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#don't give somerton the views he makes money off of them
lets-steal-an-archive · 4 months
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TL;DR he's only sorry he got caught
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My Thoughts on James Somerton [RANT]
Before I begin this post, I highly recommend watching Hbomberguy's new video about Plagiarism. It's the main reason I'm discussing James right now & it provides a more detailed breakdown of what he did.
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So for those of you unaware, Queer YouTuber James Somerton has recently been revealed to be a full on plagiarist, having done so for SEVERAL of his videos and isn't exactly the nicest to other queer creatives in the same video essay field as him. Got it? Good. Again, watch the vid.
Upon watching the video and learning about what James did, I was in such shock. My eyes widened. I had begun to see other essayists I follow "feel vindicated" about him being called out. Unbeknownst to me, it's the second part of the video where he's called out.
Having finished the video, I'm not angry. No, I'm PISSED. When one of my best/trusted friends recommended James' videos to me back in 2021, I was immediately hooked. I was inspired by him to further my own craft as a queer video essayist at the time.
To now learn that James is nothing more than a plagiarist who steals other people's content and doesn't even have an original thought to begin with? I'm hurt by this. In my rant video about queer rep, I referenced & linked one of his videos.
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I can't even look at this video anymore. I don't even make essays anymore but I can't even look at one of my favorite essays in good faith anymore cuz the man I referenced may have plagiarized in said video I referenced. Do you have any idea how angry I am about this??
In a time where it's getting harder to be openly queer and to not feel scared by literally everything around me, James was that light in darkness that gave me hope. A queer creator who seem to be well-spoken and knew his shit. Come to find out that was never the case. I feel betrayed. He was the sole reason I kept making video essays in 2022. I almost stopped after The Glass Scientist vid but kept going cuz his vids inspired me to keep pushing to be a better creator. I donated money to his fucking production company. I was even one of his patrons for a short period of time. I left the patreon after he got into two different conflicts that pushed me away for the second half of 2022. He made some...not so great comments about Beyonce and her place as a queer icon.
And then he made a whole stink about not being a creator on Nebula. These two reasons, among other minor things, are what pushed me away from James for a good 6-8 months. I only returned to his content literally last month. Last. Fucking. Month. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could give him one more chance. His video on Red, White & Royal Blue was great...and then we get to Hbomber's vid...where apparently he plagiarized in that one too. I was suffering from second-hand embarrassment as Hbomber clocked everything James plagiarized and all of them happen to be videos I watched or took a look at. I felt cheated, betrayed and hurt. Cuz I thought James, at the very least, came up with his own shit. And as someone who works very fucking hard to write/rewrite their own works to near perfection & and takes writing very seriously, I was pissed off. I'm still pissed off now. I got sleep but struggled to stay awake cuz this was weighing on my brain. To now know that James is nothing more than thief who can't write his own shit, I'm disappointed. I pointed to him as one of my inspirations to push for more queer rep. No, he's not the reason I made Roomies...thank fuck for that. He didn't taint my one good thing. On the topic of Roomies, which has a lot of queer POC, I now question if he actually gave a fuck about other queer poc that didn't benefit him for a video. Cuz if we're gonna keep it a buck, most of his queer analysis has been mostly about yt folks. And let's not forget how this man regularly shat on women, both queer & straight. I know there's a discussion to be had about gay men being fetishized, but looking at it now, his views on women in general seem to be very...narrow-minded.
To wrap this up, I no longer support nor stand by James Somerton. Easy thing to do since I barely got back into his shit last month. To say I'm disappointed in you is a fucking understatement. No amount of apologizing is gonna fix this shit.
Good riddance.
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