"i'm sorry you feel that way" - overplayed, old, gaslighty "here's what i did. i'm sorry. here's the steps i'm taking to make sure it doesn't happen again" - revolutionary, never seen before, iconic
I'm not 100% in the loop on what's going on but my biggest problem was him talking about his past and movie ideas. That should've been a seperate video from the apology.
I think James underestimates how many people have had head trauma and adhd. I got a pretty severe head trauma in school long term memory I have is shot but I know not to plagurize people. If you're taking that much from other people, do you really have something to say on the topic? Thank you for going over this! I didn't want to watch his video directly.
Citing sources is at the very least taught in highschool. And even if you forgot how to do it, there are videos like this one that cite other sources in their video. Sommerton just doesn't have integrity and doesn't care.
"I think this is the last of this situation" and then james faked a suicide attempt, blamed hbomberguy and nick for it on sock puppet accounts that were blatantly and obviously him, and then immediately posted hole. in case it wasn't obvious how much he genuinely doesn't care about what he did. hopefully that was the last of it for real though, it took me this long to watch this video just because i got so tired of his bullshit
Hi enjoying your video's. Landed here via the mamamax and was nice have a non-blokybloke approach. You mentioned getting book txt to screen being a problem/faff. I've been using OCR app/devices and thought might be useful, quickly give you the text in a digital format.
James Charles did nothing wrong (at least as far as those original tati Westbrook allegations go) watch big Joel's the existential horror of tati Westbrook
Hate to be a killjoy, but I highly doubt that will happen. HBomb will perhaps comment on socials on some practical stuff like answering when being asked about James contacting him. But he was already apologetic about contributing to the drama mill by making the video in the first place, which, no matter how constructive and called for, all of this debriefing discourse process is contrubuting to like it or not. I mean I'd also be super happy about an extra video on the aftermath and I think keeping people updated about anything in his end would be a reason enough to make one. But I'm not keeping my hopes up after how he explicitly stated in the video about not wishing to continue this as any sort of beef between them.
As someone who got the same kind of breast cancer my mom had, I will now think of my cancer not as a present from Mom’s genetics, but the time I plagiarized Mom’s genetic code.
It's amazing how James gets annoyed about people thinking that he'd plagerized his movie idea. Dude... You did a comically evil amount of plagerism. You don't get to be pissy about people thinking all your ideas are copied.
He doesn't seem to grasp this is what happens when you are proven to be a liar, EVERYTHING you say from that point onward is going to be under a microscope.
Also, who says that was even the original plot idea for the movie? We only know what he tells us which can't be trusted. So he could have plagiarized the plot of another movie and then literally just come up with a different plot to describe for this video. He could have said it was about unicorns or something. The script is probably only on his computer. Nick might know what the plot is because he supposedly read it, but Nick hasn't said anything and probably isn't watching Jame's videos so catch him in the lie. So James describing the supposed plot of this movie means nothing.
@@abbyrudy167Exactly. Somerton did not put any actual work into any of the movies. He might have written a script or something, but, writing is really hard but also literally the easiest part of making a movie.
@@abbyrudy167I'm just saying look up Final Girls (2017) By Sage Riley.. bro did swipe someone else's idea by re-directing his "haters" to a different book that was more well known....
@@abbyrudy167 Also, it's a red herring to begin with. He didn't plagiarize Final Girl Support Group because he never made anything with Final Girl. He didn't produce anything, so it's kind of a moot point whether it was derivative because it doesn't exist and never will. It's a distraction from all of the money he stole from his fans for his fake movie.
His apology was dead in the water once he tried justifying his choices instead of just apologising for each problem, acknowledging the harm and stating how is going to be better moving forward. It shouldnt be hard to give an apology.
As a Scotsman I cannot tell you how proud I am of the Willie Wonka catastrophe. It's our best modern accomplishment. And I hear the petition to bring it back is gathering considerable steam.
@@kyletitterton you guys created a new SCP "The Uknown" the evil phantom living in Willie Wonka's choclate factory stealing the souls of children. I'll bet it'll be the most popular costume this year for halloween
He’s not sorry. He’s never going to be sorry because he thinks he’s done nothing wrong. It’s always some outside force that caused his actions, never him. He just wants everything to blow over so he can restart his gravy train. I also noticed the absence an apology for his blatant misogyny. He’s just not sorry.
