Since we're at a new page, I thought I'd embed a reupload (ie not monetized by James) of the apology for those that want to see it/discuss it.
Pretending it's not out there doesn't really help, but spreading reuploads so that some of the outrage clicks don't go into his pocket helps.
Somerton opens with saying that he's going to try to get the monetization to Hbomberguy but failing that he'll donate it himself, so it will be interesting to see how Harry responds to that. It's such an easily verifiable thing that it would be so comically short-sighted to lie about but... well, as we've learned, the more easily something is verified, the less likely people actually are to verify it.
I wonder how many of Somerton's Patrons are plants just trying to get the inside scoop.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.The funny thing is Hbomb jokes about the OOF video spiraling out of control as he dug more and more into Tallarico's lies, while with the Plagiarism video he says it's the opposite: he intended to thoroughly annihilate Somerton and then branched out from there....seemingly because he didn't want to just create a "drama video" and saw an opportunity to create a larger discussion about Youtube plagiarism at large. And even then he still created a 20-minute companion video to dig more into Illuminaughti specifically.
Intentional or not he clearly biases towards these giant videos, in part because he can't help but scope-creep himself to absolute hell. And to his credit he's so damn good at making 4-hour videos that are both thoroughly entertaining but paced well that he's able to get away with it without getting clowned on like other Youtube essayists.
Edited by Watchtower on Feb 28th 2024 at 12:50:27 PM
Well, it's more akin to Somerton being his thesis and the other segments of the plagiarism video served as demonstrations of each of the types of plagiarism. Somerton is just the... final boss? Like Bloodbourne guy served to demonstrate how plagiarism can be justified for moral purposes, Switch guy demonstrated some of the go-to defenses, Cinemassacre and Illuminaugii demonstrated content mills and just reading other peoples' works, and then it all came together with Somerton. Each other segment demonstrated one or more of the "tricks" Somerton would go on to do.
Hbomb makes it pretty explicit with one of the earlier guys where he talks about how that guy is so bad at hiding it, it serves as a lesson for when someone is a bit more careful. We just didn't realize at the time the lesson was for later in the video.
Yeah, that. Thanks, I couldn't remember precisely what was referencing what so I appreciate you clarifying my points.
Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 28th 2024 at 1:08:28 PM
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.As he points out the other cases help pre-emptively tear down James' bullshit. Stuff like Illuminaughtii stuffing links in a description or paste bin and claiming this doesnt make it plagiarism lets you see James doing the same when caught in his bullshit. Filip saying he drew from people he respected while stealing from forum posts and much smaller youtuber similarly tears up James doing the same.
And of course Internet Historian going back and redoing man in cave to hide the plagiarism compares with James constantly re-editing and re-uploading videos.
Edited by Ghilz on Feb 28th 2024 at 1:47:59 PM
Dan Olson from Folding ideas posted a patreon-only reaction to James' apology where he also goes back over the camera grift stuff. He mentions he doesn't plan to post it publicly.
Apparently James shadowbanned Dan on his first apology for asking him about grifting his patreons for camera money in the comments of apology #1
Dan's teardown is methodical and kinda beautiful.
Edited by Ghilz on Feb 28th 2024 at 2:06:29 PM
Some bullet points coz it's too fun not to discuss
- James' claim that Jessie Gender fans have threatened to file sexual harassment claims against him to ruin his reputation: Dan points out this didn't happen. Because no one doing it would email him to pre-warn him. and if they did, James would show the email, as he's not shy about that. Also James is clearly escalating his claims and story coz they aren't getting a reaction.
- James' claim that his head injury/epilepsy got him fired and he cant hold a job and cant be insured: Dan points out that if that's true, several employers have told James to his face that they are illegally discriminating against him, and that James' story about being unable to film in a kitchen doesn't match how filming marketing materials in a kitchen actually happens, something Dan's done for thousands of hours.
- James' claim that his dad can't read or write so he had to take care of his dad's paperwork when his mom died: Dan points out that for the story to be true, James' dad would've had to leave school to work and provide for his family at like... age 7. Or be over 150 years old. And more importantly, James could just say he had to take care of stuff when his mom died without giving any details or a sad backstory and no one would ask questions. The entire grafted dramatic backstory makes no sense and is just suspicious.
