James Somerton Troubling News | Red Cow Arcade
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- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- James Somerton was the subject of a recent video about plagiarism on UA-cam and has been reported to be in distress. We discuss.
Edited by @Level_reDesign
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He’s alive. Turns out even his suicide note was plagiarized.
😂🤣
😅😅😅
@negativearmsWhich is objectively the best part of plagiarism.
☠️ 😅
Wait are you SERIOUS? Who was he plagiarizing?
Aside from the blatant plagiarism I think The main reason hbomberguy wanted to hit him so hard, Is James' major hypocrisy. Acting as if hes some pillar advocate for all queer people. But he is just stealing right from their pockets. As hbomberguy is a part of the queer community, this probably bugged him the most
The only reason there were a lot of people defending hbomberguy is because there were many, MANY people outright saying he killed James. It was among the Twitter interaction baiters, real greaseball shit. But I really don't think Somerton is dead
don't worry, he's alive...
He wasn’t just alive, he was showing hole on his alt accounts.
James' situation is particular in that his story changes every time he talks about it. Through crocodile tears, he's thrown everyone under the bus, and when he does take any kind of "accountability," there's a looming asterisk. It very much does seem like he tried to weaponize mental health as a defense, and that's why the response was so mixed when his suicide note went out. Now that we know he's alive, you can't help but ask if the note was manipulation. I don't like being this cynical, but after everything, it's unfortunately the most rational argument in my mind.
I see it as the latest manipulation tactic from someone who has a history of manipulation tactics
I think this video massively downplays the scope and seriousness of what he did, though definitely not so much that I'd wish him de*d.
UA-cam does have different rules. But also, this was some of the most egregious plagiarism you can imagine. The scope was massive. It was for his personal profit, it went on for years, on the back of many of whom were far more deserving of that money. It literally victimised groups who considered him an ally. And he often behaved really badly when called out. There's not really much here to say, "maybe we should have let this one slide".
Unfortunately the choice presented here in the video isn't a real one. You can't avoid calling out just the people who will hurt themselves, because in practice you can't ever know who will. So in reality, the only choice you have is to never call out anyone just in case they do. And that leads to a world in which there's no recourse to reign in anyone's behaviour short of legal action. Shaming isn't pretty, and it does go too far sometimes, but it does serve a pretty important function regulating people's bad behaviour. And it's often better that people learn a lesson than way than the alternatives.
Maybe I'd be more hesitant about posting this if there was more doubt in my mind whether or not James is alive. While there is a chance he's hurt himself, and that would certainly be very sad, I'd be very surprised. I think anyone who has suffered at the hands of a pathological narcissist probably recognised that parts of his apology etc were certainly a performance designed to inspire some guilt.
I don't realistically know what can be done here. It certainly would be better to tone down the more vicious parts of Internet dog-piling. But really I struggle to come to any conclusion other than James Somerton being the one who is mostly responsible for James Somerton's predicament.
The worst thing the guy did was falsely accuse bigotry where he knew there was none. To hell with him.
Frankie sounds like Albert Brooks in Drive right before he kills Bryan Cranston. "Why don't we shut that fucking laptop. Youve plagerized, you did a big big goof and you've been found out"
"that one corner of UA-cam. you know the one"
oh yes we do. the ones that post videos with titles like "WOKE HOLLYWOOD IS DESTROYING AMERICA" or some shit and with the photoshopped images with female actresses with the huge tears like EJ said
I think the James Somerton thing really took off because he sits at the intersection of so many cultural hot topic issues, and to top it all off he is a stereotypically fey bad guy with a pretty out of control ego. Everyone on both sides of the isle could find something to dislike about him and everyone enjoys a comeuppance story, even if the crime is pretty benign in the grand scheme of things. His multiple attempts to return displayed a form of terminally online mental illness that just added to his problems. He really comes off as a more functional and productive Chris Chan.
I hope for his sake he finds a nice quiet job away from the internet bfore his worst impulses undo him any further.
This is by far the most empathetic, sensible, I daresay hopeful perspectives I've heard on this very serious situation - especially calling out the callousness of the most predominant takes circulating in online circles. Thank you Frankie and EJ.
On the question of whether hbomberguy has too large a megaphone for bringing this kind of criticism against a smaller creator, there are two things to keep in mind. First is that other creators had called out Somerton before-not for plagiarism, but for other things-to little impact, including Jessie Gender, Maggie Mae Fish, and Dan from Folding Ideas. Those creators aren't quite as big as hbomberguy, although Dan comes pretty close, but considering the extent of Somerton's plagiarism and the length of time he had been doing it, it seems reasonable to me that the magnifying glass escalated into hbomberguy's hand.