He's only sorry that he got caught Which is why he puts such a huge emphasis on simply not crediting better instead of.... Yk Copy pasting others work lol
I thought it sounded at one point like he was saying, “Of course I plagiarized, I’m white and cisgender.” And as a white, cisgender person myself I was like, “That’s not how that works, I don’t think?”
@@mst3kharris I am also white, cis and gay yet I have never stole from anyone, and my texts had been plagiarized since I was in high school. he is just a goddamned asshole that should go to hell
@mst3kharris It's part of him trying to pass off his plagiarism as an unfortunate mistake. He ignores how long he was doing it, how he specifically worded his scripts to make it seem like he wasn't doing that, how he sought reprisal against the people he stole from and drove mass harassment their way when they accused him publicly, how he selectively cited some sources (without indicating what work was theirs) to mask just how many people he actually stole from, or anything Hbomb's video accused him of. He just hoped no one remember the specifics of that video, despite it still being up.
He presents himself in this apology video as a person, who is borderline incapable to function. He gives no examples of what steps he has taken to prevent these issues from happening again, and just expects us to believe that all of the problems wil not just come back the next time he experiences some difficult life event. When he explained how he repeatedly messed up his filmmaking projects with nothing but lack of planning, general incompetence and no filmmaking industry knowlegde, despite going to filmschool, and he still has NOTHING to show for it. No short film, no trailer, nothing. All he did with that is just explained that he should not be trusted with money. He doesn't have the skills to make a movie, short or full length.
I know, it does not make ANY sense as James tells it, but I have an alternate explanation: It's a corporate apology, you know "i'm sorry you feel that way". James has been caught telling untruths and plagiarizing. He went to business school. How would a business handle this? 1. Do not admit fault. 2. Disavow responsibility, so plagiarism was accidental, not deliberate. This keeps away legal trouble too. 3. Distract people, this is done with side stories about Jesse and head trauma, which have nothing to do with the issue at hand, but make him "relatable". Its all a textbook corporate apology for when they get caught doing something terrible, and is about as sincere.
You must be right. i guess i am just baffled how badly it's not working for him, and how much worse he comes across from his explonations.@@andreaslind6338
I’m so glad that you pointed out how nasty he was to those who were trying to hold him accountable initially- long before Harris’s video. Painting himself as some martyr for the queer community that needed to be protected from prosecution and going on the attack towards his critics, hoping his audience would rise to defend him (check) calling them homophobic when in many cases they were also part of the LGBTQIA community… it speaks to how cutthroat his behavior is with any semblance of power. Reminds me of Creepshow and Illuminaughtii with how they acted behind the scenes. And he KNEW their criticism was valid. There is no excuse for that and he should never be trusted again as far as I’m concerned. He’s already proven he will cut every corner and run over anyone who dares to get in the way of his success and profit. The Jessie Gender thing is the perfect example too. TL;DR: She was trying to help him out bc he desperately wanted to get on Nebula and when they hadn’t offered him a spot yet, he started trying to create the narrative that it was a platform to prop up cis white men with no room for LGBTQIA creators in spite of the fact that many of the creators on that platform are from diverse backgrounds and many were focused on LGBTQIA content. When some of those creators spoke out to say ‘hey- what about me? I’m on Nebula’ he cried victim and claimed he was being dogpiled. Jessie spoke out to say that no one should be attacking him and he responded saying that it was her audience that was sending death threats. I don’t believe it. Jessie’s content is incredibly emotionally intelligent and empathetic- always. I think he targeted her because he knew she would do the most to tamper things down for him and he’d be able to tarnish her reputation in the process. When she reached out to see what was going on- he said the police instructed him not to speak with her. Very manipulative. Just like all the emotional manipulation (poor me) he used in the past two apologies trying to distract from the primary issue. And I think the reason she is the only one who received a personal apology is because he wanted to appeal to her to help him out of the shitstorm he created for himself. Luckily, she seems to see through that and want nothing else to do with him. As for his return, one word comes to mind… NOPE!👎
Becky Albertalli very kindly informed him that 1) she's not straight, and 2) the kind of language James used in his video was why she was forced to come out before she was ready. She pointed out that the same thing happened to Casey McQuiston and Alice Osman (who James misgendered). He turned that into "being attacked" and continued to claim that "straight white woman" (none of the above are straight, two are NB) are the problem.
