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honeysucklepink · 5 months

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So I finished watching the Hbomberguy's video on James Somerton (I'm going to watch Todd in the Shadows later). I'm someone who teaches plagiarism and misinformation, and I'll admit even I was fooled. I watched his videos, AND Illuminaughti's. Lindsay Ellis got in hot water too and disappeared, can't recall if that was plagiarism or not. I did eventually stop watching Somerton a while ago, not because of the plagiarism, but because he had this darkness and snideness that was unsettling to me, and he was putting more focus on horror which was never my bag. I much prefer Matt Baume (which Somerton apparently also stole from? I can't figure out what though, Baume's source material is just more...optimistic?). God I hope it doesn't turn out HE'S a plagiarizer, too.

Maybe I should just fucking quit YouTube?

#hbomberguy #james somerton #plagiarism on youtube #illuminaughti #matt baume #queer media

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irisu-syndromemes · 4 months

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plagiarizing an obscure indie game for lazy hip hop and rap

youtube is currently going up in flames over plagiarism found in many people's channels, particularly documentary-ish videos that have commentary from the uploader. this seems to be mostly because of that hbomberguy and his recent video about plagiarism on the website, as well as a specific person who's drowning in controversy lately.

i admit that i don't want to watch the video, because i've watched other videos already, and i've heard about the other channels' plagiarism through the grapevine. plagiarism IS awful, and it's a disgrace to find it's way more commonplace than i thought.

all this made me remember something... a few weeks ago i remembered that i once found a few songs on youtube, and 1 on spotify, that straight up steal music from an old indie horror game that's stayed pretty obscure throughout the years. so i spent the next few days trying to find every youtube upload with stolen music from it, as well as the respective channels, and even uploads on other websites (which i did find; one of them was even "for sale" on a beat-selling website).

it made me angry. it made me sick. to see so many idiotic hip hop "artists" steal someone else's work, sometimes even selling it, because they're hacks who can't be bothered to put in the work for their craft. i accumulated quite a number of tabs of people who did this - WAY too many links to videos and uploaders - and then...

i closed them all. i was furious and it was making me go crazy. my mental health was taking a hit and i knew there was nothing i could do...

the game they're all stealing from is called Irisu Syndrome, and it's a short freeware horror game from japan first released in 2008 that has garnered a bit of a cult following. the music is by MusMus, who is credited as Watson in the game. it's still very obscure, but well-known enough that siivagunner has made a "high quality rip" of one of its tracks. in fact, it even inspired Dan Salvato to make Doki Doki Literature Club partially! suffice to say, i adore this game. it may be short, but it left a lasting impression on me (it's a pretty shocking game! those under 16 and easily-disturbed folks should avoid it), so i've never forgotten about it as the years passed.

the game was made entirely by japanese people... this makes any sort of communication between western fans and the dev or MusMus pretty difficult. for the record, the english patch was supposed to be given an official release, but the dev himself couldn't find a way to contact the english translators, so only spanish and mandarin got official versions.

communication is difficult... i can't just email some japanese person who made this game's music all those years ago, with all these links and all this worry in my heart, and expect a response. i don't want to be intrusive.

...but i also care. maybe i care too much. it's incredibly unfair that some bozos are out there stealing the guy's music and getting comments like "this is fire!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥" when all they did was add a beat to the tracks. meanwhile the game stays in obscurity. none of them are popular "musicians" but it's sickening all the same. it's stealing. all i want is for the game's music composer to know, so maybe he can report those uploads himself.

for the record i know about sampling, and this isn't it. using the entire track and then not crediting, that's not innocent "sampling". just wanted to make that clear.

i get cold feet easily. i don't know if i can just email him, if he would read it, if i can make my point clear, if anything could actually be done. i don't want to be intrusive. i don't want to be a nuisance.

but all this recent talk of plagiarism, it got me thinking again. it's incredibly unfair, because even if he was okay with it, the plagiarists didn't ask or credit him. i can't just forget about this, so i'm making this post.

i'm making this post haphazardly, in the hopes someone knows what to do. maybe someone knows of a solution, maybe someone could help. maybe even spreading the word, to someone who knows the right thing to do about this. i've thought of making my own youtube video about this issue, but i have no subscribers, and i get cold feet easily. it would get nowhere.

