What is plagiarism? Where did plagiarism come from? Who made plagiarism? Where am I, plagiarism? Can you help me?
My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Hbomb
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/hbomberguy
Kat’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/lolkat
ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE THANKS to Rose (@modernmodron) who made the pixel art for the animated sequence near the end. and who I realised right after uploading I forgot to put in the credits. I’m ashamed. Please check her out HERE:
Tweets by modernmodron
Second channel video::
Your New Favourite YouTubers:
Chapters:
0:00:00 Intro
0:05:09 Filip
0:27:57 Cinemassacre
0:42:59 Iilluminaughtii
1:04:06 YouTube Content Mills
1:11:41 The LegalEagle Debacle
1:25:34 Cave Story
1:49:59 The Twist You Expected
2:15:11 The Celluloid Closet
2:21:57 It Got Worse
2:34:24 HE’S STILL DOING IT
2:41:49 Shouldn’t Need To Do This
2:50:31 Attack on Attack on Titan
2:58:15 Does He Know?
3:04:45 He Started A Film Studio
3:09:14 The Nightmare
3:17:00 Turnabout Summertime
3:20:01 The Cost
3:29:47 Conclusion
Useful Links:
Chris Scullion’s response to Filip’s plagiarism denial:
41 Comments
Second channel video HERE (finally):
https://youtu.be/403eGkWv4MA
1:05:45 These type of videos are just background noise to me . I don’t have to pay attention to them and I can focus on other task
Shoutout to Spoony… wherever you are…
I wanted to comment something about my shock as a previous fan of Somerton and probably feeling guilt as a white(mixed) straight woman that he no doubt had a hand in but on the other the green screen reveal was so funny that I will mention that instead. Nice job.
Love the kisluxbag bag
IS THAT WENDIGOON?????
James is back… with an "apology".
lmao, the only time illuminaughtii didn't plagiarize was when she was attempting to redefine plagiarism. clever girl [Jurassic Park, 1993]
To add to the list (I don't know all their sexualities, but I enjoy their media and social criticism): Be Kind Rewind, Breadsword, Negative Legend, Implicitly Pretentious, Princess Weekes, The Cosmonaut Variety Hour, Laura Crone, Skip Intro, LadyKnightTheBrave, Jessie Gender, mjtanner, Full Fat Videos, Browntable, Elliot Roberts, Rowan Ellis, The Authentic Observer, Tara Mooknee, Dominic Noble, and even though they're no longer uploading videos (due to people stealing their work) Sideways.
JAMES SOMERTON JUST “APOLOGIZED”
Damn, I actually liked James's videos. I've had no idea about all that shit :/
Ill admit, I don't really care the Internet Historian copied an article. What he did made the story waaaaaay more interesting than if I read it. Plus he made it more accessible. I never would have known about it had it not been on the YouTube platform. Although, I will say that all he had to do was put a link under his video. Sure it takes away from the people who put in the work, but some appreciation should be given to the fact that now the story has some limelight. Credited or not. This opinion will probably be unpopular. I understand how unfair it is. Yet the reality is that I don't actually care too much about something so minute. Especially in this day and age where half the things on the internet are a recreation.
And within a few hours, James’ apology video is gone
Checking back in, anybody else catch the six hour window where James had posted an "apology" that hit literally all of the beats that Hbomb brought up as characteristics of a non-apology before deleting it?
I have been watching James Somerton since the Pink Triangle and have watched every video of "his" for years.
I feel so cheated and feel implicit in ripping people off…
Due to a brain injury I haven't been able to read for pleasure for a couple of years. Video essays are my main form of entertainment.
Thanks for making the Your New Favourite YouTubers list. I was already subscribed to VerilyBitchie, Khadija Mbowe, Lily Alexandre, Kat Blaque, and Mia Mulder.
As soon as I finish this video, I'm subscribing to all the others on the list.
My (least) favorite thing about the stuff with Somerton is how genuinely harmful he is/was to the community. He says that "oh Disney is great about queer people actually" when they use the lesbian flag without giving any cent to Emily Gwen, who was been financially insecure for years. The weird stuff about "the nazis liked gay people" is especially so given how that's just a recruiting tactic still used by the alt-right TODAY. They get close to you, talk behind your back, and see if they can make you into something of use. I've had that happen to a friend of mine at a convention and I've seen a lot of examples online about how they skulk around at protests (queer ones and ones against Israel for example) to try and bait right-leaning opinions out of people. Then they leave some information, you become friends, and you lean on them in hard times so why not trust them politically?
The proof against this isn't as hard to disprove as some of the more egregious examples in today's misinformation war though. Like the nazis had a whole symbol for queer people that's being reclaimed today; the pink triangle. It just make's James' claims that much more absurd I suppose.
I'm not sure where to put this or how to transition into it, but I also wanted to mention; in a video about "a queer look at Disney," when ripping from the book (Tinkerbell's and Evil Queens) I'm not sure if he pointed it out because all his videos are gone now, but Disney was heavily inspired by Divine in their making of Ursula for The Little Mermaid. I don't think that's something to be ignored in "a queer look at Disney," Sean Griffin didn't at least, he mentioned Divine in his book James used.
It makes me so angry that I will sit and scour my primary and secondary sources, zotero, google scholar, consult my library, etc. for HOURS to find the source of some little piece of information so that I can cite it properly in a dissertation. I was (before quitting) paid less than poverty wages to do so; now I have to pay for the privilege. Meanwhile, this guy and so many people like him feel entitled to steal from people who put their hearts into research just to make fatter stacks of cash than I possibly ever will in my life.
you know I initially (before watching this video) thought that the Man in the cave video was taken down by R* because I heard several of their game soundtracks in the background but now I know the reason. also the fact that he did not mention the reason for the take down makes a lot of sense now.