- James' Memory issues: Dan points out that if James' memory issues, as he describes them were true, that he writes and pastes things in a documents, thousands of words, leaves, comes back, and is unable to distinguish what he wrote and what he pasted, it'd mean James' memory is so impaired he'd be almost unable to function. It'd show up in every aspect of his daily life, including when he was streaming. He'd be just as surprised when he walks to his fridge and finds food there he'd have no memory of putting there or buying. Also the fact that James claims to know this about himself and yet takes no steps to mitigate it is even dumber.
- James scrapped on of his planned crowdfunded movie because it required summer, and it was nearly winter. Dan points out that if James really believes these things he's profoundly incompetent who is like... unable to schedule stuff? Do pre-production stuff before summer? Dan points out the entire Telos thing is laughable on many levels too numerous for me to list.
That medical coverage thing also fails because he's Canadian. In the US, it is true that a lot of insurers go out of their way to figure out ways to deny coverage.
Canadian insurers can't do that. And generally, even in the US, being employed by a big company that has an insurance plan is a pretty established way to bypass the insurance company gatekeeping. They don't want to make big companies start looking closely at the contracts, they want it to be as seamless as possible.
And yeah, IMO, it's pretty obvious James is trying to play the disability card and not managing it because he's probably not actually disabled. At least not that much. One other thing I realized is that he started in Nova Scotia, I think, and then moved because the filmmaking thing, and he said it's because there's no film industry in Nova Scotia. This isn't actually true. A ton of filming happens in the town of Lunenberg (Haven was entirely filmed there and many of the outdoor scenes in Locke and Key were too. It's a standard stand-in town if you want to double for Maine) and there's a lot of potential crew who live there who are available for relatively cheap, and that's before getting into how Nova Scotia is gorgeous. It's also less than two hours from Halifax, which is the big hub for getting basically anything in the province done.
Edited by Zendervai on Feb 28th 2024 at 3:00:27 PM
So, a thought.
Do we... do we want a James Somerton thread?
Like, while there are certainly posts that are about both James and H Bomb, this thread has basically turned into the de facto "All Somerton Updates" thread. And while yes, it makes some sense, it's interesting that it means posts like ![]()
which has no mention of Hbomb.
I'm not positing that he's going to overshadow Hbomb, so much that a lot of the Somerton discussion is somewhat off-topic to Hbomb. Like, we have several prominent video essayists about this one subject so it leads to odd scenarios like a detailed breakdown of a Folding Ideas video that's a response to a Somerton video in an H Bomberguy thread.
Eh, I think I'm going to do so. Maybe mods will shut it down for importing drama but I think it's worthwhile.
Edited by Larkmarn on Feb 28th 2024 at 3:21:05 PM
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
I'm late and you already did it, but I think it's a bad idea.
After all, the thread will be almost exclusively about criticizing Somerton. I myself don't have any problem with it - really, why should I have any - but can't say the same about the mods.
I think it will be locked within few posts, but seems like you're already aware anyway.
Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.FWIW, HBomb has confirmed on Twitter
that James has not reached out about donating the proceeds of his apology video to his harmed creators' fund. I'm sure we're all shocked.
I will say whilst I have no doubt Somerton is BSing entirely and I haven't watched his apology video to hear what he says about his memory issues... the idea of opening a fridge and finding food you can't remember buying is not that out there for some of us who have memory problems (I'm dyspraxic and my short term memory is abysmal).
HOWEVER I have a hard time buying what's been posted as any sort of excuse because, like, citing sources is one of the first thing anyone learns when even doing like a secondary school report. Certainly university and Somerton has been to university so like... hmmm...
Also, like with the amount of money he was making he could have probably paid someone to source check stuff especially as all H Bomb had to do was flipping Google Somerton's scripts. Sticking your script back into Google and then Ctrl + F about to narrow your sources should have still been possible but hey-ho.
Edited by GracieLizzy on Feb 29th 2024 at 12:35:29 PM
I personally never learned how to properly cite sources (at least in the context of something like MLA writing or whatever), but I was a shitty student who hated all my English classes and fought against them basically every step of the way during high school. And I still learned of the importance of the practice later. I assume someone who wants to do what Somerton did for a living would actually understand citation. Memory issues would only explain occasional slips.
Edited by Karxrida on Feb 29th 2024 at 5:15:09 AM

I'd recommend just releasing smaller videos while working on a big one.
Once Upon A Time.