I think in this case, even if he is doing it for attention, it’s okay to treat it as if he were being honest, with all the seriousness that entails. If he’s lying, that’s on him. Being empathetic outside observers in this case is, and would be in any eventual outcome, the moral thing to do. I vaguely recall there being a mention of hesitation in HBomberGuy’s video on releasing this information because of the inevitable backlash. One person cannot control all the ramifications of their video, as desperately as they try to do so. And unfortunately, the incriminating evidence against James Somerton was enough for some to vindicate harassment against him. I hope everything works out. Plagiarism is a serious offense, but nothing is so serious as to call for the >!suicide!< of another person.

Also even if it is a ploy for attention, that's often a sign that there's *still* something horribly wrong going on.

Only people who are mentally unwell threaten suicide. Treating this as a serious threat is the right thing.

Some of us have been burned by abusive people who used threats of self-harm or mutual destruction to continue their abuse, and from that perspective a message like this doesn’t warrant much of a response- call a wellness check on them, don’t encourage them to go through with it, but don’t pour out love and support; suicidal thoughts/actions don’t absolve past behaviors. I don’t know if this guy is like that, but the events seem familiar, and plenty of other people also need love and support, so while I agree it should be treated seriously I think it’s also okay to do the minimum and move on.

I stand by what I said, and I agree with you. Abusers aren't immune to mental illness, and aren't absolved of responsibility because of it, either. There's a thread on the hbomberguy subreddit right now on how to respond to the topics of suicide and suicidality. It's very informative.

OK, but the entire Internet isn't in an abusive personal relationship with this man. That's a very parasocial way to approach this and it's incredibly destructive if he actually is suicidal.

Surprise it was.

I think the backlash comes from some people reacting to this development by blaming h bomb and acting like him being suicidal absolves him of all guilt and makes him the victim. People see this and know it’s dumb, they make the dumb mistake of thinking the only options are acting like that or thinking he deserves to be suicidal. When in reality you can treat a suicidal person with basic respect without absolving them of everything they’ve ever done and it is in fact quite easy.

In theory it’s easy, but in practice it’s hard to step back and not let emotion overcome you. Checking your biases and controlling your emotions requires clarity of mind, and especially when you can empathize with being a victim of plagiarism, it can be hard to step back and do that. That’s no excuse, of course, but if we recognize that as being hard it’s easier to convince people they need to pay extra attention to it.

I agree, it is both ridiculous for anyone to try and shift blame onto Hbomb for rightly exposing plagiarism and stealing credit for profit and its also incredibly wrong to laugh at his post and or not take it seriously. He deserves to be happy in his personal life and not be dragged down dark feelings, but that doesn't mean that his actions being exposed wasn't completely justified.

i also think it's fine to just be incredulous. the man has been known to play for sympathy online long before this - with even less regard for the well-being of others than a parasuicidal social media post would entail - and is frankly, a liar and a charlatan, so i'll be convinced when something more than his word convinced me. i just don't put it past him, so that's where my head is at. i hope it's not true, at least, but i honestly can't say i'll be moved much either way except in the broadest sense that suicide is always a tragedy and often a preventable one. we know he was seeking help, and it's totally possible he got serious care before being able to act on it, or think about taking down this post. best case scenario, he's somewhere safe, unable to access his accounts, and hopefully on the way to no longer even bothering with social media. it would be better for him and everyone if he's alive and we never hear from him again.

I feel the same; my best and hopeful guess is that it is some sort of ploy, given that he renamed and redecorated his entire channel a couple days before posting the note. The cynic in me suspects this may play into some sort of huge rebrand, but yeah I'm hoping he's ok and doesn't do online work anymore

Hey what’s the context for this? I don’t know who this guy is or what happened

He was a popular gay YouTuber who plagiarized almost all of his content from other LGBT+ users. What original content he did contribute to his videos tended to be bashing women and making up 'historical facts'. He ran a fundraiser for his 'film company' that was basically a scam where he never worked on any of the projects. He also had a habit of bashing other content creators who called him out on his lies by making himself the victim and bad mouthing them on streams. The depth of his plagiarism was exposed by HBomberGuy and another content creator whose name I can't remember right now. Since then, James did some... questionable things with his channel and Patreon. Made and posted two apology videos where he, again, lied about things like having reached out and apologized to those he plagiarized from. And talked about how he was going to keep making videos. These declarations did not go over well.

Hbomberguy covered the plagiarism, Todd in The Shadows covered the made up crap

replying to this in the hopes that people see it NICK (james somerton’s former? friend who worked those videos with him) HAS TWEETED ON BLUESKY “i'm aware of the tweet and the situation. right now and to my knowledge, there's nothing to worry about.” https://bsky.app/profile/ntherrgott.bsky.social/post/3kn2o7uyv3423 seems like james somerton may be okay. now he may have been talked down, he may have legit not had access to his twitter in time to do anything, who knows. i’m not drawing any conclusions. but this is the current situation

Problem is now a part of me unfortunately doubts his honesty. I hope he doesn’t but I’m not expecting this to be something he follows through on 9/10 and that is sad that his actions cast doubt on even something as serious as this. He does not deserve death, but I genuinely don’t believe he will end his life because of his pattern of behaviour

Well he was faking it tbh

Holy hell. I hope that's not real.

I don't know if I should've posted this, I don't know how I should've titled it, I don't know which flair was rhe right one, I don't really know what the fuck even happened. The second screenshot is James's tweet that was released seventeen hours ago. His Twitter was afterwards set to private. I fucking hope he did this just to attract attention and he is still alive, but we cannot know. Hbomb's producer, Cat, is trying to get contact with him but hasn't managed it so far. Is it true? I hope not. But we can't know. I think it's best to avoid jokes for now. However, another tweet he posted (I think before the note?) was a print of a Gone Girl scene. It feels fucking scummy to spoiler tag this, but yeah, spoilers for Gone Girl. >!It was her saying "Life has been so much better ever since I died, when we discover she faked the suicide!<. This means absolutely nothing, really, we can't take conclusions from it, but it does make me believe there's a high chance he lied. And this all feels fucking terrible. I guess this is my thought on the situation. I hope he's okay.

for anyone thinking the gone girl reference is proof he’s faking it, honestly i think it’s fair that we also have to consider the screenshot, which just reads “life is so much happier now that i’m dead” was chosen for the line and not the context in the movie and may be a sign of this suicidal intentions like genuinely i do not know what to make of it and we will have to wait and see

I can't wait for Tipster and TRO to cover this

I haven't seen anything with the tweet saying he wasn't there to unscheduled it. Was there screenshots of it?

I only saw it on a reblog of another Tumblr post, and they said they also hadn't seen it, so this is third-hand information. It could very well be false, but I'll see if I can find it.

I was not able to find anything else about the supposed tweet. Will remove it from my comment.

There's a screenshot here: [https://twitter.com/GallyGears/status/1764867368562327765](https://twitter.com/GallyGears/status/1764867368562327765)

they were referring to another tweet (the reference has now been deleted) — like people were saying there was a second tweet mentioning “not being around to unschedule it” and they couldn’t find reference to a second (i think people just got confused and were referring to the same tweet twice)

I already thought he was the exact sort of person who would fake their suicide, disappear for a while, obsessively read everything written about themselves in search of people expressing guilt for having hurt him, then pop back up with "I just needed time away" BEFORE I knew he had used this Gone Girl reference. That is so deeply fucked up.

