this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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James Somerton was making $170,000 a year with nearly 6 million views and 267,000 subscribers on YouTube, until...

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[–] [email protected] 225 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I mean the video didn't just "accuse" him, it showed actual evidence and a metric fuckton of it.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago

Legal terminology

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

hbomb also included a playlist of smaller queer creators that i've really enjoyed!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRGz5EMig3r2ZDgeGzwUlSz-PzF-L1Xu1

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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[–] logicbomb 157 points 11 months ago (9 children)

There was another aspect to this video, which was that when Somerset actually did try to write some of the material himself, it was complete garbage.

For example, he completely plagiarized from a book about Disney, but then, he had to transition between one plagiarized book and a different plagiarized article, and in that transition, he presented some facts about Disney organizing gay events at their park, and it was all outright lies. Disney did not actually have any official LGBTQ events at their parks until far after that.

There was a different YouTube video that came out the next day, from this musician who listed all of the outright lies that he discovered while watching Somerset's channel.

I think the plagiarism displayed by Somerset is atrocious, but personally, I find lying and spreading misinformation to be even worse.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not to mention the rampant misogyny.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The queer community deserves better. Hopefully this will leave some room for other voices

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The queer community clearly already has better, as James plagiarized lots of very talented creators and writers.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

hbomb included a playlist of smaller queer creators that i've really enjoyed!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRGz5EMig3r2ZDgeGzwUlSz-PzF-L1Xu1

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago

I think the Todd in the Shadows video was the nail in the coffin. He might’ve been able to slither back by saying he didn’t realize he was attributing incorrectly (like Internet Historian fans are screaming), but he can’t come back from outright lying the times he wasn’t plagiarizing.

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[–] isthingoneventhis 78 points 11 months ago

HAHAHA holy fucking shit the level of comeuppance is beautiful. Good riddance. His blatant misogyny and narcissism is disgusting, I hope he finds a cozy stone to crawl under.

[–] chitak166 64 points 11 months ago

Profiting from the cause, nice.

Be careful. Even if the cause is just, there is never going to be a shortage of shitbags willing to exploit it for their own gain.

[–] dellish 54 points 11 months ago (16 children)

Is him being gay even relevant to what happened, or are they just trying to make this about something it's not?

[–] camr_on 130 points 11 months ago

It's very relevant. One of the big points in the hbomberguy video is that James was known as a prominent voice in the LGBT community, and he blatantly plagiarized other LGBT creators that might have otherwise gained a larger following themselves

[–] [email protected] 89 points 11 months ago

It's core to Hbomberguy's video, really. The guy tried to make himself the gay YouTuber by ripping off other queer content producers, and as a persecuted community that's had to deal with a forever of social erasure, that's a whole lot extra shitty.

[–] newthrowaway20 59 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I think it's a little relevant. He's a gay focused YouTuber, in that he talked about gay topics in media, supposedly championing gay voices, while at the same time silencing those same gay voices, stealing their content and claiming it as his own.

For wanting to help the gay community, he really did a lot to hurt the community and help himself. All he had to do is give credit to the people he quoted, but when confronted with accusations, he would claim he's being silenced as a gay creator rather than admit the truth, and his followers would attack the accusers on his behalf, thinking he's being genuine.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

He wasn't quoting people though, he was straight up reading other people's work and claiming it as his own. Like whole paragraphs at a time just copy/pasted with a couple words swapped out. Even with proper citations you would be kicked out of college for plagiarizing if you submitted something like that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

What he did was beyond quoting.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 11 months ago

His channel was about LGBT issues, so it's actually relevant. It's a reasonable concern and the source material is a four hour long breadtube thing bordering on self-parody, so I don't mind responding to this one.

[–] WindyRebel 28 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It’s posted on lgbtqnation. I’m pretty sure that for their audience it’s incredibly fucking relevant.

[–] GrammatonCleric 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Read the damn article 😐

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[–] 3laws 22 points 11 months ago

It's more than relevant. It's pivotal to the whole ordeal.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago

Ita an article from a website called lgbtqnation so its not that surprising. Also the guy stole a lot from queer people and was a misogynist.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Yes, very relevant.

[–] ook_the_librarian 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I guess him being gay isn't exactly important. The important thing is that the content that he stole was mostly about LGBTQ media studies. So "gayness" is relevant, but strictly speaking his gayness is not.

Edit: I would also note that if the headline writer was just adding "gay" to be incendiary, the writer could have said "Gay youtuber taken down by bi youtuber" but that would needlessly putting in the "bi" label. The "gay youtuber" is "writing" about gay stuff.

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[–] atomicorange 45 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago

Lgbtqnation really needs a new proofreader. I hear James Somerset is looking for... no, I mean... fuck

[–] ThePyroPython 39 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Still not comfortable about him sleeping on those piles of money.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nope. He was making six figures a year off other people’s hard work.

[–] EmpathicVagrant 20 points 11 months ago

Just like most wealthy people, his wealth was stolen not earned.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

Good riddance

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago

He finally deleted his YouTube channel. It was about time.

[–] hOrni 18 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Why does the article start with "Bisexual British YouTube essayist"? What does his sexuality have to do with anything?

[–] [email protected] 66 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Somerton has a bit of a history of weaponizing his fans to attack anyone bringing up issues by painting them as homophobic and attacking a gay man. Hbomberguy made a point of bringing up his own bisexuality in his video before he even brought up Somerton as a way a kneecapping that before it could start.

[–] TooLazyDidntName 9 points 11 months ago

Fantastic answer and a good question at that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

It's actually very important to this discussion. He ripped off a bunch of LGBT+ ppl while promoting himself as one.

[–] NocturnalEngineer 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Likely to highlight this wasn't a homophobic incident.

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[–] Electricorchestra 17 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Todd in the shadows took him to the shadow realm.

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[–] benjihm 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

I wonder if Somerton's writer has offered any kind of response yet. It was suggested he may have been left in the dark about all of this.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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