Male homosexuality as “man who despise women” is sadly a very old trend.
The idea that an old wise man couldn’t depend on a woman and should f*ck teenage boys instead (I’m very slightly simplifying) is a big deal for Plato and Greeks’ famous gay thing.
This of course doesn’t mean we have to be prejudiced against gay men, it means we need more intersectionality.
I cackled at the man in cave transition 😂😂😂
The size of that list of patreons at the end is phenomenal!
I never seen anything close to it!
I’d never heard of James Somerton before this and now I hate him 😡
Somerton’s video on Killing Stalking had been one of my favorite YouTube analyses because I didn’t know anything about the series and he seemed to be a chill, impartial party explaining an incredibly complex and controversial story. Really makes me wish I could figure out the line of art from artist, but in the meantime… damn.
Where is the star wars prequels are great actually vid?
James is clearly a horrible person.
I'm so glad that Tommy Tallerico has taken James Somerton to task for stealing all of Tommy's queer writing.
I used to really enjoy Somerton's video. It was a way to look at movies in a different, more analytical way. His "apology" however really cemented how there's not going back from this
James Somerton Insincere Apology Tour 2: Electric Boogaloo, is currently uploaded to his previously deserted YouTube channel.
It's not going well for the lying sad sack.
Sometimes in life, it pays to just put your head down, disappear, and never return to the public spotlight after such a devastating takedown as the one issued by HBG.
I couldn't care less about any of the shenanigans, I care about content that I can watch as a viewer. Like a give a shit that James Somerton quoted a book, his videos were great and informative, and I have not seen other YouTube creators delve into the topic of queer history, except for Matt Baume and sometimes Strange Æons. What a shame, he should have kept his videos up, I would have watched them again.
Well, that didn't last long!
As I was finishing typing my previous comment, it came out that Somerton hastily took down his "apology" video after having it up for about 6 hours. The overwhelmingly negative (yet largely constructive, not abusive) response he received in the comments seemed to even get through to this idiot's synapsis and he eventually did the right thing for once and deleted it.
But not after leaving this comment in the Community page.
"James Somerton
1 hour ago
Earlier tonight I uploaded a video apologizing for what I've done but it's become clear, after hearing from several people, that I am not in a healthy frame of mind to be posting anything online. I only returned home from the hospital yesterday so I should have never filmed it. I have deleted the video, but I'm sure it has been downloaded and will be shared by others online. I promise to apologize properly and in detail when I'm more mentally stable. Until then please know that I AM sorry."
OMEGALOL!!
IN 2019, Economics Explained, a youtube channel 2.41m outright stole a 2018 Bloomberg article on a BIllionaire Sports punter who used regression analysis to win on horse races in Hong Kong. Verbatim. A full. months-long. long-form, investigative journalism piece copied on YT verbatim from a guy who says he used to teach economics at university.
Rewatching this after that apology video makes it seem even more hollow. Somerton had a habit of privating and barely altering videos whenever anybody noticed he'd plagiarised them. He looooved to bash women, gay, bi, and straight. He sicced his followers on anyone who displeased him. Blubbering for 35 minutes about how all this awful stuff just 'ended up' in his videos and also he tried to top himself, feel sorry for him several weeks after he was exposed is so fucking cynical.
Why the hell did this bs autoplay? Who gives a flying f*ck about any of this?
in the past 6 hours, james reactivated his patreon, uploaded a pretty unwell nonapology video, re-deactivated his patreon, and took down the video. So suffice to say, things are going well in the somerton household
To be fair, UrinatingTree pivoted from AVGN to being one of the more entertaining sports covering youtubers
Obviously you’re right about everything and there isn’t really any viable response to anything in the video besides apologising and changing, but I just feel uncomfortable with how personal some of the criticism got, especially in the james somerton segment. I feel like there’s a tendency amongst queer people in general to be more critical of people within their own space than people outside of it who did worse or equally as bad things
I’m not a fan of his and honestly with everything that he did he kinda deserves it, but imo taking a more neutral and less aggressive tone towards him wouldn’t have made the video worse or the greater point u were making any less clear
Women love talking about sex with their friends, this is James guy is an idiot
Nice chest hair, please show more next time 👍The video was pretty good to. I guess.
I hopped on YouTube after my exams and noticed that Jame's channel was gone, PFP and all, just one of those stereotypical "talk into camera" apology videos in its place. He spoke a lot about how bad all of the stuff made him feel.
This came up when i looked up what happened so let's see what he did
On any other day I'd say I've never heard of James, but you mentioning his hatred of women triggered a memory. I came across one of his videos last year, I think. I don't remember the topic of the video, but I remember being annoyed by something he said about women, I may have even commented.
James "thanking" lindsay ellis for getting him into videos is also really suspect because one of the things that made me start to question him was when he uploaded a video in 2022 talking about "the dark side of nostalgia in stranger things" which is a premise extremely similar to lindsay ellis' 2016 video. In it he not only goes on extremely disjointed tangents about the sound of music and marxist theory in the presentation of the starcourt mall, but also attempts to attack the democrat party by saying that they aren't using their 3 executive supreme court branches well, unaware that republicans control 6 branches and have far more power. holy fuck.