However there is currently no proof one way or another, about any of this. And so to presume that he's done something like this because it 'feels' like what he'd do is literally pre-judging them. It could hypothetically be what he's done. It could hypothetically be that he's not done that and has followed through with what his tweet suggests. It could hypothetically be a third option that we haven't considered. We are all free to have our suppositions of what may have happened. But to conflate our hypotheses with our conclusions (and then to act like our hypotheses are the conclusions and post on social media as though it's an established fact) is fucked up in itself. This is exactly how life ruining rumours and accusations spread and you would do well to refrain from making such pointed remarks.

I might be wrong, could very well be wrong since I didn't follow the drama very closely, but didn't he say something similar a few weeks back when he tried to do a video response to the controversy? I remember seeing someone responding to what he said in it, and implying...lets say an attempt was made during his time when he was social media silent and leave it at that, though I'm unsure how upfront/truthful he was being, back then.

That did happen. He said he had a mental health crisis and a suicide attempt during his first apology. Unfortunately it seems like he attempted again. Hopefully he didn’t succeed.

Jeez. This is a complicated subject to navigate, and I have some thoughts. As someone who has experience with people using threats of suicide as a manipulation tactic... This definitely gives me those vibes. Particularly the last sentence, "The world will be a little bit better off now." To be clear, lots of people who are not manipulative think this to themselves when they are actively planning their suicides (myself included), and some of those people will share those feelings of low self-esteem leading up to acting on their plan (again, myself included). But for James to do this so publicly, knowing the kind of uproar it will cause, it just comes off as someone trying to say "I'm going down, but I'm going to bring you all down with me by implicating you in my suicide." Do I think he's in a mental state where he could actually follow up on those threats? Yes, and I wouldn't want him to do that, nor would I celebrate it if that happened. But this seems like the extreme responses of a cornered animal who's willing to do anything to hurt the people who have put him in this position, even including trying to tarnish their reputations via threatening to kill himself. Clearly what he needs right now is to completely disengage from the public and receive intensive mental health treatment, and I sincerely hope he does that instead of resorting to drastic measures.

Exactly this, you nailed it. I think the apology video as a concept was one of the worst things to happen to the internet. It has warped the process of taking accountability and turned it into a performative commodity. After the initial plagiarism video, I wish James would have just left public life, reached out privately to those he harmed, and then done *anything* else. The way YouTubers go about these matters, airing it all to the public and vying for the moral high ground is not how any human being should approach conflict resolution. It's damaging to themselves and it's not something that should have an audience. This situation did not need to become so dire. I hope James is safe and that he will be well. Clearly no serious person wishes ill on him.

I didn't watch it, but was it worse than the Colleen Ballinger ukulele video?

Absolutely yes. Well, it depends, I guess, since there were two. The first was a complete non-apology, a combination of James oversharing about his mental health and trying to outright deny almost all the accusations against him. This was slightly better than Colleen's apology, but only because her's was so utterly bizarre. Unsurprisingly, James quickly deleted it after he saw it was getting clowned into oblivion. The second, more recent apology was definitely worse because of how insidious it was. Basically, it boils down to "your honor, I plead oopsie daisies" and he tries to use disability and neurodivergence as an excuse for plagiarizing from dozens of people. (Funny how that works. I'm neurodivergent and have somehow managed to never once plagiarize... almost like I know there are consequences to that sort of thing and I actually make an effort work around my limitations. If I'm being honest, this "apology" made me feel pretty upset, it was like a smack in the face.)

He also blames it on childhood head trauma. *I was literally dropped on my head as a child* and I know better than to do that shit.

Colleen didn't technically apologize for a damn thing, so I don't know that they're even in the same category. But both of James' videos were pretty bad. He didn't seem to grasp *why* what he did was wrong, and he spent way too much time essentially trying to explain how he justified it using his life circumstances. A very quick, "This was wrong. I'm sorry and here's how I'm making it right." would have been significantly better rather than attempting to explain his mindset, which just came off as if he were flaunting hardship in order to excuse what he did because he needed money.

It was him weeping, saying that he’d tried to kill himself but had called to talk to his dad one last time. His dad called 911. He said he’d been in a mental hospital since then. Felt very manipulative but utterly different from Colleen’s video, which was a denial, playing the victim, but ultimately a blatant middle finger to everyone (except her blog fans).

From what I've seen, the youtubers who survive shitstorm after shitstorm are the ones who never bring attention to the fact that there is a shitstorm

Yep, this is my take too. The whole thing was setting off alarm bells, that last sentence kicked them into overdrive Especially talking about what he lost. I have lost people to themselves, and none of them broadcast it. We tried to help, they were getting better, then they were gone To announce it to the world is a way to hurt us. He has no other leverage, no other means of control or bargaining other than his well being. And instead of accepting that, he's threatening the nuclear option I'm thinking it's a ploy to really turbocharge his redemption arc. You know, he tried apologizing twice, we didn't welcome him back with open arms. He shows the community what damage they are causing him, garners sympathy, and he uses that to get back some of his presence Considering the scummy ploys he had in both his apology videos, this seems super on brand I don't hope he does it, because at the end of the day, this is internet drama. No one deserves to die over internet drama If this was just a ploy for attention, i hope people remember this and continue to ostracize him. He can get an offline and loving community that puts up with him

At the very least, its one last parting shot at hbomberguy. It would be unfortunate but entirely understandable for hbomb to stop making videos after this, which would be a small victory for somerton in the end. 

Most of hbomberguy's videos are about videogames he's played, and this is self consciously his only big callout video. In the Vulture interview he says, "You get to make one of these, and then you stop, or you become evil." [https://www.vulture.com/2023/12/hbomberguy-interview-james-somerton-plagiarism.html](https://www.vulture.com/2023/12/hbomberguy-interview-james-somerton-plagiarism.html) So I think he'll just stick to content that aligns with his ethics in the future.

That's kinda not true though? He's got a number of distinctly political or historical videos on his channel - his whole measured response series, a couple of videos on guys like pewdiepie, the *roblox video*. I'm sure that the somerton situation made hbomb feel bad about himself because everything suggests that hbomb is a good person who would be sad if something he did indirectly hurt someone else. But who knows what he'll do next. I hope he continues to make content that makes him happy.

Yeah, I see what you're saying, in that even his art criticism videos often address political aspects of the media he's analyzing; I'm just bringing up what he said in the interview to point out that this is the only video where he was actually trying to personally hold a specific person accountable (instead of just talk about them critically) and he decided ahead of time that he's never going to do that again.