"it's just music from just some game" but it's a game i love anyway. i have all this worry in my heart, and i don't know what to do.

#irisu syndrome #plagiarism #hbomberguy #iilluminaughtii #ddlc #doki doki literature club #plagiarism on youtube #i honestly don't know what else to tag...#this is something important to me. the game and its music. the composer and plagiarism in the music industry.#i'm not kidding when i say: please help. i feel like i'm going insane all over again.

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coffinwoodx · 5 months

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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

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cyberwulf · 5 months

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youtube

me last night: yaaay new Hbomberguy video dropped

me last night: FOUR HOURS LONG oh ffs I may wait till tomorrow

me today: Oh. Oh no. Some very well-known YouTubers whose content I enjoyed are actually plagiarists.

me this evening: OH FFS PEOPLE WENT FROM THAT VIDEO TO THE COMMENTS OF THE CREATORS IN QUESTION where are your MINDS

#plagiarism #plagiarism on youtube #content mills #DO NOT BRIGADE THE CREATORS MENTIONED #why are people this stupid #Youtube

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manyofnine · 5 months

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Guess who just watched the new Hbomberguy vid 🤪

#I feel honestly betrayed lmao #Fuck you james #Plagiarism on YouTube

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thetreetopinn · 5 months

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Sources for Somerton's Plagiarism from Hbomberguy's Video (as much as I could get)

I went back through Harry's video, focused entirely on the sources James Somerton pulled from in the hopes of creating as much of a comprehensive list as I could--though my Google-Fu is not very strong. I did however find something I thought was forever lost and that made me very happy--specifically the magazine Midlands Zone containing the column by Steven Spinks that Harry poignantly used as an illustration of gay erasure... while Somerton uses it to sound like HE is waxing remorseful about the very subject.

This is not a complete list, I'm sure. For one thing, I was only able to attempt to pull sources that Harry himself mentioned in the video. Surely there's so very much more out there. I expect there to be a great deal more internet archeology to unearth just how much writing and culture Somerton has stolen like he's the British Museum of Natural History but for gay people.

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Harry's list of mentioned youtubers:

Alexander Avila - https://www.youtube.com/@alexander_avila Matt Baume - https://www.youtube.com/@MattBaume Khadija Mbowe - https://www.youtube.com/@KhadijaMbowe Lady Emily - https://www.youtube.com/@LadyEmilyPresents Shanspeare - https://www.youtube.com/@Shanspeare RickiHirsch - https://www.youtube.com/@RickiHirsch VerilyBitchie - https://www.youtube.com/@verilybitchie

Harry created a convenient playlist of videos by these and other people he wants to bring to everyone's attention.

Please give them your support.

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Midlands Zone Magazine - Column by Steven Spinks

After a great deal of searching, I found an archive of the "Midlands Zone" magazine, where you can read through past issues dating all the way back to February 2014. I have also found the issue from which Somerton took Spinks' poignant discussion of gay erasure: Overall archive Specific Issue - Pages 16-17

It will not allow you to download it, but you can read it exactly as it appeared in print form.