James, looking at a chunk of text in a completely different style, relating the writer's firsthand lived trans experience to the topic: "Yeah I probably wrote that bit"
Every text processor app has a changes history that you can check to see how every word on a document was introduced in it. He has no excuse; even if he is unable to differenciate his own writing style and ideas; given how much he has plagiarized is possible that he doesn't even recognise his own voice anymore. /s
Actually that’s itself not that unbelievable, like sometimes I’ve added sentences into notes for academic essays that I’ve planned to paraphrase (or quote, but markers generally prefer paraphrasing) (and OBVIOUSLY cite directly after) but not remember when putting it all together whether I’ve ALREADY done the paraphrasing or whether those are the author’s words. People tend to sound similar when writing in an academic style. What’s UNBELIEVABLE is copying an entire article into your notes with minimal to no changes (apart from meticulously removing any references to the actual author ofc) and trying to pass it off as your own work because you… “forgot” you didn’t actually write the whole thing??
I don’t think James expected so many people to remember the allegations because Hbomberguy’s video is quite long and it took me honestly about 3 watches to comprehend the scope of his actions. However, when you make good not plagiarized content, people are much more likely to watch it over and over and remember every detail. Or who knows maybe his memory issues are that bad that he couldn’t remember all the evidence against him
there is a pattern for some big youtubers. It's apologize but make sure you know it isn't really your fault, then later downplay what you did, then make it sound like pointless drama, then finally months later start telling your fans it's all lies. It has worked a stupid amount of time for people.
@@Lazrael32 very good point!! It might also be a tactic to avoid more criticism from people outside of a creator’s direct fanbase. After a creator returns from a controversy we’ve seen how the first videos get a lot of scrutiny and coverage but then the only people who stick around longterm are the fans. It might be an attempt to get the best of both worlds: seem apologetic to people outside your fanbase while absolving yourself of responsibility to your fans. Very similar to how James Charles has gone back on his first apology video where he admitted to sexting minors.
@@Lazrael32 Yeah, it's the "Nothing happened, if something did happen, I did nothing wrong, if I did something wrong it was an accident." type of thing. Which shows that he doesn't feel sorry at all.
At no point did James ever express that he understands what good writing is. If his process is taking other people's work and then rewriting it into his own words, that is still plagiarism.
I just came from a video by a creator (BBG on youtube) who was once plagiarized by James and, after calling him out, was attacked by his fans. He pointed out that James is trying to rewrite history which I absolutely agree with. He's begrudgingly admitting he plagiarized now but gave ~10 separate excuses as to why, all of which are to elicit sympathy and income later down the line. Hence why he isn't deleting the channel and starting from 0 subs/views. Hence why he's deleting comments like Todd in the Shadows'. Hence why he monetized everything INCLDUGING THE APOLOGY. Once a liar and a fraud, always a liar and a fraud.
Also I woke up from a nap to HBomberguy's video playing and it was at the misinformation part. It's so much worse than I remembered and so much worse than James presents it. He literally stops plagiarizing to give his opinions (usually woman hating opinions) or to give "accounts" completely opposite to the source he was plagiarizing. I think we need to keep rewatching the original video to not forget just how egregious this whole situation is lol...
Love how James was like "I reached out to people i plagiarized from and they were so nice!" And BBG was like "he hasn't reached out to me and no I am not nice."
“Videos we didnt want to make” this is why most creators either post polls of video ideas they have, or ask for suggestions and make polls of the video ideas They Like. It is so easy to get content YOU LIKE from your fans 🙄
That "I have a bad memory" part is so confusing to me. You don't need a good memory to literally paste a link alongside the text you just pasted from somewhere else. Even just that is enough to show your future self that you should be citing things. Or like me at my most academically lazy: you can paste/copy in text in a particular colour (red, purple) and then once you've heavily edited/reworded it/picked out quotes and attributed them then you change the text to black again. Why would someone who knows they have memory issues go out of their way to rely on their own memory like that? Sounds like a concerted effort not to do their own work.
EXACTLY. like you said, if he knows it’s a problem why isn’t he taking steps to help himself out? i am very scatterbrained but ive figured out methods to keep content organized and i’m still a sophomore at uni. you’d think a grown man would have figured out a decent system by now.
He very good at remembering dates and particular events that happened throughout his life however 🤔 just not the one specific thing that he’s gotten in trouble for.
Is you noticed he didn't address the misogyny at all. As I'm aware he even made a jab at women. Talking about he didn't just pop a bunch of pills. Which is typically a method used by women. I saw this pointed out by someone else in another comment section. And I felt it was weird on his part. He seems so hateful towards women. It's odd to me.
woah i didn’t even put that together… it was very jarring of him to specify a method he *didn’t* try, but it makes a lot more sense through the lens of distancing himself from those “dramatic straight white women” he hates so much
The point regarding plagiarism is SO good! You can't use most or all of someone else's work, even if quoted, because it's STILL NOT YOUR WORK. In education the point is very much to demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter by using sources to support YOUR thoughts and YOUR thesis.