The second thing is that James Somerton was really trying to present himself as a professional, authoritative voice in media criticism. He tried to become part of Nebula and threw a big stink on Twitter when they rejected him. I think the more seriously you demand to be taken, the more thoroughly you'll be vetted by your peers, and the less forgiving they will be.
We can't be responsible for someone's mental health. With that mentality we wouldn't be able to call out any bad behaviour because it might cause someone threaten or commit suicide. James is such a disgusting hypocrite and blatant thief he deserves to have his "career" put in the spotlight and called out. If he didn't want to deal with the inevitable fallout of his plagiarism he shouldn't have done it in the first place. Plus, none of this is harassment. It's not harassment to expose someone of their crimes. People who say that Hbomberguy killed James are out of their minds.
Also, let's not forget that James is proven to be a liar and a manipulator. It's not uncommon for these types to weaponize mental health to try and get away with their shitty behaviour. This guy deserves no sympathy.
The benefit that Sommerton has is that most people don't know who he is and he will be able to live outside of UA-cam. The best thing he can do is live anonymously in the real world and to take this whole debacle as a learning lesson.
"Why don't you just do your own writing" is half of the complete thought. The second half is "If it's so hard for you, then why do that as a job?" And the answer is, "Because I found a way to fake it."
Have to give a shout-out here to Todd in the shadows on UA-cam. He’s actually a music reviewer who’s been on the platform for years, but he (after the hbomb video), made a complete compilation of his plagiarism, explained it really well, and just made an all around very good video that I highly recommend.
Back in school when I was lazy I just copied the entire Wikipedia page on pantheism and moved on lmao. This was before teachers really knew or understood how we could do this, my teacher was beyond impressed with my paper 😂
The class clown tried the same. Except when he copied everything he also left the blue hyperlink text in place.
People shouldn't put themselves out there for the whole world to see and judge if they handle criticism so poorly that they'd consider unaliving themselves over it. It's morally reprehensible that James would even threaten that and blame hbomberguy in the first place. No, the critic isn't responsible for their criticism leading to that outcome.
If you end yourself because you got caught and the internet is calling you out then you are a very weak person, nobody's fault but your own, I don't feel sorry for him at all, he needs to own it and move forward, his first instinct was I'm a victim, very weak
I think there's also a difference wrt critique between Frankie and EJ casually discussing things on a podcast vs hbomberguy doing a feature-length expose.
Other factors include whether the critique is in bad faith or not.
I don't know much about hbomberguy's history but I understand he's not necessarily a good faith actor and doesn't have clean hands himself.
I take your point that plagiarism, on a platform where people commonly reuse other people’s work, is not necessarily a crime worthy of an exposé on the scale of the one made by hbomberguy. However, Somerton wasn’t just guilty of plagiarism, he was guilty of bullying the very people he stole from. That’s what made his actions truly egregious and well worthy of hbomberguy’s exposé, particularly seeing as Somerton appeared to have no intention of stopping until a “bigger” voice called him out.
I think the idea that hbomerguy is now somehow responsible in some way, for Somerton’s suicide threat, because his video triggered the events that lead to it, is a very short-sighted viewpoint. If you want to apply that logic then you really need to take one more step back in the chain of events and acknowledge that if Somerton hadn’t profiteered from stolen works and bullied those he stole from, then hbomberguy wouldn’t have made the video, so Somerton is really the one who set into motion the events that lead to Somerton’s suicide threat.
I think most reasonable people who have taken an interest in this situation have ultimately drawn these conclusions... Somerton did bad. Hbomberguy called it out. Somerton’s “career” as a UA-cam video essayist is essentially over, but none of that is worth ending anyone’s life over. If Somerton is genuinely feeling suicidal (and that’s still a big IF in a lot of people’s minds given Somerton’s history of manipulative behavior) he should seek help and try to move on.
That’s all totally fair, but I do feel like we tried to acknowledge all of that behavior in advance of saying that we feel some of the response has been overly callous. And we definitely said that HBomberGuy was not responsible and did nothing wrong. Just that, regardless of how right he is and how wrong Somerton is, no one wants to be a causal link in someone else’s suicide, surely.
