's breakdown of what he considers plagarism or not. Maybe I'm wrong and he is speaking specifically about copying someone else's writing, but I don't know if I want to sit and hear him talk for *checks* 4 hours when it's more an opinion piece than anything. Especially because, like I said, HBomberguy is very hit or miss with me.

I'd rather listen to the Roblox oof video which I also haven't watched yet.

I also haven't watched the man in cave video.

#C-Puff answers

[thebibi]

I haven't seen the hbomberguy video but James Somerton's plagiarism does explain the huge dip in quality between his Yuri on Ice!!! Video and Sk8 the Infinity video. The YOI video sounded coherent but in hindsight its probably because theres a wealth of information out there since the anime is 7 years old. In contrast when he did his SK8 video, it had just come out which would mean he'd have to, you know, actually engage in critical thinking.

I remember someone on twitter saying there's a chance he didn't even watch the full anime and just half assed it to give more content to his subscribers. Which now makes total sense.

#hbomberguy #james somerton #youtubers #sk8 #yuri!!! on ice #thebibi post

[1-jar-of-stars]

sorry to rant in your inbox but there's something that's just not right with me rn. I'll start by saying I am white and I don't want to talk over anyone but I really don't like how Tumblr treated somerton vs how They're treating drake. The whole hbomberguy video thing was in October and I haven't seen anyone lament about it but with the whole drake situation I saw lots of people having horrible opinions on it or lamenting about it. Maybe it's just me but it feels like there's this weird double standard for culture vultures. Like even if you don't believe that drake being a pedo or mistreating women is true, there's still the fact that he is a culture vulture. Idk why they would be treated differently. I know the situations aren't identical but still.

Also side note, I really do appreciate what Macklemore is doing and it's amazing and yeah drake firming the ceasefire letter was good, but people acting like they are the only people in the rap industry that spoke up on Palestine is annoying at best. Like yeah I am disappointed that Kendrick didn't speak up about it (from what I know at least) but acting like macklemore is the first to do something because he released a track it's annoying. Like yeah it's good and it makes me angry it took 7 MONTHS, but he's not the first one to speak on it

I can see that!! the fact that kendrick was trending #1 there were definitely people trying to get their viral moment even though they had no idea what they were talking about. But I think a lot of the terrible opinions about this came from “a lack of proof” (which is crazy since this has been documented for YEARS if you’re listening to the right people)

but hbomberguy came with indisputable claims with proof. Unfortunately due to many people not being educated on the culture they don’t see that he doesn’t NEED an hbomber guy set up because his proof is in the way drake moves as a person.

And the culture vulture aspect was clearly lost when uneducated people started commenting.

Also Macklemore dropping a track for Palestine is amazing but he is NOT the first entertainer, let alone rapper to do this. drake speaking up for palestine was great! but that does not change the pedophilia and people using that to be racist or antisemitic are fucking insane.

#if you’re hiding behind Palestine to be racist or antisemitic i wish you a very die #kendrick lamar

[geekysteven]

I haven't seen you in ages, it's been at least two hbomberguy videos

#hbomberguy

[leoninekelter]

Tbh I think I'm lucky to have initially felt something was off about James Somerton... I remember hearing him say things I straight up thought were wrong, or saying weird things about women I'd see get called out in the comments of the video and I'd think "hmm, yeah that is weird..." That kind of thing. I can't imagine actually being attached to his content, I'm so sorry you guys who fell for his ruse :/

For those of you who haven't seen HBomberguy's video, I'd watch it all even if you don't know who either of them are. It's a very good breakdown of what to look for in YouTubers that plagiarize content.

https://youtu.be/yDp3cB5fHXQ?si=48igJIW4CIVrcf9C

#james somerton #hbomberguy #purr purr purr