#plagarism and you(tube)

[mias-back-from-the-dead]

this was jangling around in my brain and i had to put it on the internet lest i never know peace (apologies for the spelling mistakes)

#yes i recreated this from scratch and ran it through jpeg saves to smear some artefacts on there #hbomberguy #plagarism and you(tube)

[lastoneout]

Gonna start calling this the "how to cure your impostor syndrome in 6 hours or less" duology.

#hbomberguy #if the people in these videos can be successful DESPITE IT ALL #there's nothing stopping me #plagarism and you(tube)

[ezra-and-the-sun]

James Somerton’s out here saying shit like “ I want to keep making videos about queer history.” Girl you said that only “boring gays” survived the AIDS crisis not only are you not seeing the pearly gates but no one in their right mind wants you to touch any form of social media with a ten foot pole.

#james somerton #hbomberguy #plagarism and you(tube) #plagarism #James somerton plagarism #video essays

[ceaselessbasher]

ROBLOX_OOF.mp3 || Plagarism and You(Tube)

Or: yes it got out of hand but you're here already so there's nothing you can do now

#i had to put them together it's beautiful #hbomberguy #james somerton #tommy tallarico #plagarism and you(tube) #roblox oof.mp3 #my gifs

[agentjazzy]

pictured here is Hbomberguy about to take on the pompous plagiarist

#he's not beating the herbert west allegations fr #hbomberguy #james somerton #plagarism and you(tube) #reanimator #jazzy keeps blogging til the blog ends

[a-feller]

Guys if u havent watched nukerman's 4 hour video essay on plagarism you need to now. (yes this is the one everyone is getting hyped about). If not for the content then at least for the funnies.

the following is all from hbomb. Not the guy in the screenshots.

I love this so much. I actually fell off my chair laughing.

#fuckable twink #hbomberguy #plagarism #what to tag this #video essay #I googled it and there is no clear answer but hbomb does seem to be a little homo. #youtube #plagarism and you(tube)

[writeitinsharpie]

gdi why did the queer video essayist i liked turn out to be a plagerizer

#sharpie says shit #AND during finals season?? when i would be listening to video essays???? #james somerton #is the one i'm talking about #hbomberguy #plagarism and you(tube) #i liked the videos! turns out i liked the ideas he was passing off as his own i guess #i even did a cursory check a few months back and couldn't find anything really problematic about him so i just didn't look further #welp guess i'll just watch overly sarcastic productions #(red and blue you better cite your sources properly and continue not being shitty)

[therecordconnection]

Some Thoughts Regarding James Somerton

I know I'm rather late to the conversation and some of these points may have already been talked about in some form elsewhere on the site, but if you don't mind, I have some thoughts of my own regarding the subject of hbomberguy's latest video and I would like to take time to voice. This blog is normally dedicated to music and music writing, not posts about disgraced Youtubers, so I apologize for the detour in regularly scheduled programming.

First, I think it's important to make the distinction that Somerton isn't just a case of "problematic Youtube guy got owned... twice" but rather a genuine case of academic dishonesty, which is several grades above youtuber drama. This isn't something like Tati Westbrook getting angry at James Charles for sucking dick and cock at a birthday dinner. This isn't Ethan Klein and Trisha Paytas or whomever having beef. It's not Charlie Critikal talking about some stupid drama of the day or someone just using Youtube videos to say a bunch of gross and problematic stuff. No. This is a fucking grifter who not only lied, cheated, and stole his way to the top, but also did it by using a vulnerable community that has long had their voices snuffed out and their history completely rewritten or wiped from existence altogether. What history he didn't plagiarize, he twisted and outright lied about. He just made shit up to suit his own gross agenda.

A lot of things about James Somerton left me absolutely livid, and I admit that I didn't even know who he was until hbomberguy's video. I think what makes me the most mad is that I went to undergrad and grad school with a number of jackoffs that were just like him. People that didn't give a shit about the art of writing and research and just treated academia and the pursuit of knowledge and how to critically engage with art and media into a stupid game that only chumps take seriously. Somerton pisses me off because I AM a writer. When I write the Ranting and Raving series of posts on here, that stuff doesn't just fly out of my ass. I have to sit with a song, study it, research it, and make sure I know what I'm talking about so I don't look like a clown. I also have to make sure that I link and credit where I'm getting information from. It's not just important for my own satisfaction, but it's important for anyone who stumbles upon a post on this blog and takes time out of their day to read it and/or reblog it.

I think that's the part that makes me the most mad. That he and Nick Hergott have so little respect for the work that goes into researching and writing about a topic that other people are really passionate about. Spending time with something, studying it, and figuring out an interesting and unique perspective on it is a great feeling. Sharing what you find or how you see something with others and having them either like or reblog your work is an even greater feeling. That's my writing that somebody enjoyed and thought was worth sharing with others. Fuck fuck fuck Somerton for thinking you can take a million little shortcuts to get to that result.