4:30 I disagree. I think every youtuber that has this kind of content should be citing their sources. You can make the creative commons argument but as a recent university graduate often me and my fellow students would cite information from videos that provide a general overview of a subject. Of course you should always double check information but by and large students are doing this. Ethically if content creators make videos that are analytical, and dare I say educational, then all sources should be cited. Otherwise, we have the danger of misinformation being spread wholecloth with no sources to back up ckaims that are made. A problem that already exists and is getting worse each day.
Why DON'T you just write your own thoughts down? How is that tough? And if you cant, maybe you should be doing somethig else. If I cant write a novel, why should I pose as a novelist? Instead I should steal someone else's novel, pass it off as my own, and say 'I'm a writer.'?? If he cant write his own opinion, then why be a video essayist?
And How is copying someone word for word 'fnding your OWN tone?'
Hbomberguy wasn't 'over compensating', the reason he went on and on and on is because Somerton's plaigarism was so MASSIVE in scale. That's like asking why someone's analysis of Moby Dick was so long.
I had a friend in high school and during our early adult years. He spent all his time putting together notes for a novel he wanted to write: explained the entire world to me and everything but he couldn’t write for crap.
After a while, we would go for walks through the city or sit on his deck and start outlining the book scene by scene, helping him put all these ideas together into a story. Man, he liked to come up with ideas but when it came time to do the work, he sucked. No book was ever written. Heck, I still have his half-baked Zombie movie script on my external HDD.
I have to say this hurts. I was never a big fan, but I used to go to some James Somerton livestreams. He did awful things but it’s hard to see someone I’ve actually talked to in this place. I wish people would just lay off the personal harassment - he’s lost his platform and his credibility. Leave him alone, he’s been punished.
I fell off the face of the earth and have missed so much of this awesome evolution of Red Cow content!
This is absolutely amazing! I watched the original plagiarism video and was wondering if it’d have any downstream effects. What a great convo, with such great points.
The weirdest thing to come after this was a 2-hour Todd in the Shadows video debunking Somerton's queer theory stuff and other useful everyday topics. That video alone replaced all my Minecraft knowledge.
A million people want to voice their opinion on what happened but this is by far the best and most reasonable take I've seen.
Todd In The Shadows Lies video summed up every suspicion I had about James Somerton. I usually watched his videos just to hear his outrageous takes and questionable, often offensive historical claims, "like he pulled it straight out his ass", As Todd quoted, I found it laughable but also kind of dangerous too. I stop viewing Somerton's videos a month before the shocking Todd in the Shadows and the Hbomberguy plagiarism reveal on him. like Dracula exposed to daylight.
“…He was the victim to one of the worst pathogens of them all, which is bullshit.”
Very funny, but so true. I found this to be an incredibly valuable discussion that exercised true empathy. Also, EJ’s last bit about Sommerton’s ability to pivot to the right was hilarious.
I’ve met a few Somertones in my life.
Willing to bet everything on this whole thing being something to garner sympathy. This threat of self-cancellation and removing of the channel was expected.
I feel bad for the guy, he’s going through it, but I’ve seen his manipulative tactics played out many times before.
His large ego is gonna stop him from ever committing the act, though there will be threats.
I don’t think this is an evil person, layers of personality disorders and bad coping mechanism at play here.
He’s gonna come out a stronger person eventually 👍
Nah... Its stealing..
Imagine that me and a friend of mine just hit "transcripe" to this channel and recorded ourselves reading it... Now imagine you only get 15k views on average yet every time you upload something, i upload it a bit later but coming out of my mouth and each time this happens i get 1.5 Million views... Imagine you can't pay your rent but i left my city and moved to Canada and now lived in a posh condo in Vancouver... And it wont stop... Is that cool with you? Bc if so, i implore someone here to do it. 6:34
...furthermore, when Frankie politely points out what you're doing, you tell your massive audience that he's harassing you and they in turn bomb the Red Cow channels with abusive comments and down votes. Somerton's plagiarism was poor form, but it was the way he bullied/harassed the people he stole from that was truly egregious.
Wonderful nuanced take. The great noir writer Raymond Chandler taught himself to write by typing out other writers work wholesale. He never published it as his own work but It goes to show how inspiration comes from others. A shame this guys ugly drive didn’t let him learn this.
Phillip Marlow is kinda close to a lot of other noir detectives, but Raymond Chandler just did it better. He’s also so fucking funny. I read an early one recently where he describes how fat this dead guy is for 2 entire pages.
That was part of the plot of Finding Forrester with Sean Connery as well.
Another instance of 'Don't monetize your hobbies'.