There’s so much to unpack with his response but I still can’t get over how he’s make it out to be hbomberguy’s responsibility to give out the money from his James’s video? Why should his team be the ones to do that? He even pulls some manipulative bs when he says “if they don’t accept it” like he’s a horrible person if he doesn’t play along with his garbage. James is the one who stole it, it’s his job to get in contact with the people he stole from, his job to find out what they want done with their stolen money, do right by them, and leave the internet. No one should be doing that but James and James some Edit: also he’s staring into my soul…
I will say that I think a lot of people might justifiably be skeptical of James being in control of any renumeration procedure or organization. He stole their work in the first place. I don’t trust him to be in charge of fairly and transparently repaying them.
Blaming memory issues and adhd for stealing from people is still insane to me. If those are problems you're aware of then either take steps to mitigate it's effects on your work or don't make content like this. He's so bad at deflecting it hurts
Literally the first thing my therapist told me when giving me my adhd diagnosis was "dont use this as an excuse"... harsh maybe but something jimmy boy should have been told
I feel like we’re at the point where, whenever UA-camrs make an apology for something heinous, they CANNOT give insight into their life experiences or tragic back stories or even their state of mind at the time. Whenever these get brought up, no one believes it anymore. Audiences see it as a plea for sympathy now, and it always backfires. Especially once your integrity has been called into question.
I have god awful memory issues due to years long untreated depression. My short term memory is none-existant and I have ADHD I have to work extra hard to learn anything. And I have worked out ways to deal with it. Sure never dealt with the issue of feeling a need to steal other's words and be sneaky about it. So yea James. I am calling that a bullsh excuse! Because thats what it is!
That gets me too!!!! Like, Hbomberguy literally laid out in HIGHLIGHTED TEXT a good handful of people that had their work stolen. James couldn't even be bothered to try and read it all. As someone that has memory issues sometimes- I write things down. Color code it. It's no excuse at this point, especially while he's trying to make 'amends'.
why is he always downplaying his actions 😭😭😭 that’s not an apology or taking accountability. you fucked up just own it and go offline lmao!! this is the consequences to your own actions
2:06 That sounds like something a grade school student would say. "Teacher, yes I copied someone's work. But it was because I didn't want to do the assignment."
One thing that bothers me is the fundraiser stuff. Because you can't fundraise one idea and go "well, I'm gonna try to make another movie" like the people donated to the original movie idea, not the new movie. if you are going to make a new movie refund peoples money and start a new fundraiser with the new movie idea. Because maybe those people wouldn't have donated if he had pitched the new movie script or idea. To me it's weird. Just my take.
I'm pretty sure they promised several different movies, one after the other, and none of them were even written, let alone made. He's all "but it's not a grift [teardrop]" and like, show us something then, anything! He has made nothing, and still kept the money. That's a grift.
I think a thing that I found disgusting that I haven’t heard many people discussing is that he was still throwing Nick under the bus, though more subtly now. And I found something strange in the story about Nick suddenly moving away. It seems like there was more there. Of course I'm speculating but I can imagine that living with James that long would be toxic in many ways. He also kind of almost says the relationship was codependent but catches himself. But yeah, the main thing is that the reality is that James has nothing of substance to offer. It is illustrated by his inability to grasp the situation or even understand what he did wrong. He needs to just stop. Do something else. It's a false dichotomy that the only 2 options are manual labor or youtube.
The way he was, like, following Nick was place to place was so strange. Partway through his description I was there going HE CLEARLY WANTS YOU TO LEAVE HIM ALONE
the gall of naming that video "a measured response". thats been hbomberguys brand for 8 years now lmao. its not quirky when youve actually plagiarized james hbgxdhbnghb
The moment you pull out: Im sorry you feel/felt that way, Im out. Its a phrase that says loud and clear you arent actually sorry. Youre sorry you got caught and had to deal with the consequences of being caught.