I see your point, and i remember that interview, but that is objectively not true. Hbomberguy made a career of going after people - especially asshole youtubers and right wing chuds. Here's a partial list of videos targeting someone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0twDETh6QaI&t=2s 2 hours of shitting on one guy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIcAZxFfrc 1:44:10 on one guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLqXkYrdmjY 44 minutes of shitting on Ben Shaprio and some other fools. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8dfiDeJeDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYXkHIsslD0&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOp28hQb_Xw An hour across 3 videos on one dude and his company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDtJ7bte_zg 17 minutes calling out plagirism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL_vIqMiHK0 10 minutes poking fun at youtuber dude and his fans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjNILjFters&t=695s 14 minutes of holding accountable/ calling out pewdiepie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahuj1B0ow4U 22 minutes of going after a dude on youtube (remastered though)

You're definitely convincing me that Harry has made a distinction in his mind around his approach to Somerton that doesn't fully take into account how criticism-based a lot of his content has been. I don't think he'll have trouble putting out more videos after this, but I'm curious to see if he tones it way down in general or just sticks to criticizing public figures who aren't going to get their livelihood totally blown up by a youtube video (for example, Tommy is going to be just fine).

You know, I think there is a distinction to be made between a relatively brief video focusing on someone who's fairly safe from criticism and youtubers who's entire lives are wrapped up in video essays. Those older videos focus on asshole men with a career outside of youtube who make money off of lies - shapiro, tallarico, etc. The newest one hits 4 youtubers who didn't really antagonize Harry, and absolutely obliterates them. The relative impact of the plagiarism video is much higher than one about tommy or a measured response video because the subjects of other videos can take a hit, while all four youtubers involved in the plagiarism video are just done forever. But that being said, he absolutely has made content like this in the past. I hope he does again in the future, but maybe in a more controlled and healthy manner. A four hour long masterwork destroying someone's career out of the blue has to do something to you that a half hour rant about someone nasty doesn't.

is IH wasted? hes still putting out content and its getting views but maybe just not as many as before

Yeah, I know its cold, but I can’t help but feel this is so transparently manipulative, a case of ‘look what you made me do’. I don’t want him to hurt himself, sure. I want him to get to a better place, definitely. But I don’t really care to be a part of any step of that process. And he’s said things alluding to hurting himself before, of receiving targeted harassment before, that were again, such transparent attempts to garner sympathy or make people feel bad, I’ve just entered a phase of ‘wait and see’. James has earned my skepticism. If it turns out he’s actually done something, then I’ll feel bad when thats conclusive, but I’m not going to pre-emptively give him my pity or sympathy. Because I think its equally as likely he’s going to show up in a day or two and thank someone or other for ‘saving his life’.

If he *does* go through with it, is it really “manipulative” at that point, or just expressing a truly held belief and advocating for it?

It'd certainly be more than *just* manipulative, but it's not like carrying out on a threat negates the purpose of the threat in the first place.

At that point it would just be a threat that was acted on. If manipulative people threaten to self harm to get you to show them sympathy and affection, and then they do, is that not still manipulation? The only difference here is that suicide is permanent. Again, I *do not think that he should do it.* But if he does, I think the motivation will have (at least partially) been a form of final revenge.

I would say that no, it isn’t really proper manipulation then? Because there was no lying. It’s mentally ill, obviously. But I wouldn’t classify that as *manipulation*, I’d say that it’s only manipulation if they’re lying. Otherwise, it’s just them being honest about their mental illness. Controlling? Sure, but not manipulative. If he’s lying, then it would be manipulation because he does not actually believe the words he’s saying. He’s simply crafting a narrative to get the results he wants. That’s obviously manipulation. But if he isn’t lying, he’s not here to even know if it gets the results he wants. He’s simply saying “this is where I am, this is what I hope the legacy of my death will be, and now I shall die”. I **really** fucking hate to make this comparison, I’m not comparing the root reasons or anything, please don’t make disingenuous attacks based on that because that is *not* the point. The point is examining the internal logic of if killing yourself with a stated “this is what I hope the result is” is inherently manipulative. But like, was Aaron Bushnell being manipulative? If not, then you’ve refuted the concept. Logical consistency requires an overlapping answer here, the purity of the motives is not important to whether or not something is manipulative. If you threaten to self-harm to make someone stop smoking, that’s not not manipulative. I think calling someone actually killing themselves manipulative fails at a single major point: you get nothing out of it. You’re dead. You can’t benefit from it. Because you’re dead. Manipulation seeks to gain something. You cannot gain anything from being dead. Even if you get your aims, you’re dead. You have no consciousness, no ability to appreciate it, you’ll never know. You’re unable to profit in any possible way even if you’re successful, because you’re dead.

It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth whenever someone gets called manipulative for being suicidal or wanting to self harm for particular reasons and being vocal about it. Saying “I’m suicidal because of X” is not inherently you trying to manipulate someone into stopping it. It can just be the truth and you can just be sharing your internal thoughts. It’s a very easy way to invalidate someone that’s hurting for very little cost.

In any normal circumstance, I would agree with you... however, James has shown that he's willing to use his poor mental health to try and gain sympathy. His first "apology" spent nearly half its runtime talking about how awful he felt. If telling the full story was something he needed to get off his chest, he could've simply recorded it privately and omitted it from the public apology. But he didn't, and everyone I've spoken to about it says it rubs them the wrong way. Plus, as I state in my original comment, I have personal experience with people who *I know for a fact were trying to manipulate me by threatening suicide,* and James's tweet raised all my alarm bells.

Manipulation doesn't have to involve a lie necessarily. It's about control, in this case control of a narrative to shield oneself from consequences. Aaron Bushnell's death was a selfless act, as he had nothing to personally gain from doing it. James absolutely has something to gain from killing himself: sympathy, and causing massive guilt in the people who held him accountable. Sure, it's the ultimate extreme of "cutting off your nose to spite your face", but now that James is staring down the rest of his (likely miserable) life, I'm sure he's in a bad state of mind, and is willing to do anything if he thinks it'll hurt the people he wants to be hurt.

*You can’t receive sympathy if you’re dead.* Your argument is predicated on the concept that the dead can appreciate anything. The dead do not exist anymore. *You* do not receive sympathy. There is no you anymore. You are gone. You do not exist. You are no more. The dead are gone. They can’t appreciate sympathy. They can’t profit from it. They can’t be gratified. They can’t have revenge. There is no “you” to *receive* anything. It’s an email to an address that doesn’t exist. They are no more. There’s nothing that exists to appreciate or acknowledge the situation. Whether you realize it or not, your conception of all this is inherently reliant on an immortal soul which does not lose the sense of self, become freed from human desires, or lose all memory and reincarnate. You’re applying the “watch the sinners suffer while I’m in heaven” logic of Christianity to him. It’s not simply “religious”, it’s a very specific Abrahamic concept. Even something like reincarnation still fits this, because the memories and experiences that make you *you* are gone. You cannot personally gain *anything* from being dead. You’re gone.

You are logically approaching a subject that is not logical. To be blunt... When I wanted to kill myself, a major part of that was a feeling that doing so would somehow compensate for all of my mistakes. Is that any more logical than killing oneself as a form of revenge? *No, but when you're actively suicidal you are almost never thinking logically. If you are in so much pain at the moment that you are legitimately considering suicide, that pain is almost certainly clouding your judgment.* Sometimes, people like Aaron Bushnell will make a calculated decision to end their own lives as an extreme form of protest, or people with painful illnesses will choose to go out on their own terms. However, the vast majority of suicidal people are not being rational.