Love the "twitter accent" Frankie did. This was the most 'normal person' take I've seen on the hbomberguy video as a whole. W take, as the kids say.
ALSO. Let's not confuse cancellation with cruel, unusual punishment. Cancellation has the prerequisite of some level of fame, and fame is not a human right. It is very much a case of "the higher you fly, the further you fall."
Guys you dealt with this so so well very sensitively and empathetically handled. It's nice to have this kind of content on YT rather than the typical lynch mob mentality that is so common on YT. Amazing job.
It's pretty interesting hearing people talk about this kind of thing rationally. People are more and more reactionary. Almost like they are desperate for internet drama. Glad there are people who are still living in reality out here.
i think the reason james never truly apologized is that he most likely knew full well what he was doing and just thought he could get away with it. i don't wish for him to kill himself but i think what he did was really gross, even if it was just youtube videos. his videos were full of lies that apparently had a lot of influence and convinced many people. i do hope hes still around and can learn from his mistake, though
Great video, Frankie and EJ. 👍
James Rolfe’e biography is on Audible now. Gonna listen to it this morning as soon as I finish your video, my dudez! I really appreciate the early-morning release as I’m sure many of us are catching these while having our morning coffee or on the lou.
I never plagiarized as writing always came naturally to me. All you have to do is articulate your thoughts onto paper… Hence my long-arse comments every time ya’ll release a darn video. Sometimes when I’m working on something I’m excited about, I will go out of my way to NOT investigate similar-pre-existing material as I don’t want to sway my vision. Like, if I’m writing a review on something, I’d rather write my own review from start to finish and THEN compare it to other reviews to see how different it is. Then, of course, you’ve gotta go out of your way to be weird. I think it’s the nature of a creative person to be a troll. To experiment and or innovate where possible. To break down a process into it’s simplest forms to truly learn and understand them…
Grant Cardone best explains happiness in his book The 10X Rule. Feeling like you’re in the driver’s seat is a great summary. Consistently rewarded everlasting effort. A man who enjoys working towards his goals is the happiest. And as Rabbi Daniel Lapin explains in his book Thou Shall Prosper: Never retire. Always plan to continue to contribute to this Earth.
Have a great day, guys. Fight me.
Great discussion. Relieved to find out that he’s alive. Crossing my fingers that he stays far away from the internet and is able to experience some healing and relief from his troubles. To the extent that somebody who’s obviously got some kind of personality disorder can do it, he’s made the necessary overtures to the people he exploited and I don’t think it’s reasonable or fair to expect any more accountability from him at this point. I think everyone benefits if he steps away from public life and finds happiness and fulfillment elsewhere.
Anyone else here now that Somerton is confirmed alive after he left a fake suicide note on his main Twitter account, and has been posting from an alt account for months? Like, I'm glad he didn't kill himself, but that he allowed people to think he was dead and watched people blame HBomberguy, and defended his actions while posing as a fan until he changed his user name and eventually posted his face, voice, and butthole is kind of a new low, you know? I used to like the guy's videos until I learned about the lies, theft, and his sicking his flying monkeys on people, and now I'm just disgusted at how low he's stooped.
I don’t like hbomberguy, but it’s not his fault if this dude did indeed sunset himself. Even if he did steal kiwi farms kill.
23:18 This is exactly what happened to Russell Brand recently
That’s ok, his tears say more than real evidence ever could! 😢
I don’t believe this anything more then a way to get sympathy. His channel was stolen wholesale, and takes accountability.
Hbomberguy is an old school troll from the old Metokur Forums with a bad case of troll's remorse who got into the breadtube scene. His malicious side came out with gusto in that video.
as someone whose sorta, mildly paying attention too this situation
mind explaining hbomberguys malicious side
@@baronkarza2939 He used to post on Metokur Forums. Which was kinda Kiwi Farms-esque. They'd just poke fun at people in a sometimes mean way. It's really all there is to it. He just pivoted so far in the other direction instead of being a normal dude about it
@@ZeroBusterXX so the dude is overcompensating it
@@baronkarza2939 Yes. Just swerved way too hard in the direction. Classic case of troll's remorse
I'm not surprised. There's a certain brand of mean-spiritedness Harris showed in that video, not to mention all the random screaming, and people just aren't randomly like that.
Bullies will bully. There were better ways of going about all of this.