James got a business degree, and business schools only exist because of donations from rich people in an attempt to give the air of legitimacy to "business studies" (i.e. applied psychopathy.) Like, what actual research is done in business schools? How to most efficiently screw over your workers for shareholder profits?
aah i'm so glad you covered this! i can't believe the lack of self-awareness he seemingly has in regards to this whole situation! he can't even grasp that plagiarism isn't the whole issue - it's the misinformation, the misogyny and transphobia, the constant lying, and conning people into believing him to be something he is not for the sake of monetary gain. how does he not see this? as a person with a degree in business administration and a self-titled 'marketing expert', how are you unable to see that your audience is upset at you for scamming them out of their money?
Those apology emails are so disingenuous because Sommerton would be using those people's work in order to rebuild his channel. They would be lending their legitimacy to his attempts to scurry back into the limelight. It's disgraceful.
In order to be disgraced, you need the capacity for shame. James seems to be the living embodiment of Devine's character from Pink Flamingos. He should start dressing in garish drag and really lean in to the bit. He will do almost anything else for money, so I'm not sure what is stopping him. I hope I didn't accidentally speak something into existence. I hope Canadians are different enough from Americans to prevent that arc from happening in real life.
This video is genuinely informative, didn’t know canadians leant citation that young. I had personally bought James’s epilepsy excuse but you actually explained it very well, he was too selective for it to be genuinely an acute symptom of any health condition. I understand he’s probably in big trouble because he moved to an expensive city but i think he needs to realize he won’t get his career back, maybe it’s time to move to his hometown. If he genuinely is facing discrimination for being epileptic then his attitude towards youtube is even more frustrating, he made it big and instead of being by grateful he went on to use his power to steal from his community and give those who caught him a hard time. It’s crazy how he still tried to use the “i was getting harassed” excuse after Harry’s video.
His "brain damage" excuse makes me so fucking mad. I had a brain tumor that I didn't know about until it was almost too late and it left me with a seizure disorder, memory problems, and nerve damage in my right hand. These issues are my own, so I take steps so I can live my life as independently as I can. I keep a detailed calendar so I don't miss events and meetings, I keep to do lists written down so I don't forget to do something, I bought accessibility devices for my right hand (jar opener, lighter cups and straws, toothbrush grip, etc). I did what I could to do to mitigate my disabilities. But James would just "forget" that he copied and pasted entire blocks of text from other people? He could have highlighted that text in the document so he knew it was not his words, he could have changed the font so he could use it as a quote, he could have done something right away so that he wouldn't just "forget". That is an absolutely wild way to write an essay with sources by the way. No university would encourage that kind of writing process, he absolutely did that because he was going to plagiarize. Like his apology was excuses, excuses, excuses that pissed off so many different groups of people. So many of us are struggling and yet we somehow manage to not scam people and rip off the work of marginalized groups. If he wanted to do his videos right, he would have found a way. There was obviously a market for them, he just had to put in the work, which he never wanted to do.
My sister also had a brain tumor that left her with a seizure disorder, memory problems, and vision issues, and she's an academic librarian. The gall of Somerton to use those to excuse plagiarism is wild - those are challenges, for sure, but having challenges that make it difficult to do things the right way doesn't mean he gets to skip doing things the right way.
I almost left a comment on that video but I realized my voice will mean nothing and all I’m doing is giving him more engagement. He needs to stop this though. His weaponization of his mental health is disgusting, and if it’s so fragile he needs to stop trying to come back into a space where most people are going to be openly hostile to him. He has taken responsibility for nothing, just excuse after excuse that don’t even pass the smell test. And for god’s sake, he needs to leave Jessie the fuck alone!
Like why didn't he just get a part time job if they needed more cash flow? working 20-30 hrs a week? Like get a marketing job for anything else or do data entry if you can't lift anything heavy? Or work with a temp job agency that can help you navigate jobs with your disability in mind.
I went to a community college in the mid 90’s, and English was a requirement for all students to take in their first year. We learned all about plagiarism, proper citation, and bibliography. I can’t imagine James Somerton didn’t have to take a similar course.
The funniest thing to me is , he keeps addressing the plagiarism allegations, but still isn’t addressing The Todd in Shadows video that proved that everything that wasn’t plagiarized was just made up.