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My best effort to find the exact book or article Somerton lifted from to be able to get attention to the original writers

Tinker Bells and Evil Queens By Sean Griffin

The Celluloid Closet By Vito Russo Wikipedia article about the book Wikipedia article about the documentary My weak google-fu could not find where you can access the book or documentary. Check your local municipal or university library for book or documentary, or if you know a good source for one or both, please reblog with it added

Camp and the Gay Sensibility By Jack Babuscio

The Groundbreaking Queerness of Disney's Mulan By Jes Tom Personal site with links to social media accounts

Why Rebel Without a Cause was a milestone for gay rights By Peter Howell

Why "The Craft" is still the best Halloween coming out movie By Andrew Park

Opinion: From facehuggers to phallic tails, is 'Alien' one of the queerest films ever? By Dani Leever

Women and Queerness in Horror: Jennifer's Body By Zoe Fortier

[Pride 2019] We Have Such Sights to Show You: Hellraiser and the Spectrum of Queerness By Alejandra Gonzalez

Revealing the Hellbound Heart of Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' By Colin Arason

Queering James Cameron's Aliens (1986) By Bart Bishop

Demeter and Persephone in space: transformation, femininity, and myth in the 'Alien' films By David Greven

Fears of a millennial masculinity: Scream's queer killers By David Greven (Scholarly site, unable to access original work, offers a way to request a full copy of the text in PDF)

Queer Subtext in Stephen King's It - Part 1: 'Reddie' Character Analysis By Rachel Brands Rachel is the very unfortunate lady who found out she was being stolen from because she supported Somerton through Patreon and saw one of his videos early with her writing--lacking any form of citation or credit

How 'It: Chapter Two' Leaves Richie Tozier Behind By Joelle Monique

When Horror Becomes Strength: Queer Armor in Stephen King's 'IT' By Alex London

Why Queer People Love Witchcraft By Amanda Kohr

'The Favourite' Queers The Past And The Present By Giorgi Plys-Garzotto

(Wuko) Crush (Mako x Wu) By MoonFlower on YouTube

5 Terrible Movies With Awesome Hidden Meanings By J.F. Sargent

The Radicalization of Sexuality: The Queer Casae of Jeffrey Dahmer By Ian Barnard

Netflix's 'Dahmer' backlash highlights ethical issues in the platform's obsession with true crime By Shivani Dubey

The Possible Disturbing Dissonance Between Hajime Isayama's Beliefs and Attack on Titan's Themes Original Article by "Seldom Musings" (Author has made all posts not related to Attack On Titan private and has retired from the blog)

Everyone Loves Attack on Titan. So Why Does Everyone Hate Attack on Titan? By Gita Jackson

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The following people are otherwise named in the video. There are no direct citations of articles or books by them in said video. I am unable to guarantee that I have identified the correct individual.

Darren Elliott-Smith Michaela Barton David Church Claire Sisco King Amanda Howell Jessica Roy

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Telos announced and cancelled a film likely based on this book: The Final Girl Support Group - By Grady Hendrix

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I refrained from including certain sources.

First off only focusing on Somerton's work.

Secondly not including anything that might be visible enough to not require amplifying their voice (I cannot speak for all of those I have found links to, but journalism is frequently a thankless job).

Thirdly any source that is of a nature that is antithetical to the very existence of the queer community, such as the right-leaning source that didn't make it into Somerton's video, but Harry was able to identify as a source he had considered using.

If you feel I have missed a mentioned source--or you know of a source from material that was not covered in Harry's video--please do not hesitate to reblog with added details.

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Please share this information far and wide, and please add to it if you find more material that can be positively identified and linked to the creator/writer.

#hbomberguy #james somerton #Plagiarism #Queer #LGBT #LGBTQIA #youtube #Solidarity #gay erasure #Make them un-erased

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prideprejudce · 5 months

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youtube drama is very downplayed when it comes to its impact on tumblr (discussion of it usually ends as rapidly as it begins) so the fact that hbomberguy has been the top trending tag for several days now shows how much of an impact his video essay has made on the writing and video community as a whole. his video has spread so much awareness over the rampant plagiarism issue that has been festering under people’s radar for years now while dozens of youtube “creators” make six figure salaries off other peoples words and research. he effectively took off so many people’s rose tinted glasses and made us all blatantly aware of what an absolute shitshow this problem is now in modern media and how manipulated content has become

#hbomberguy #james somerton #internet historian #iilluminaughtii #YouTube #plagiarism #because of that video ive been going back to my old favorite essays with new eyes #and let me tell you……it’s uncomfortably disturbing

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ohnoitstbskyen · 5 months

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re: Somerton

Not for nothing, but I think we should remember that James Somerton's fans and subscribers are normal people, just like you. They are people who received his output in good faith, and extended to him a normal amount of grace and benefit of the doubt, which he took advantage of.