"A victim of one of the worst pathogens ever . . Bullshit" 😂
There's not a peer-review board for UA-cam videos but profiting off of someone else's work without their knowledge is still a serious issue regardless of platform. But, like others have said, plagiarism wasn't the only thing James was guilty of (he took Indiegogo money, he threatened other creators who tried to call him out, etc.) which is why it bugs me when people reduce what he did to just "plagiarism." He's obviously a troubled person with a lot of issues including, as you said, being very manipulative. No, I don't want James to die. What I want is for no one to steal anyone's work. It's obvious YT couldn't care less about this issue as long as people still watch so it's unfortunately up to others to address it and stop it when it happens. Just because a creator threatens to take their life when called out for the numerous terrible things they did, doesn't mean people should stop doing it.
I'm a fan of the Geeks and Gamers crowd but lately every single one of their videos have had Sydney Sweeney in their thumbnails for some inexplicable reason. Possibly 2 reasons. Nevermind. I get it.
Also James Somerton isn’t James Charles. He harmed creators/authors and the queer YT community with his plagiarism. But he is FAR from being among the worst monsters on YT, and was a smaller creator without massive resources. He can’t come back from this. Leave him alone now it’s over.
Considering the stuff Hbummerguy used to get up to in the old Metokur forums, he is the last person you should take seriously
People who play victim get no passes.
There is nothing new under the sun. To me putting the effort into making an article into a video is enough effort for it to be considered its own piece of content, it takes effort to do that, that counts for somthing and imo counts for enough for the plagiarism argument to be moot. Im never gonna read a bunch of articles on this stuff but I have 8 hours a day to listen to stuff...
The lying about it is really crappy though...
This was pretty lame
23:20 exactly! James could be the new Dave Rubin! No original thought or creativity required
So... threatening suicide is an abuse tactic, but if someone does it you should give in to their demands, but it's wrong, but otherwise it's on you, but it's not your fault, but you pushed them to it.
What? What a crazy, back and forth ramble. I don't think you guys made any sense.
Very well said, and articulated points.
The best ability is accountability.
I don't see any reason to feel bad about it whatsoever. Someone did wrong and got called out. How he chooses to react to that is irrelevant. He could have chosen to face it with maturity, rather than cowardice. I feel little sympathy for manipulative cowards.
Must be easy to navigate the world with the contrast turned up this high
@@dillflynn As someone who's dealt with suicidal tendencies, fuck James Somerton for weaponizing it for false sympathy. He's had plenty of opportunity to not be a slime ball and proved to be a worse person every single step of the way. I hope he gets better and finds purpose in some other career, but he's garbage who needs to be held accountable, not be coddled by even more internet strangers.
@@dillflynnWhy are you criticizing this person, aren't you afraid they'll kill themselves?
Lots of fence sitting from these 2. What's there to feel bad about? The guy won't do it, he doesnt have the balls to follow through.
Love your channel, but I have to give a hard disagree about allowing “loosey goosey”-ness in plagiarism depending on the platform. As a hobbyist writer, plagiarism, no matter where, is morally wrong. Period. And if we give it a little wiggle room, Pandora’s box instantly opens and will cause a terrible chain reaction.
What's with the hate on Nerdrotic and that FNT crew?
what hate?
They're some of the worst, most vapid grifters around?
What's with you defending someone who sold drugs to kids?
@@Peasham whats good about that
@@Bove11 That's what Nerdrotic used to do, friend.
I get the feeling though that these content creators simply think they are doing research... you know... what the internet is for... and the public for some reason think these are content creator gods, and not just people with computers. They do sloppy work, get over it. It's not drama, it's not expooooosed, it's sloppy. Do your own research if you have the time. You'll be better off, as you can form your own opinion instead of just sucking up one's own that may or may not be their own for real because it is just lazy copy paste as if they did a school project, and not a holy UA-cam video!..
Wait, I’m not real?!?!
Who?
Lol pandercide.
What do you think of that band Egg?
Love the glasses
I think you do have to consider the influence you have before you do things like that. Not blaming hbomberguy for watching the video, but you have to know that even if you say "hey don't harass this guy" it's like telling an off leash dog not to chase a squirrel. It's going to happen regardless. People love to dunk on a guy and the more people who join in, the nastier people can be.
There’s a hella lot of youtubers who make money fron reading wikipedia.
hell yea boys, good morning lol
16:01 Sarcasm.
one person squawking on twitter 🤣
Ngl making me wish I had kids
billy mitchel to a tee
Hmurderguy
I really don't care about James. He'd better offed himself after that announcement, sadly he can't even do that.