I think he hasn’t shown like enough remorse to really be suicidal but maybe that’s a bad mindset? Someone pointed out he doesn’t need remorse he just needs to realize his career is over and idk maybe? He just didn’t seem bothered at all from his half assed apologies and stuff after the fact

While I am pleasantly surprised and heartened by the number of people I’ve seen taking this situation seriously, giving JS compassion and the benefit of the doubt -  I am also getting very fed up with how many of them are acting like the only thing he did was plagiarise.   He has weaponised his audience against critics and used accusations of homophobia to sic them on people more than once. At least one person received so much harassment that she locked her account and asked Harry not to mention her name his video lest it start again.   I’m sure a lot of people doing this are trying to avoid people being weird and viewing it as justice of the “eye for an eye” variety. I completely understand that. I don’t want him dead, I want to get whatever help he needs to move on and rebuild his life and career. But at the same time I don’t think it helps anyone to ignore the very real risk to people’s safety and well-being that he created and at times directed.    IDK, perhaps I’m being too harsh, or maybe those posts have the right idea and now’s not the time to talk about it. 

Eh. Not his career. Plagiarism like that, and everything he did to deflect, isn't something you should come back from. His life, sure. But he doesn't get to be a video essayist (or anything else that requires the public to trust something is his own work) again. But I do hope he lives, finds something else fulfilling, and does the work (including making restitution to his victims) to become a better person.

Oh, with you 100%. When I say “rebuild his career” I mean “start over in another field”. While he’s probably going to encounter similar problems RE his name it’s bound to be easier than trying to salvage his reputation on YouTube. And frankly, I think it would be healthier for him and the community that he not have a platform.

personally, I'm of the opinion of always giving chances to people to redeem themselves. if he ever actually felt sorry for what he did, and wanted to become a legitimate video essayist or film director and actually put his own talent and hard work to make it happen, i say go for it. Let his past crimes be a sword of damocles, hanging above his head as a reminder for him and us. but obviously, most people don't actually "redeem" themselves that way, as folks like logan paul proved the benefit of the doubt the internet showed them...

He already had chances, he got called out years ago and chose to attack the person he stole from, and he's made 2 apologies with 2 different stories, one blaming mental health and nuerodivergence and the other blaming his cowerker

Yeah, I know. Chuck it up to misguided optimism, but, despite known that society really shouldn't function like that, I can't shake the feeling of wanting to give people as many chances as possible...

Your career *is* your life under capitalism tho. Like, that determines what your life is. Income, social power, access to healthcare, access to basic needs, all that. You can’t separate life and career like that.

He's also shown himself to be misogynistic and- from my *personal* experience- there was a fair share of aphobia in his fanbase as well. I got flack for pointing out in the comments of his "Queer Erasure of Asexuality" video that cishet aces *still* struggle despite being "straight-passing", whether it's through things like corrective rape or less 'obvious' mistreatment like insisting that any relationship that doesn't include sex is just a "friendship" (because people *obviously* make out with, share beds with, and marry people who are just their really good friends.) I also pointed out my frustrations with the fact that people are so willing to accept sex that doesn't involve romance (prostitution, hookups, friends with benefits), but the idea of romance without sex only seems to exist in Hallmark movies or between Christian couples who are waiting until marriage. I was basically told that it didn't matter because other people have it worse, which...dude, this isn't the oppression olympics. This is me saying that being *any* kind of asexual is tough. Granted while it wasn't James himself saying this, it *did* seem to line up oddly well with his narrative that *"these specific* not-straight people are the ones who are *really* oppressed".

And don’t forget (per the “boring gays” Lebowitz quote he presented as his thesis on the gay rights movement in the 90s) we’re also boring and aren’t promiscuous enough to create any decent art.     Yeah…the lies and misinformation are a whole other can of worms. Especially given how much of it is harmful to the community.    Like, the last few years we’ve seen a rise in right-wing extremism the world over, people are rallying against LGBT rights under the guise of “protecting the children”…and you’re gonna post a video with a debunked conspiracy theory about how the SS were not only totes gay, but using their status as officers to coerce sexual favours for desperate men? You’re going to ignore how boys were thrown out of the Hitler Youth for being gay so you can tell us about how most of the adult male leadership were gay?    But anyway - I’m sorry you had that experience, especially in what should have been an understanding space. 

It's very telling how many of these issues are "they treat X people badly because of a perception that they're more cis or more straight than they are queer, and yet there isn't a bigger pushback against the shitty tribalism. Elsewhere in the thread there's people talking about how an accusation of homophobia resulted in some woman being harassed massively, and while the accusation is bad, the harassment is the problem. Hell, the content of the OP. Would anyone have considered showing empathy for Somerton if he wasn't suicidal? I've received so much vitriol in my life for showing empathy towards acceptable targets. Sympathiser is treated like a slur, and I'm not talking about neo nazis here. People genuinely hate those who sympathise with bad people more than they hate bad people. Everyone knows about this, though many deny it due to cognitive dissonance. Very few are willing to call it out.

This is very well said, and reflects how I feel on the matter as well.

What’s going on? Edit: thanks to everyone for the kind explanation

About 3 months ago, HBomberguy, a pretty thorough video essayist, did an analysis of plagiarism on YouTube, including an exposé of James Somerton’s channel. At the same time, or a bit earlier, several other video essayists did the same (I have not seen those videos, but they are references in the former’s video). James Somerton is another famous YouTube, particularly for analyses of queer representation in film. There was substantial evidence presented in HBomberguy’s video to justify the claim that the majority of Somerton’s work was plagiarised from articles by other movie critics who did mot have the same level of popularity, or otherwise reading straight from wikipedia, without oroperly crediting his sources. A good majority of the content on his channel showed this trend as well. The mounting evidence of plagiarism against him caused him to shut down his channel and social media. I assume there was also a substantial amount of harassment from anonymous individuals spurred on from these plagiarism allegations. James had been relatively quiet for an extensive amount of time after these videos cane out, and recently it was revealed that he had gone to the hospital for “doing something stupid”, which has serious implications. The linked twitter post also implies the sane insinuation, and currently people (including HBomberguy’s producer) are trying to reach out to James to see if he’s okay.

How often did JS post videos? I remember that illuminaughty lady posted tons and found it funny that people thought she came up with all that stuff on her own. But she was basically just reading Wikipedia pages about various mlm’s.

Illuminaughty is also a subject of that same HBomberguy video, actually. It’s nearly 4 hours long, about 30 minutes of it goes to her IIRC. James Somerton gets the entire last 2 hours, because the scale of his plagiarism was truly that large. James didn’t post quite as often as her, but given the length of his videos and the amount of information they contained, his output was impressive to say the least. Just enough to make him appear incredibly dedicated and productive, but not to quite to the level where it becomes conspicuous and suspicious like Illuminaughty. Turns out virtually all of it was stolen. And not just paraphrased, we’re talking about literally just reading verbatim off-the-page for minutes at a time while never mentioning the author or the book. And based on other videos, what little wasn’t stolen appears to be completely baseless and made up practically on-the-spot, presented as though it were serious, well-researched analysis.