While I'm on the topic, I don't think Hergott gets a pass for Somerton's actions. I've seen some people make the argument that he isn't complicit and there's a chance that he genuinely had no clue that Somerton was doing this... but I don't buy it. There's no way he didn't know and wasn't in on it in some capacity. Even if he wasn't, as Todd in the Shadows pointed out in his video on this situation, Nick is, whether you like it or not, an accomplice to Somerton's lies and he is complicit in the blame, due to his name being included in the "Written By" credit of a lot of those videos with Somerton. The way I see it, I find it hard to believe that he couldn't have known. I imagine part of Hergott's signing on with Somerton was that in the event that shit hits the fan, Hergott would be used as a fall guy to help deflect accusations of plagiarism.

To return to Somerton, in a way, he's almost worse than AI/Chat-GPT because, really, an AI has no morals. It can only do what someone punches in and tells it to do. Somerton is a guy who does have genuinely insidious ambitions and knows fully what he's doing. That shit about "only the boring gays who didn't mess around in the eighties survived the aids crisis" is the wildest and grossest accusation I've seen about gay people in some time. The wild takes about the Nazis (especially all the wrong things he said about fitness relating to Nazis) should also raise a lot of red flags. I'll say this though, I don't blame anybody in the slightest for not fully realizing Somerton was saying shit like that or doing all of what he was doing until hbomberguy and Todd presented it a certain way and made it all very clear. It's easy to not notice it when Somerton buries it by ripping stuff off from other, better writers. So, if you were someone who was a big fan and was genuinely shocked by the things Todd had to fact-check and debunk and worried that you're a bad person for having not caught any of them, trust me, you're not. Nobody should blame you for not catching it. <3

While I'm ranting about this, I want to say that Somerton's patreon grift was really gross to see exposed as well (through Dan Olson's really great thread, which can be read here). I understand the allure of wanting to buy expensive gear and thinking that's somehow needed in order to make Good Content™️, but there's a stark difference between someone saying "I think I need to shell out a little money in order to get something of higher quality" and "I need to have the appearance of looking like my stuff is being made with high quality stuff." As someone who has been experimenting with trying to turn his writing into video, I did some audio tests this weekend and realized that maybe (just maybe) the old Turtle Beach microphone my brother left behind when he moved out isn't going to cut it. If I want to record something I can be happy with, I'm gonna have to bite it and look at getting something decent, but somewhat affordable from a Best Buy or something. You don't need the best tech in order to make something great, but you can't use copper tools forever if you have the means to be able to enjoy using iron ones, you know?

Somerton's grift reminded me of guys like Onision and Spoony. Grifters who looked to Patreon and other creator donation sites for an easy pay day and would bitch and cry and complain that it's your fault when they don't get it. Somerton making poor financial choices ON TOP of it being money that he scammed from a community of people that were looking to invest in a voice that they genuinely thought was speaking for them in a meaningful way, only makes the grift more disgusting and foul. Even if he's just "some Youtuber," Somerton still had a responsibility to his audience to present queer topics in an ACCURATE manner. He didn't and we all have the right to be angry with him about it. This isn't just silly youtuber controversy, this is academic dishonesty in it's purest form and if it gets you expelled from any college program, it should get you expelled from being able to show your face on Youtube as well, which is how Somerton's story will end.

I've been on the internet for many years. I've seen some of the worst, most problematic creators of all time find a way to bounce back from all kinds of controversy and find some kind of success again. I don't think that will happen for Somerton. Not one bit. What he's done is something you can never come back from, no matter how much you try to reform. If two different youtubers can make two completely different videos about why you suck, I don't think there's any recovery. What happened this weekend is a now classic episode of World's Most One Sided Fist Fights Caught on Film.

This post has gone on for a while, so let me wrap it up. I mean this without hyperbole and without exaggeration: James Somerton is a disgrace to both media criticism and the art of video creation. I genuinely hope he remains propped up as a cautionary tale of what can happen when you fully decide you have absolutely no respect for the Humanities and decide that lying, cheating, and stealing your way to the top, all while scamming and being incredibly shitty towards a community that has long suffered and is STILL suffering greatly to this day, is better than any kind of academic honesty. I understand that Somerton is just "some youtube fraud" to some people, but the problem lies more in what Somerton's actions and motivations represent. I really think hbomberguy's video on plagiarism is going to do a lot of good. It's going to help a lot of people avoid doing it as well as help people become more aware of what it really looks like and all the damage it can do.

Thank you for your time.

P.S. It doesn't really need to be said at this point, but make sure you support the queer voices and writers that did the work Somerton thought was good enough to just copy and paste into a video. They're the ones that suffered the most through all of this and my heart goes out to them, from one writer to another. <3

#original post #plagarism and you(tube) #james somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows

[werewolfclaws]

extruding myself out of a three year writer's block because nothing i write could be on the same level of whatever the fuck James Sommerton thinks he's doing

#crow.txt #i was gonna say not on the same level of what he writes #but he doesnt write any of it! #hbomberguy #plagarism and you(tube) #gosh. that was a doozy

[nepobabyeurydice]

Alexander Avila, you will always be THE magnificent latino trans man who dared to ask the real questions for example: Are They Gay?