Omg I forgot about that. I watched Todd’s vid in full but it was a while ago and I watched so much for the hbomb vid that I didn’t even think to reference it again here
I studied art/medianfor 2 years, fine art for 1 year and illustration/graphics for 2...every single year we got given a crash course on plagerism. I do not understand how he can talk about his business studies/time in film school yet not know he was plagiarising people's work? In regards to his supposed memory issues, he sure does cherry pick when it affects his work and doesn't
It seems clear to me that if he wants to regain any credibility, he needs to be clear about how he’s going to help repay the people whose work he stole. The idea that he can somehow atone in exposure or promotion is absurd. I also get the impression that he’s trying to use his invocation of his race and gender identity as both cause and excuse. By which I mean it sounded to my white, cisgender ear as if he was saying, “I realize I drowned out a lot of other voices because I’m white and cis” and “All work by white cisgender people drowns out other people’s voices.”
He should just do features on the writers he plagiarized if he insists on still making videos, then send the artist the ad revenue. Like, EVERY writer.
Right now, I seriously question everything he claims. Until I see transcripts from university, I don't believe he actually went to college. I don't believe his health issues. Lots of us have health issues and mental issues and are still able to make a living. I have a MA and write archaeological technical reports for a living. However, I'm able to submit them to my state monthly (for almost 20 years), yet still don't plagiarize. I understand citation and how to incorporate other's works into my original concepts to back it up. He needs to crawl back to NS and flip burgers.
not only was bringing up the "last girl" trope kind of irrelevant, I just can't help but think that, like, if it's such a popular trope wouldn't it be unoriginal anyway? if you're expecting people to realize it's a trope wouldn't you want to make something more creative and original? plus he literally names the film after the trope itself, it's like naming a movie "twist ending"
youd think since James was like "I'll pay the people that I've stolen from back" he wouldn't go the "pay but with EXPOSURE" route 😭 how pathetic can he get dude
Sooooo... Ive been plagerised before and it sucks. Seeing something you've worked so hard on. Something that was your mind and opinions chopped up to bits and not credited really hurts. I wrote a opinion peice and sent it to a local Newspaper.. because sometimes they'll publish something if they like it. They totally chopped it up and did things like make it look like the cheif of police was saying things I was saying or thinking. Like doing the " quotes ". The way they chopped it was all very bizzare. And they didn't credit me at all. The only reference to me was "a citizen" they used most of my words..
I have been following this James Somerton Nonsense since H.BomberGuy's Video... And I cannot believe he is still pulling this nonsense!!! At 8:10 when he tries desperately to make yet another excuse... It angers me! NO ONE can be a voice of an entire community, That simple... Every single person is an individual and their life experiences will be their own... No two people have the exact same life experience! People can offer an overview of issues... But no one can speak for a community as a whole! So tis is just another laboured excuse... What really winds me up with his video though is his "Epilepsy" Claims... Being fair, I am in the UK... Maybe it is harder stateside, I dont know... But I was married for 8 years (Together 14 years in total) to my wife who was Epileptic ... As such I know a lot about the condition! And yes, you can get memory loss, stuff like that, and I am in no position to say that he does not have epilepsy, I never will say that! But he claims he was unable to work because of the diagnosis and to that I just want to shout BS! Epilepsy is a "Spectrum" Disorder... My Wife suffered what are called "Petit Mal" Seizures - Short, momentary lapses of consciousness, The body is awake but the brain is offline... Where she would stand or sit still and motionless for a few seconds! Then as time progressed, She woudl have "Grand Mal" Seizures IN THE NIGHT as she slept... That is not true of every epileptic, Some have Grand Mal Seizures at any time... Some can have so many that they genuinely are unable to work... Others may have one every 6 months! Some have nothing but Petit Mal... And in all cases, working with Computers and screens is DISCOURAGED as it can trigger seizures - Even in people who are not "Photo Sensitive Epileptic's" - Again, My wife is a perfect example... She worked in a Call Centre and during that time her "Grand Mal" seizures triggered more often, even though she was NOT a Photo Sensitive epileptic! Epileptics CAN WORK in any industry... Dependent on the severity of their epilepsy! Again, it just came across as excuse after excuse after excuse... And as so many others have pointed out - HE IS STILL PLAGERISING! A Measured response was also the title of H.Bomber Guys Video!!!
canadian here, did an undergrad in bachelors of business admin 2013-2018 or so, so he's only a few years ahead of me. Can definitely confirm you HAVE a mandatory tutorial course that drills plagiarism, its specifics, and how not to fuck that up. Guy either failed the class or just threw the whole thing out.
Telos is the name of the "film production company" James said he was creating. As for the Final Girls thing... there's more than one book with that title and it's easy for him to say his movie was different and "read the book" when his movie DOESN'T EXIST and he's had now MONTHS to come up with a plot for the movie that doesn't exist that isn't just copy pasted. I've not seen proof of this so called script or when it was written.