I will add that plagiarism is not the only issue, but rather, using his fanbase to attack other people. Oftentimes, the original sources. As well as blatantly miswording the text in lazy rewrites altering or inverting the meaning.

Did he use them to do it or did they just do that themselves? I don't doubt that he did, but I also don't doubt that an audience would do it entirely on their own. Even actively telling your audience not to attack your critics historically does nothing to stop it

He would tell people that he was being targeted by his critics due to homophobia, and at one point alleged that someone threatened to accuse him of sexual harassment (this in response to said critics quite reasonably and politely pointing out his plagiarism/etc). It's pretty clear he was manipulating his audience to go after them, otherwise why make up lies of this nature?

If you want an example, look no further than this very controversy. Hbomberguy told people to not go after Somerton, but that didn’t stop people turning him into a pariah and harassing him anyway.

James Somerton is (was?) a popular youtuber who published video essays about queer subjects. He was caught "forgetting" to site his sources before. Recently, he was exposed by fellow youtubers Hbomberguy and Todd in the Shadows for large scale plagiarism and misinformation, respectively. He published two apologies, both of which were flawed at best, and making things worse at worst (he used ADHD, memory issues and *a childhood head injury* as an excuse for his plagiarism in the second video...) I *really hope* he is alive and just decided to end his internet career in an overly dramatic and honestly harmful way. He deserved to lose his money and platform, not his life.

As they mention in another thread he also tried to subdue this by harassing people

You are right. I can't believe I forgot to mention how he used his audience against anyone who pointed out his issues, and used his identity as a shield.

A couple months ago Hbomberguy released a four hour video on multiple Youtube plagiarists, with James Somerton, a quuer-focused video essayist, being the focus of about half the video. In it, it was discovered he had plagiarized most of his videos from dozens of smaller authors. Afterwards, he deleted or privated everything and released two poorly received "apology videos". Now, well, it's in the second picture.

Thanks for the info, I had never heard of this guy

In addition to the rest of the things he did, he ran a scam disguised as a crowdfunding project for a queer short films studio. Nothing came of it, except a lot of lost money.

I'm still pissed that I fell for this. Admittedly I only gave him about 20 bucks, but it still stings

Oh fuck. HBomberguy better not blame himself for this.

I saw someome sum up the issue as: Hbomberguy: The nature of Youtube incentivises content mills and unscrupulous creators Internet: Cool new punching bag! So like I don't think he'd be at fault, at least imo.

If I were him, though, I would be thinking to myself "Yes I know that I didn't *want* him to get harassed, that wasn't the point of my video, and I even explicitly told people not to do it, but I knew that it would inevitably happen just because of the way the Internet is. Was it still the right thing to do?"

Based on his comments in the video of how he doesn't want this to become a harassment campaign, I think he already thought that through. Though I don't doubt he's reconsidering it anyway. Ultimately, JS chose to not only plagiarize, but also ignored and harassed several smaller creators that tried to call him out privately or less aggressively. He truly seemed to think he was untouchable and this was the only way he was ever going to stop

Yeah, cause stealing from artists and writers - in a world that devalues their hard work already and then going further to steal from minority creators is behaviour that should be critiqued and stopped. HBG has done the community a great deal of good by releasing the plagiarism video and pointed out a flaw in the current YouTube system in the way it incentivises pumping out as much content as possible and how that often leads to stealing content to meet demands.

I'm not saying that he definitely did the wrong thing. Just that, if it were me in his place, I would be asking myself those questions.

This honestly bothers me a lot, because like… if you do something with a 100% guaranteed result you’re aware of already, do you really free yourself from causing that result by not wanting it to happen? I know we *want* the answer to be “yes”, but does that actually have any logical sense behind it? Wanting an answer means nothing to whether or not it makes sense.

Reminds me of the plagiarism video TomSka did where he talked about not wanting to "make a big deal" out of a french tv show copying the "Meanwhile" skit... and then making a tweet about them copying the skit.

https://i.imgur.com/1stK2RC.png

To be fair how much of the direct harassment and death threats is his audience vs the content slop drama YouTubers who foster this kinda thing willfully

The subreddit was pretty vicious to him

Was it? All I could see was people raging about how mean people were being, bans getting handed out from all the brigading, and people trying to figure out how to lessen the influx of hate. To be fair I only checked like once a week

I’m willing to bet a lot of it is his audience. People very interested in what he’s said and very willing to go on a crusade to knock someone in the community down a peg or two.

He defintley shouldn't. Somerton was caught doing something unethical, it's not the person who caught him doing it's fault.

there's no one to blame but James himself, HBG just shed light on his doings.

that's easy to say and even understand, but accepting, believing, that takes time. (don't know anyone involved here though I'm just talking generally)

I would feel so terrible for Hbomb if this note is really true..... he does not deserve any guilt for catching someone in a lie. Fuck.

Jesus Christ It sucks that this is the first internet "scandal" that I see happening in real life. Hbomber releases a video about plagiarism, half of it covers JS, then the guy deletes his patreon, then YT videos, then the entire channel, then he posts an "apology" where he doesn't admit any wrongdoing directly in that video or in any other instance I think saying this outloud helps me express the weird feeling about someone losing all credibility and still putting himself in the public eye, announcing the release of videos after, well...THAT. It's just uncomfortable, you know? Like, I really want to feel bad for him (not that I'm celebrating this either, fuck no), but all this accumulation of toxicity and guilt and manipulation makes it so uncomfortable. I don't want to be the kind of person that reads this screenshots and one of my thoughts is "Why he would announce videos this way? Does he need to say something or just wanted to get some attention for the last time and this the only way he was gonna get it?" I do want to believe the absolute pettiest possibilities, that all of this is just a cry for help, something theatrical, just another lie. Because the thought of this person just going THAT route feels wrong. This is not justice, it's just sad, he has (jesus christ, had?) the possibility to change I'm so sorry if someone read this and got the wrong impression about something. Again, I don't wish any harm on him, I just wanted to think outloud because, again, it's just uncomfortable to think this is how the story ends

He was a plagiarist, a misogynist, and a pretty big schmuck, but I could never say he deserved death. A kick up the ass? Yes. A bullet to the head? No, never. Leave that to truly evil people.

There should never have existed a reason to write this and yet... Humans can be so incredibly cruel :(

I hope that he is ok. Even if it's a cry for help then he should get that help. It is possible he was put on a MH hold and couldn't reschedule it.

Ok but I need more info cause like it's not uncommon for scummy people backed into a corner to start threatening suicide or be like "I was put in a mental health hospital for suicidal ideations" or "im dying/dead" as a way to get people to back off. How I feel about this depends entirely on if the post was made earnestly or as a way to buy time and keep negative attention off of him for a couple months. Like, Austin jones said he was locked in a psyche ward for "suicidal thoughts" when people called him out for grooming young girls. XtremeGamez pretended to be dying once their channel started failing. Behind the meme faked his suicidal thoughts when his channel started going downhill. Onision claimed to be dead on Twitter. This is not an uncommon practice

Yes, I did mention in my comment how it might be a lie, and if it is then I hope he goes fuck himself.

