#todd in the shadows

[sylviii]

a second video essay has hit the james somerton

#hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #hbomb #james somerton #sylvi hall of fame post

[castellankurze]

Okay.

You fucked up.

But look on the bright side.

At least you didn't "youtube essayist releases a 4-hour video on plagiarism and half of it is dedicated to exposing your channel, followed a day later by another youtuber releasing a 1-hour-40 minute video about the lies you just made up, and there's almost no overlap between the two" level fuck up.

#James Somerton #Hbomberguy #Todd in the Shadows

[oocsydney]

hbomberguy highlighting all of the parts where james somerton plagiarized from other queer creators:

#hbomberguy #james somerton #literally the only parts james somerton wrote on his own were the misogynist ones #and it's disgusting to think that james was likely setting up for his script writer to take the fall for all of the plagiarism #UPDATE: apparently the script writer ALSO didn't do any research into what James wrote in his scripts. man. (source: Todd in the Shadows) #todd in the shadows

[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

[sapphia]

we joke about hbomberguy dropping in bisexual jokes all through his vid so somerton couldn’t hit back at him with the old homophobia defence. but can we talk about how todd in the shadows didn’t? like hbomberguy is a big channel; bigger than somerton. todd isn’t. he’s just some straight dude who got so offended at what this guy was doing to his own community that he was said, nah fuck that, and made a two hour video disputing every single incorrect fact he could find on a topic that isn’t even his niche.

the man is a hero. we respect our troops in this house.

#todd in the shadows #james somerton #hbomberguy

[superkitten-poison]

james somerton's cowriter nick is going on discord to defend the channel against plagiarism accusations by saying he doesn't even do any research i'm crying x

OF COURSE I DONT PLAGIARIZE. I DON'T EVEN READ

#james somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #GIRL. THAT IS NOT THE BRAG YOU THINK IT IS

[coffinwoodx]

like witnessing the french revolution beheadings firsthand in the 1800s

#LET THEM EAT CAKE #and the cake is original ideas #hbomberguy #james somerton #todd in the shadows #plagiarism #twitter #youtube #youtube drama #lgbtq #internet historian #illuminaughtii

[alanofalltrades]

No, you don't understand.

Todd in the Shadows has shit to do. Hbomberguy's whole deal is that he dissappears for months on end and emerges with a long, very well researched video. That's what we expect from him. Meanwhile, Todd does song reviews, album analysis, all that music critics stuff. And he releases them pretty regularly, and does a ton of good research himself. That has to take a lot of his time and energy.

So how badly did Somerton had to screw up for this guy to say "actually, I'll make time for this project".

#hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #james somerton

[immoralfag]

is this something

#hbomberguy #james somerton #todd in the shadows

[thatrandomblogsays]

The best part of Todd in the shadows video is it unintentionally proves Hbomber’s point. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with being inspired and cites YouTubers who openly give credit and the wonderful content that comes from it.

Todd had the video idea, reached out to hbomber even though he wasn’t even stealing the idea, he just wanted to be courteous and respectful. Hbomber blessed off and asked Todd to wait to post and we got two wonderful videos. Art is better when we work together and respect each other.

#hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #plagarism #james somerton

[hollowboobtheory]

no woman born after 1993 can be an ally all they do is swoon over Ted bundy, tweet about gay missionary sex, be straight and white, write love simon, eat hot chip and lie

#beck rambles #james somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows

[rex101111]

I think Todd's video is actually the more impactful of the two for me. Like with Hbomber, that's like, his thing. He does extensive research about a specific topic and goes into great detail about it. He's in the same general "circle" as Somerton so he makes sense as someone who would like stand up and be like "hey something is WRONG here" and then just spend a very long while detailing exactly what is wrong.

Todd? Todd reviews music, albums and songs. That's his thing. Most of his videos are, at most, maybe half an hour long. His skill set and area of expertise are completely unrelated to Somerton's bullshit and yet even he can just stand up and go "something smells like bullshit" and just tear into Somerton's lies and nonsense for nearly two hours.

And most of Todd's research in that video is, by his own admission, fairly minimal. He googled, he looked up public documents, searched on forums, but nothing the average person doesn't have the time to do if something is bothering them and they want info on it. It's just testament that just about anybody can just...fact check. Look things up. It shows that there's no reason to just take things people say to you at face value if you think something is off. You can suss out bullshit by yourself.

And I just think that's a good thing to keep in mind.

Also of course when Somerton does start lying about something that Todd does have plenty of knowledge in, music, he actually gets mad and really lets the bastard have it. That's good too.

#Hbomberguy #plagiarism #todd in the shadows

[leftoblique]

This video is important.

We all watched the hbomb vid (or at least got a summary of it) explaining how Somerton stole much of his "research" word-for-word from other queer creators and writers.

Okay, so, we unsubscribe from his channel; we've done our part; everything is cool now, right?

Unfortunately, no. The biggest damage Somerton did may not have been to those he stole from. Rather, it was inventing large swathes of LGBTQ+ history out of whole cloth, tinged with his own incel-adjacent brand of misogyny and weird anti-establishment centrism.

Worse, many of the "facts" Somerton invented are freely circulating on the internet, even on this website, and they are coloring how queers - and especially young queers - understand our own history.

So it's not enough that Somerton's empire burns and he flees with his tail between his legs. We need to actively purge all of the nonsense he injected into the discourse - out of his own personal agendas and resentments - in the years he was posing as an intellectual authority (perhaps the intellectual authority) on our history and experiences.

So give it a watch. It's not nearly as long as the hbomb video and it's neatly organized as well. Save it as a reference for the next time someone pulls out a "Somerton fact" you need to debunk.

Let's work to preserve our history from liars and charlatans.

#james somerton #todd in the shadows #queer history #queer culture #lgbtq #Youtube

[edmundthearchwizard]

Meme I made about the whole... fiasco

#hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #james somerton

[sapphia]

the todd in the shadows debunking is fairly dry because it’s so thorough but that’s what makes it so funny. somerton was so fucking wrong about everything that this random music guy went “hey that’s not right” and just couldn’t stop

#james somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows

[fanonical]

You know, an interesting (and, presumably, unintentional) thing that's happened as a result of both hbomberguy and Todd in the Shadows' videos about James Somerton is that they show how two people can talk about the same thing and still use different words, or approaches, or give their unique spins on the material.

There's a few areas where Todd and hbomb's videos overlap in content, for example the criticism of Somerton's claims that straight women are en-masse misunderstanding gay content or being homophobic, but there's a huge difference in the way they talk about it and the language they use. Sure, they're making the same or similar points, because there's only so ways of saying 'this claim is unsubstantiated and there is no evidence for it', but they're still using different words, different approaches, and different arguments. Their scripts are not copy-pasted from each other with a few words changed, unlike Somerton's videos and the articles/books/videos that he plagiarises.

And I think that's interesting, you know? They've unintentionally become a really good example of how to do this kind of video right - just don't fucking plagiarise, ultimately.

#Todd in the Shadows #hbomberguy