I don't think it's helpful to respond to the exposé on Somerton with sentiments along the lines of "wow, how could anyone ever think THIS GUY'S videos were any good, ha ha ha, how did he ever get subscribers?" because 1) you have the substantial benefit of hindsight and a disengaged outsider perspective, and 2) it's a rhetoric that creates a divide between you (refined, savvy, smart, sophisticated) and Somerton's audience (gullible, unrefined, easily taken advantage of, terrible taste), which is a false divide, with a false sense of security.

Somerton's success happened because he stole good writing. He found interesting, insightful, in-depth work done by other people, applied the one skill he actually has which is marketing, and re-packaged it as his own. He targeted a market which is starving for the exact kind of writing he was stealing, and pushed his audience to disengage from sources that conflicted with him.

Hbomberguy makes this point in his exposé video: good queer writing is hard to find and incredibly easy to lose. The writers Somerton stole from were often poor or precarious, writing freelance work for small circles under shitty conditions, without the means or the reach or the privileges necessary to find bigger markets. And, as Hbomb demonstrated, when people did discover Somerton's plagiarism, he used his substantial audience to hound them away and dissuade anyone else from trying to hold him accountable.

He stole queer writing by marginalized people, about experiences and perspectives that people are desperate to hear more about, and even if his delivery and aesthetics were naff, his words resonated with people because the original writers who actually wrote them poured their goddamn hearts and souls into it.

Somerton also maintained a consistent narrative of persecution and marginalization about himself. He took the plain truth, which is that queer people and perspectives are discriminated against, and worked that into a story about himself as a lone, brave truth-teller, daring to voice an authentic queer perspective, constantly beset by bigots and adversaries who sought to tear him down. As @aranock, who works with some of the people he targeted, writes in this post, Somerton weaponized whatever casual bias and bigotry he could find in his audience to reinforce his me vs them narrative (usually misogyny and various forms of transphobia), which is what grifters do. They find a vulnerable thread in a community and pull on it. And while you may not have the particular vulnerability that he exploited, you do have vulnerabilities, and they can be exploited too.

People felt compelled to support him, even if his work was sometimes shoddy, because he presented himself as a vulnerable, marginalized person in need of help, he pulled on that vulnerable thread.

Again, he has a degree in marketing, and just like propaganda, nobody is immune to marketing.

YouTube as a system is set up to push for more, constantly more. More content, more videos, more output, more more more more, and part of Somerton and Illuminaughty's success was their ability to push out large amounts of content to the hungry algorithm, even if it was of inferior quality. The algorithm rewarded their volume of output with more eyeballs and attention, and therefore more opportunities to find people who were vulnerable to their grift.

It is a system which quite literally rewards the exact kind of plagiarism that they do, because watch-time and engagement are easily measurable metrics for a corporation, and academic rigor is not. There is pressure to deliver, and a lot of rewards to gain from cutting corners to do it.

Somerton and Illuminaughty and Internet Historian are extreme and very obvious cases, so blatant that you can make a four hour video essay exposing what they've done, but the vast majority of this kind of plagiarism isn't going to be obvious - sometimes it might not even be obvious to the people who are doing it. Casual plagiarism is endemic to the modern internet, and most people don't get educated on what the exact boundaries are between proper sourcing and quoting vs plagiarizing. We had an entire course module at my university aimed at teaching students the exact differences and definitions, and people still made good faith mistakes in their essays and papers that they had to learn to correct during their education.