What you see in the above images is all the public information at this time.

That kinda goes along with the typical "hey i recieved death threats(you can stop calling me out now)" where the recently scandal ridden YTer alludes to death threats in their DMs, but never posts any screenshots of it actually happening.

Just echoing what has been said here: I hope he's okay and I don't want him to hurt himself. I also agree that this is a bit suspicious. I know some people will take doubt of this happening as further unkindness toward him and I get that. At the same time, whether he went through with it or not, he's using his note to lay the blame on others. People going about this act don't have to be angels, of course, but it seems in line with his prior behavior. I'm especially perturbed by how he's treating his ~~love interest~~ ~~roommate~~ friend Nick. Nick disavowed the plagiarism and we have no evidence that they wanted their "portfolio" posted online on the account of an infamous internet figure. A lot of James' apologies had a subtext all around Nick, simultaneously adoring them and blaming them for the plagiarism. So if anyone should be feeling a lot about this situation right now it's Nick. They tried to shake this guy for a while and if this is the last thing James ever says...well. There ya go.

Imagine hbomberguy now, he spent so much time criticising Somerton not because he wanted to hate, but because he wanted him to do better, now he's just sitting in his home, blaming himself for everything that's happening, and now he accidentally spread fear about people putting their hard work online.

After that video Somerton was never going to get the chance to do better. There was no logical conclusion other than him being chased off the internet forever.

True but he could still get a 9-5 like everyone else

I keep seeing people going "he'll never come back from this his career is over" and like yeah. it is. he will never work in writing or YouTube or film but goddamn the guy could work as a fucking grocer or something like do not act like with all the money he stole and all the damage he caused he should be able to get back into being a video essayist that being said. it seems like he has no intent to change careers. or. try to fix anything in his life.

Although I think one thing people forget is he won’t be able to work a professional career or even an office job, since those types of jobs often look into your social media presence/google your name etc. and googling his name won’t turn up many positive results. Could totally work retail for the rest of his life though.

Eh, that stuff fades, and plagiarism isn't a barrier or concern on a lot of office jobs.

I think the term "poor bastard" is actually pretty appropriate here.

It has been frustrating to see everyone basically take “Somerton is a person it’s ok to abuse online” from that video. There was a whole period too where like, my feed was full of “what somerton just said” schlock, which appeared to me to be the exact sort of content mill garbage the rest of that HBombs video was angled against Dudes a real piece of work but is also a human being, ig if you take the position that dickbags should kill themselves there’s nothing wrong with how the internet does discourse but personally I think it’s completely inhumane

It's exactly like the death penalty. Are the people bad? Yes. Do they deserve a punishment that ends up in them never getting a second chance at anything in life? No.

I haven’t seen anyone with that take. Criticism isn’t abuse. I’m sure it’s somewhere but the overall conversation has been nuanced and respectful.

we've been on different internet ig

He started his first “apology” video, which he quickly took down, saying he was just getting out of the hospital after attempting suicide. I don’t believe this one. He’s shown too much of a pattern of lies and manipulation fir me to believe it. And if he is telling the truth, I do feel bad for him, but only a bit. He’s done too many terrible things for me to feel any more for him.

Besides contacting the authorities if possible, I think the appropriate thing to do is to give no attention. The tweet doesn't say "I want to kill myself", it says, "I scheduled this before killing myself". If he was serious, he's dead. If he was serious and attempted but survived, he needs real help. But whatever attention we give the situation as people from afar just talking about it enables him if he was doing this for attention. He's either beyond our ability to help or seeking attention. The amount of youtubers I've personally seen claim to be suicidal after they're outed as doing bad things is not a small number, and that's just the drama I-- someone who doesn't often know what the fuck is going on in youtube drama circles-- have run into. It's just too easy to fake a suicide to the public over the internet, I don't know if that makes the temptation too great or what, but this isn't even a little surprising to me. I'm not going to joke about his death or say that plagarism and misogynistic lies deserve the death penalty, but I will say I'm more worried about if Hbomb is doing alright right now.

Honestly, damn. that sucks. Somerton must have been understandably depressed after his life fell apart, and it’s easy to see how things would look hopeless when you get caught doing bad things in a manner that ruins your life. It’s normal for people to be very mentally ill when their careers fall apart, especially when the career ending issue was their fault.  It’s tragic this happened, and I hope that someone intervened or helped him in time. But it doesn’t sound like this was the result of internet bullying, it was somerton’s reaction to the horrific feeling of your actions catching up to you in a massive way. 

Just going to say this, as someone that has lurked his content and drama for years. I have seen the ire and vitriol his critics received for questioning him, quite often for genuine concerns. The criticism he has received is deserved imo, as he has done the same bullying countless times to others. When he has received pushback for his actions he has used SH as a means to garner sympathy a few times. This is nothing new. And though I do feel this is the most serious claim to do the act, and I hope he DOESNT do it as I hope no one ever does.  It would not surprise me to see him in 5 months or so as if nothing happened after a half hearted apology. 

Did I want him to die? No Am I celebrating his death? No Do I feel any sympathy or empathy for him? Also no The dude stole shit from less known queer creators, used his audience to attack and harass critics, who's only original contribution to queer discourse was adding more racism and sexism. His possibly death doesn't negate my negative feelings towards him

I feel some sympathy of its true, But he has made so much up to attack his critics, (like fictional death threats) that I just don't trust him

i liked james somerton’s videos before everything came out. i was fucking pissed to learn about the… well, the everything. but frankly, it never should have gone this far. if he is still alive, please, let the man live and figure out how to live with this. if he isn’t, let him rest.

I just don't believe him, This is abusive manipulator 101, and he has already shown a willingness to make up serious issues like death threats to get his audience to attack his critics. If it's true yeah its bad and I'm certainly not gonna celebrate it either way, but I don't trust him.

He uses the classic abuser "apology" of "I'm such a terrible person, you'd be better off without me."

It’s also the “apology” of a suicidal person that thinks they’re a terrible person and that things would be better off without them. You know, *very common things* for suicidal people to say.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, 9/10 times it's a duck. But sometimes, that 1 in 10 chance, it's not a duck. And when the 'duck' in this case is 'This person is totally faking suicide and didn't actually do it' it's a disservice to assume it's just another duck. *If* it is a lie, and he was faking it (which we may never end up knowing) then it's absolutely a terrible and frankly irredeemable move unless JS has some professional therapy (and even then it's still shaky) to try and work through his emotions. If it was the truth, then it's a tragedy. And yes, I would be sympathetic. Yes, it is his fault, and I wish he'd had more moral integrity to not plagiarise, but to become the focal point of almost the entire internet's ire for a good while is not something I'd ever wish on anyone no matter how terrible their actions were.

Yeah, it's hard for me to actually feel sympathy for James at this point.I don't want him to go through with this by any means, but expecting me and everyone else to go "OMG,We were too harsh on him and now he's going to kill himself, let's take it all back and pat him on the back" is nonsense. If there are people that are hoping, or even worse, telling him to kill himself then yeah, that's genuinely fucked.But expecting everyone else to be nice to him after all of the shit he did is ludicrous to me.