I absolutely love this format and your detailed insight! An instant subscribe from me, it'll be fun to see what other wild topics the internet throws at you to break down next
"Hey im not the bad guy, this insurance company is way worse !" So hes still getting his "fans" to go after someone else. Yes james it sucks bad when you pay someone for a product for the future that never happens.
something that i also found... strange, i guess, was the other excuse about putting the videos back up. saying his co-writer nick deserves to has his work up so that 'nick can have work to point to for future job/employers' (words to that effect). why would nick want to be associated with work so mired in plagerism? surely that would be detrimental to nick? the whole thing was a mess. no real apology, no real ownership of mistakes, excuses left and right, then a new patreon? gross.
Honestly, going to uni means nothing in regard to whether people know how to write academically because I encountered so many people at uni that didn't value the process or integrity involved in writing so they'd practically plagiarize their papers. I think a lot of people don't value other's intellectual property enough to feel bad about stealing it. Or they think because people put it out there that it's supposed to be used however they want. And when people call them out, they make excuses to convince others (and maybe themselves) that it was justified. Also I know the job market is hard, but its not as if he has no other options or resources available to him.
Saying you contacted the person who's video on you has been watched some 17 million times by now BUT THEN NOT CONTACTING SAID PERSON is insanely pretentious. I mean every single lie from now on will be under massive scrutiny, do you seriously think something like this might just slip by? Don't say things just because saying it might make you look better, IT WILL NOT. That honestly goes with the entire "response" of his. There are PR stumbles that necessitate decent explanation, this was not that situation. Just say less. Don't start listing virtuous acts you didn't do or excusing things with memory, mental health, family stuff, being pushed into it by fans, not meaning to... Everything he says keeps adding to the inconsistensies, trying to give excuses or explain in any manner not in line with his previous behavior can _only_ make it worse. By now he's just digging himself ever the deeper hole to fall. On some level I feel for him just slightly slightly. I said elsewhere already that I do think he's probably genuine in intent to a degree, is expressing realizations about these qualities pushing him to behave like he has, but can't seem to help but keep talking. I can't say for sure and hesitate extending empathetic feelings to him that I can't be sure are proportional and based on truth. I also understand wanting to share the personal side of things to any sympathetic followers/fans he has left, but it doesn't work like that when the rest of the video is formed like an apology and a promise of correctional responsibilities he's assigning himself. Why not just leave anything other than the direct apology and the promises that you're really going to keep to that patreon? Can't even beging with the Jessie related tangent. Like she said in her video, it kinda feels like a misdirection and yet more airing out things that didn't need to be in here.
Honestly started rolling on the floor laughing when he said he was gonna give the video's revenue to hbomb's team. That's so wild. Bro just wanted one last grab of cash, since the publicity he got from being exposed was insane. And putting some of his videos back up too, oh man. I've never seen anything more moustache-twirling levels of selfish and malicious
It’s actually kind of wild that after releasing yet another apology video that hasn’t even had a week to be soaked up by the public he’s already making new content
All amazing points made in this video! This has to be one of the best analysis of his apology that I've seen. I'm not a neurologist, but I do have epilepsy and regularly work with other people with epilepsy; that's not how memory issues due to epilepsy work. I empathize with his struggles with memory, cognition, and discrimination 1000%, but never does that mean looking at a large chunk of text and being unable to recognize what is your work and what is not. It sucks that he would use this condition as an excuse for stealing and think he could get away with lying (again). I wish him well, and I hate to see the vitriol and harmful messages he has been met with. I hope he takes care of his mental health as he takes actual accountability for his actions.
You used the word "wild". I have used that a couple of times myself describing this guy. That he doesn't see how wild his actions continue to be is genuinely worrying. Either that or he's just a Machiavellian outright evil villain. Which I don't think he is. I think he's just caught up to his own bollocks to the point that he thinks he's somehow a victim of his own crimes.