All of this to say: it is extremely easy in hindsight to call Somerton's work shitty and shoddy, his aesthetics flat and uninspired, and to imagine that as a sophisticated person with good taste and critical faculties, you would never be taken in by this kind of grifter. It is extremely easy to distance yourself from the people he preyed on, and imagine that you will never have to worry about your fave doing your dirty like that.

But part of the point of Hbomberguy's video is that plagiarism is extremely easy to get away with, and often difficult for the average person to spot and call out, and with the rise of AI tools blurring the lines even further, it is not going to get any easier.

So I think we should resist the temptation to think of Somerton's audience as people with bad taste and poor faculties. We should resist the temptation to distance ourselves from the perfectly normal people he preyed on. Many times in your life, a modestly clever man with a marketing degree has fooled you too.

On a personal note, by the same token, I am resisting the temptation to assume that I am too good to be vulnerable to the systemic pressures that produced Somerton and Illuminaughty. No, I've never made a video by word-for-word reciting someone else's work, but I know for a fact that I could do a better job of double-checking my work and citing my sources. I feel the exact same pressure to get a video out as fast as possible, I have the exact same rewards dangled in front of me by YouTube as a platform, and I can't pretend it doesn't affect my work. To me, Hbomb's video felt like a wake-up call to do better.

#tb blog #james somerton #hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #plagiarism #youtube

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dragonboyteeth · 5 months

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I love being fully unaware of YouTuber drama and which channels are "popular." My first reaction at the start of that section was "who the hell is James Somerton"

#hbomberguy #this is not me claiming to be above it all or anything. iiluminaughtii did have me hooked for the longest time #and i never figured out about her plagiarism #but it is funny that i had just straight up not heard of this guy #meanwhile a couple of the smaller YouTubers hbomb mentioned as being better to support were ones i have watched for years #including Are They Gay. when that title card came up i was like >:0 he ripped off my boy??

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phoenixyfriend · 5 months

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I think referring to the James Somerton situation, or the hbomberguy and Todd in the Shadows videos in general, as "YouTuber Drama" is really underselling the level of academic dishonesty, intellectual theft, and malicious misinformation being discussed and spread by this man and others like him.

This isn't makeup gurus accusing each other of being inappropriate at a birthday dinner or a philosophy channel getting in hot water on Twitter for having a controversial queer celebrity do a voiceover line without fully vetting everything he's ever said.

It's large scale plagiarism and hundreds of thousands of dollars of profiting off other people's work without even credit.

(And 64k in scams. That too.)

And no, I didn't know who any of these people except Harry and Todd were until now, with the exception of MAYBE having heard of Internet Historian in passing, so I had that same "who even are these people" response as most of you.

People like James are why I cannot in good faith just Tell people my college major.

#hbomberguy #todd in the shadows #james somerton #current events #YouTube #YouTuber Drama #Phoenix Talks #plagiarism #academic dishonesty

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gayteensupreme · 5 months

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new hbomberguy vid out, watch now

#hbomberguy #james somerton #youtube #video essays #plagiarism

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vesper-of-roses · 5 months

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The thing you gotta respect about Harris is that he doesn't do "YouTube drama." He doesn't make a string of videos reacting and replying to petty takedown videos and hitpieces, or churn out live updates of drama as it unfolds for clicks.

No, he slowly, quietly gathers enough evidence to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his target is a lying piece of shit and drops it all at once like an atomic bomb that erases even the possibility of a response. He just Dr Manhattan's that person's whole career in one fell swoop and moves on.

#hbomberguy #james somerton #plagiarism and youtube #plagiarism and you(tube)

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birbbeans · 5 months

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Knowing people are making six figures by copying and pasting Wikipedia articles, stealing information and tracing art, I now feel more proud of every single piece of work I create and engagement I receive because I do not resort to theft for my work!

#hbomberguy #plagiarism #original content #youtube #its all exhausting isnt it #i used to love the illuminaughtii girl #the internet historian news is sad too #whats the other guys name #james somerton #yeah him

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ytcomments-archive · 5 months

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