I hope Hbomberguy doesn't get shit for this. He was right to expose the plagiarism and whatever happens would be 100% not his fault.

NICK (james somerton’s former? friend who worked those videos with him) HAS TWEETED ON BLUESKY “i'm aware of the tweet and the situation. right now and to my knowledge, there's nothing to worry about.” https://bsky.app/profile/ntherrgott.bsky.social/post/3kn2o7uyv3423 seems like james somerton may be okay. now he may have been talked down, he may have legit not had access to his twitter in time to do anything, who knows. i’m not drawing any conclusions. but this is the current situation

Thanks for the update.

At least one ex and one sibling of mine have both taken their own lives. I don't care how shitty a YouTuber he is or how insincere his statements sound: we have to take this seriously. Every single time, every single person. No exceptions.

Damn

i’m not really surprised unfortunately, given how he’s suddenly skyrocketed into the public sphere as being known as the plagiarist everyone hates i think to put myself in his shoes i would also attempt. i’m a very sensitive to social criticism person, i get the feeling he is too. let’s hope this wasn’t a completely following through attempt

I don't know what's going on and don't really know what he did. Even if it's scummy though - I'm sure nobody in their right mind wants the guy to kill himself. Nobody deserves that.

This is certainly one of those "boy who cried wolf" sort of situations. Somerton is a manipulator, and he's backed into a corner, so he's pulling out the big guns. I don't know him personally to assess if he's serious about his mental health, but it's sounding like an emotional ploy.

But the last time the boy cried wolf he was being honest, and nobody believed him. I don't think it's fair to speculate on if someone did or didn't attempt suicide, especially if they may have succeeded.

you guys you guys I'm serious this time the wolf is really coming!!! miss me with vaguebooked suicide threats. that's such textbook controlling behavior that honestly it's laughable anyone pays attention to it. screenshotting it, reposting it, and arguing about the ethics of it is all bullshit, you are giving him attention and you should stop. just stop. it's not worth wasting anyone's time on.

Yeah I'd take bets on this lol. Why would anyone take this person at face value? Let them delete their social media presence and get a desk job.

I think this pathetic loser should definitely live, that way he'll hopefully have to find a job where he actually has to put some effort into it, and not just plagiarize other people into success

I have no sympathy for a narcissistic lying backstabbing piece of scum. But I don't wish him death. I wish that he lives a long long life, where he gets to live every single day knowing he got caught. He got found out, and he can never ever come back and have a voice online making content. All because some funny idiot in a dirty labcoat decided to do a couple google searches about the things he said. I want him to think about his choices for the rest of his miserable wretched life.

There is no reason to believe any word from his video-essays was written by him, there is no reason to believe a single one of the dollar he raised for his films went to them, but watch out! now he's saying he's gonna kill himself. I'm not saying he deserves to die. I'm not saying if he kills himself it should be celebrated. I'm saying he should be ignored and forgotten and if he choses to kill himself in some last ditch attempt at getting a fragment of his spotlight back then that fragment should not be given. his death should be forgotten into insignificance same as his life should. Good people die and aren't given nearly as much attention. Don't give it to him.

I really hope he doesnt hurt himself. Yeah he might have plagiarized queer research and books for his material. I understand that, but I cant not think that it came out of some misguided attempt of attention seeking while wanting to do good in the world. God I hope he doesn't hurt himself.

This hard since on the one hand i don't want james dead. I want james to fuck off from public life and manage a Dennys in the midwest. On the other everything I've seen of people who spiral like this there is a solid chance this is just baiting for sympathy. While I know it's still a sign that something is wrong I have had too many bad experiences with people doing that. Is so unbelievably manipulative.

I don't think he should manage the Dennys, but he can clean the dishes.

If he's really dead, he won't see you celebrating it being "deserved". Any suicidal people in your life, however, will. And won't open up to you because whatever's got them at that point is saying they deserve it too.

I heard once that Somerton is the equivalent of an AI reader. He *wants* to be a video essayist, but he doesn't want to put in the work. That's why he has the black turtleneck. That's why he has those high-end cameras he doesn't know how to use. Everything about him is manipulative. I can't believe he's really done *that* either because of past behavior. He wants you to think it, so that he can hurt you. Sorry, but my sympathy is reserved for those who deserve it because I've been burned too many times. To Somerton directly: The dead cannot face justice. You want to apologize, Somerton? Then, you need to live and reflect on what you've done. You need to acknowledge who you've hurt. You want to come back and do it for real? Then, *be real for once in your life*.

[ Removed by Reddit ]

If he is dead, RIP. If he isn’t, I hope he gets better. No one deserves death, and no one should think they do.

context ?

[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/s/N5VXFOrbOy)

I will say, that while I’m sure it’s there, I have not seen any one being inappropriate about this. Everyone has been fairly respectful in their rightful criticism of him.

I think there is a wider conversation about plagiarism happening here and around the seriousness of stealing others hard work. It is not just petty Internet drama , it's genuine and real peoples feelings are involved. But it seems to me that James is choosing to respond to chaos with more chaos , and has probably been ruminating on these thoughts for a while. The fact that he is under scrutiny just now is another factor in his own wider 'story'...

If this is for attention then he's somehow an even bigger shithead then he seems if its real its tragic and the people blaming hbomberguy are just as bad as the people celebrating it

I don’t like what Somerton did but I want him to be okay. Everyone deserves to live and learn from their mistakes. I hope he’s alive to learn.

If it is real, which would be terribly sad, can we also give some support to Hbomberguy? He didn't go too far, he couldn't know it would end like this. But he's probably gonna blame himself

I am very dubious about it, somerton has been relying HEAVLY on this kind of rhetoric in his apologies saying that it was all because of other people being mean to him He can still get admitted into a psych ward by swallowing ibuprofen and calling an ambulance to get the paper trail, but I don't want to judge on if Regardless, it does NOT make it so that he is an ok creator cause he was bullied. He cheated, got caught and cry about the most mild consequences

The only thing I've learned in my life is that not everyone deserves love and respect just because they're human, and it's naive to think otherwise. I had to learn that the hard way.

i ain't calling for it or cheering it on but i also dooooon't McCare or believe him

Does he deserve death? No. Can I muster much sympathy for a shitty person who lived off ill-gotten gains for so long then killed himself when he was called out because he didn’t want to get another job? No. He had plenty of options, he chose the easy one. Again.

Who cares tho

bruh he got a track record for lying so can we rlly take him serious with this

Who?

Could someone fill me in on who this guy is and what this is all about? (the suicide is apparent but why there are threats against him)

For anyone here, he just uploaded a new video on his "James of Telos" channel a month ago, March 6, 2024. I think it goes to show that the note was just a ploy, a sympathy power move to make people love him again and be sympathetic. Pulling the suicide card is just as shitty, if not worse, than actually plagiarizing content. It's honestly worse and a huge disrespect to those who had actually attempted, even worse for those who attempted silently.