#alexander avila #aretheygay #plagarism and you(tube) #it sucks that this QUEER latino trans man got his shit stolen #it’s reprehensible that this queer LATINO trans man got told to back off from protecting his own work and effort #it’s horrific that this queer latino TRANS MAN had to straight up watch three videos be stolen with nary a glanc #just emphasising for everyone how fucked up it is Avila had to go through that

[muchmossymess]

How it feels watching Plagarism and You(Tube)

spoiler alert, it's your favs

#i havent finished watching it yet cant wait to find out who else was actually not good and infact pretty bad #hbomberguy #plagarism and you(tube) #worst part is he doesnt even tell you to watch he warns you and you still watch it

[lastoneout]

I was too high last night to formulate this into proper words but something plagiarists(and by extension AI techbros) don't get about people who make things out of a love for that thing is that they are, consciously or not, doing it because they enjoy the process itself. Yes, it is easier to have a machine make a mug or painting or essay for you, or to steal someone else's, but again, people who actually like making stuff don't want someone else to do it for us because you have fully removed the thing we enjoy: the process of making a thing.

Like sure it would be nice to have a finished Gundam model or a trainset, but people who build gunpla kits and trainsets don't WANT someone else to do it for them, they want to do it. The sculptor or painter doesn't want a machine to just give them finished works of art, they want to MAKE that art themselves. The home gardner can just buy fresh food at the store, the tailor or knitter can buy a finished shirt or sweater whenever they want, but they don't because the act of gardening and sewing and knitting itself is what they enjoy.

Plagarists and AI techbros don't get that because they do not enjoy these processes. They enjoy making money and having social clout, and so they are perfectly happy stealing and automating things so that they don't have to do an ounce of real work while still getting all of the benefits of having created something. It really is all about finding the fastest and easiest way to get someone to hand you money or elect you god-king of the internet.

And the reason these two groups have such a hard time understanding each other is because of that fundamental disconnect. People who create things can never understand someone just wanting to press a button or copy-paste their way to having art because we want to indulge in the joy of creation itself, and those plagarists and AI dudes can't understand artists because to them it's just a means to an end so ofc it's in their best interest to make it as easy as possible. They don't get why someone would do this, or anything, if not for the social capital and/or actual capital it brings. Ofc it's better to automate it or steal it from someone else, that means you can make money faster and spend your time enjoying actual meaningful things like being wealthy and looked up to or w/e.

Plus creators(for lack of a better word) know keenly what it's like to BE stolen from or at least know people it has happened to, and so we are generally anti-plagarism by default.

Anyway yeah thats why to anyone who creates the other group seems so soulless and empty. It's because they kinda are. Because they don't value art or artists or care about creating things, and they certainly don't have any ammount of respect for the people they're hurting, they just want money and for "lesser" people to bow down as they walk by, and they are perfectly fine stealing to get there. It's the same mentality you get from people who pressure you to monetize your hobbies, they only see skills as an opportunity to make money. And it's really fucking sad.

#plagarism and you(tube) #hbomberguy #tagging those bcs that's what inspired this conversation in the first place

[ezra-and-the-sun]

Hbomberguy’s new video but every time someone says “I didn’t plagiarize,” they’re immediately interrupted by an [EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER]

#hbomberguy #plagarism #james somerton #illuminaughtii #plagarism and you(tube) #YouTube #video essays

[cowpokezuko]

Okay hopefully this will be my last post about hbomerguy's plagiarism video, but it has truly renewed my hatred for people who steal jokes. People wrote that, they took the time to think of something clever and refine it into something that could get a laugh out of people, they had an intention and a creative spark, and you just fucking stole it. People have done it with my jokes in front of me. It's so fucking lame. If you're not clever enough to come up with your own bit, at least don't take credit for someone else's bit. Even adding a "I saw this meme" or the like makes it a little less insufferable, but don't just tell it like it's your own joke.

#Bitbiters are my enemy #one time my roommate told a joke that I had told a YEAR prior which means he remembered it for a year #then was shocked and embarrassed when I called him out for it #like you were the thief fucker #hbomberguy #plagarism and you(tube)

[strive-in-peril]

Strive watching James Somerton's downfall.

(Strive in Socialblade)

Requested by: Me

#not a request #Strive in Peril #starlight brigade strive #strive starlight brigade #starlight brigade #twrp strive #hbomberguy #james somerton #plagarism and you(tube)

[pansyfemme]

Babes what on earth is going on with James Somerton

I mean not to tell you to watch like six hours of youtube because. i hate telling people to do that. but theres really no way to summerize what the fuck is going on here better than it’s presented in the two videos everyone seems to be watching right now, Hbomberguy’s “Plagarism and You(tube)” which is just straight up incredibly well done, but gives a few other examples of similar things going on. But then there’s Todd in the shadow’s “I fact checked the worst video essayist on youtube” which is shorter, but is best as a companion to hbomberguy’s and focuses on different elements. but tldr: Youtube video essayist James Somerton has been plagarizing almost every single one of his videos, as well as his non stolen words often being dangerous misinformation and straight up misogyny. It’s way wilder than that, and goes pretty deep though.