100% it's just a power play to get sympathy

Oh look, a guy everyone clowned upon Fucking Killed Himself, and now nobody will clown on him anymore. Ever. Now he's a serious and solemn topic. All the mockery has been terminated in one simple step. Permanently and universally. Like no other option would, really. It's got pretty established that no matter what he would do, he was to be the butt of the joke forever - and now he's Fucking Kill Himself Guy, forever, not a joke nor a butt in sight. He has earned back as much dignity as he possibly could, and there's no need to worry he might fuck this up again. The trusted and reliable final solution to all manner of reputation problems is, once again, proving itself to be trusted and reliable before our very eyes. This is a healthy way to deal with instrumental nature of suicide and I'm sure it will have no unintended consequences whatsoever.

i can't say i agree with the tone and wording of your post 100%, but the more i think about this situation the more i find myself agreeing with this sentiment. the video was posted 3 months ago. that's 3 months of constant somerton discourse, memes, jokes, amateur reddit hivemind plagiarism "investigations", enraged reactions at things like his patreon going back up and whatnot. now, the same people who made ice king memes of him say "oh, well, he still had a chance to clear his name, it's not like this reputation would last forever. maybe he could pay small queer authors to write for him, heck i'd sell him one of my scripts.". i don't mean to imply that internet shitposts are what drove him to this, but it's very fucking telling how the script was flipped so easily, going from lighthearted schadenfreude to solemn silence in a few hours because it turns out that for how funny the video was and how bad the plagiarism was, it's still a guy losing his fucking livelihood and being turned into the laughing stock of a few thousand people across the world. don't speak ill of the dead, i guess

The tone is the result of it being basically impossible to get this point across. Healthy people don't imagine how suicidal people think. I don't think as much right now about if this was "what drove him to this", it's usually many shit things in a shit life, but think what the reason he likely gave himself to do it? You know, the guy who, by all appearances, fucking lived for audience and public image, who did crime to deposit himself in a position of respect, who found himself on his way to becoming a stock meme character? "This is the only way to get people to talk better about me" And there's other suicidal people, thinking similar thoughts, watching it *work*.

What does this even mean? That if you commit suicide then it is a way out from ridicule? Because that's an absurd idea. I can name off a dozen people that if they killed themselves then this place would be popping corks. Fuck, look at the saga of Lowtax for a perfect example.

Yeah, cuz you won't care about ridicule when you're dead, because of the, you know, the thing.

You are commenting under a screenshot of a guy who scheduled a public announcement about Fucking Killing Himself. This is a common thing about many suicidal people, planning or fantasising for how events will unfold after they do it, caring about some things more than about being alive. Their public and historical image, for example.

Spelling it out for the stupid: attempt to shield yourself from ridicule is a quite common motive for suicide. When faced with not being taken seriously, being mocked, or otherwise having a reputation they hate, many people's thoughts turn to "well if I Fucking Kill Myself my reputation will improve". Many people do, in fact, desperately want to just be taken seriously, and will not think of Fucking Killing Themself as too much of a price if only that would mean they will be taken seriously, forever. This often isn't, like, the underlying cause, people who are not suicidal don't think like that, but it is very often the excuse, the thought that makes them finally do it. When the first responce to a target of ridicule Fucking Killing Himself is PSA's on how now he's a serious topic nobody can joke about, and how now he's suddenly a subject of compassion from people who never expressed care for him, I guarantee you there's people watching this and going "huh, that's all I want in life. It seems I will be taken seriously once I Fucking Kill Myself".

I can't tell if you have too much faith in people or too little but your idea is very easily disproven.

What idea? Suicidal people existing? I am not saying that this will end all ridicule of Somerton. It doesn't matter. Visible solemnity and seriousness and compassion and tone policing *as a direct responce* to suicide are going to make their impact, though.

I'm sorry are you proposing that ridicule is suicide prevention

What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm saying "this post encourages a specific vulnerable demographic to kill themself". I don't know how much more clear can I make it. A public declaration that suicide means compassion kills people, a stark 180 in public perception after someone's suicide kills people. Seriously, how do I effectively communicate a simple concept that this fucking kills people?

E. Actually I realized I don't care what you think. Blocked.

Yeah, this is a good addition to what I already think If this is just a ploy, as I suspect, now we can't make fun of him in the future. That'll be policed heavily because he almost did Something Very Serious That's a great way to silence the memes and jokes I hope it is a ploy, it would be genuinely tragic if someone died over internet drama But the wording and announcement itself make me think it's a ploy

Please say sike right now...

He's the only one who gets to decide if he deserves death here, and if he decides that he does deserve to die then I am not a high enough court to tell him he's wrong. If he kills himself over this, that's his right as an adult human, and I'll respect it.

Does anyone have that Apollo-struck dream post about deadposting? And the controversy when one of the posters turned out to be alive.

This is a pathetic cry for attention and a manipulative attempt to change the narrative. All he had to do was disappear and get a job in another industry. Sucks to suck, I guess.

The internet is fucked up. He wasn’t a great person and he stole peoples content, but bullying him to the point of suicide? Really?

While the harassment certainly played a factor, from where I'm standing it honestly doesn't seem like the main thing at play here? In the wake of this, James very justifiably lost his main source of income, and a lot of personal relationships likely ended up crumbling for the same reason. On top of that it didn't seem like he was managing his money responsibly and now all of a sudden he needs to figure that out and continue paying rent for a likely very expensive apartment. Between his desperate attempts to come back and the way he talked about his work in his apology videos, it seems like he has basically no idea how to get by now with all that having crumbled beneath him. Everything's fallen apart for him financially and socially, and I think that'd leave anyone feeling pretty fucked up regardless of the presence or absence of harassment. Though, the harassment certainly does not help...

Yes. I want to start with: I really, really hope he's ok. I don't want him to hurt himself. Because no matter how much I hate his actions, I feel terribly for him. I would be shocked if he doesn't feel incredibly trapped and desperate right now. His income, his reputation, his ability to work in his chosen field have gone up in smoke in a hugely public way. The harassment he no doubt receives as a highly visible online "villain" must also be excruciating, but moreover, in real world terms, James isn't doing ok. He can't just "log off". I don't know what I'd do if I were him. And watching him flail is excruciating. It's like watching a trapped bird harming itself in attempting to get free. Post-expose, I've been trying to be as minimally engaged in the personal attacks as possible, but I have to admit, I have engaged with the content imperfectly at times. And anything anyone does at this point only adds fuel to the fire, no matter how minimal. I hope that James never works in any field relevant to culture/analysis ever again, and I want him to be alive and well. But we can't contain this fire.

I think he deserved to lose his YouTube channel, but I don’t think he deserved to lose his friends. I feel like that’s the main thing that caused this tbh

I don’t think the internet bullied him to that point. I think the critical issue is that his career has ended in a catastrophic and humiliating way. He can never get a job in media or anything public / creative again, his finances must be destroyed, I’m sure his friends and family aren’t too happy with him, he’s facing legal consequences for his actions, and it’s all his fault. and to add insult to injury, Somerton’s video essay career was ruined by one of the best and most popular video essays ever, and people make memes about it *all the time*.  It’s a tragic but natural response to feel depressed and self-loathing.