There are so many things in his “apology” that bug me but I think it can be summarised with a story from my own life. I have a brain tumour, it’s inoperable but slow growing. It affects my life in many ways, including fatigue, headaches and pretty bad memory issues. I can’t be traditionally employed because oftentimes my body doesn’t work properly and I can’t get out of bed. During my final year of my undergraduate degree, my mom got cancer and had to have surgery, radiotherapy and a fair amount of assistance and support. This was very stressful and did cause some financial issues. However, I graduated with a first-class bachelors honours degree, in Social Sciences (the field James purports to deal in) and never ONCE accidentally or deliberately plagiarised someone in my work. His excuses are just that, excuses. Life will never put a g&n to your head and force you to hurt another person, you make the choice yourself.
it's really simple what's wrong with Somerton's video. It is not a real apology but rather a set of excuses: "I'm sorry for plagerizing but I have memory loss." "I'm sorry for plagerizing but I was under financial pressure." "I'm sorry for plagerizing but my mom had cancer." "I'msorry for plagerizing but I'm a Cis White man." He keeps coming up with excuse after excuse aboout why he did it, seeking sympathy and acceptance. Instead he should ACTUALLY apologize and accept RESPONSIILITY: "what I did was wrong, there is no excuse, I am very sorry for what I did." THAT'S what an apoligy is. Not his ever growing list of excuses that border on justification. And two: the rest of the video is an attempt to play the victim and garner sympathy. He says 'poor me, poor me' figuring people will feel sorry for him and forget the shit he did. This is manipulation. "I had an injury as a child." "My mom had cancer and died." "i dont blame people if they dont want to talk to me." "I tred to self harm." " People tried to killl me." All of this, whether true or not, is meant for us to feel sorry for him, and NONE of it belongs in an apology video, where he should be adressing what HE did to others. Excuses and emotional manipulation. That's what's wrong with his video. Simple.
This is a really tiny, stupid detail to get hung up on, but the epilepsy excuse just... really pisses me off for some reason. He claims his epilepsy is so bad that it interrupts his mind and life enough that he cannot hold down a 'normal' job, and even that he was dismissed from a job when they found out about his diagnosis. I just... there are medications for epilepsy! Really, really good ones, that allow most epileptics to live a completely normal life! And for those who are severe enough that medications won't ever be enough? That's called medical disability, and they probably aren't even allowed to own a driver's license. Are you allowed to drive, James? Also if you were FIRED for a MEDICAL CONDITION, you don't need to pump out youtube videos. You need to be focusing on getting one helluva bag from your wrongful termination lawsuit! It just... it pisses me off because it's something so easy to see as bullshit when you think about it critically for a second.
It's interesting how James says he copy and pasted and then forgot the parts he'd copy-pasted, and yet plenty of the examples shown in Hbomb's video were obviously edited at least somewhat to try and obscure the original source. Eg. That whole section analyzing Mulan.
All of his excuses immediately fall apart by remembering all the underhanded tricks he (and the others) used to escape plagiarism accusations. Blatent lying about the plagiarism, deleting videos before accusations came out, using his audience to silence his accusers, lies and half-truths to his audience when they'd ask about what happened, hiding or photoshopping evidence. A lier knows the lie they told, and James KNOWS exactly what he's done which is why he never brings any of that up. This was a major point in Hbombs video that people don't mention. These people are LIERS and theives. Regardless of the excuse, they knew exactly what they were doing, and took great lengths to hide it, making their "excuses" invalid. Adhd (which i have) doesn't make you a disingenuous lier. If i had done a fraction of the things he did in academia, it would've been grounds for expulsion and he should know that too.
This whole thing just gets blown out of the water as soon as he blames it on ADHD, because PRESUMABLY he enjoys writing and you'd think if anything it would be a hyperfixation since he claims to love making videos, so in most cases he should remember MORE about his writing process, not less. He should be remembering minute details down to the music he listened to while writing it, and sure he might forget it when he's not looking at the script, but there's zero chance he wouldn't remember which parts were plagiarized (and keep in mind we KNOW he altered the quotes specifically to avoid seeming to have copied them so we have intentionality) as soon as he re-read his script he would have known 100% which parts were his original thoughts and which were plagiarized in detail.
Mesmerizing lip gloss, Squish Queen. Has anyone heard or seen JS apologize to Nick yet? It was long, but I came here after What Therapy?'s reaction video, which was pretty good, tried very hard to be balanced & give him grace while being disappointed in the overall quality of the apology & the wrongheadedness within the rest of his apology video ["nopology" video?].
I find it bullshit that he didn’t know how to site sources/give credits/ citations… This mf graduated from MSVU no way he didn’t know I’m from Bahrain, I went to a small private university where I studied interior design and they STILL sat us down and taught us how to site sources/credit properly in English
"i'm sorry you feel that way" - overplayed, old, gaslighty
"here's what i did. i'm sorry. here's the steps i'm taking to make sure it doesn't happen again" - revolutionary, never seen before, iconic
the virgin james somerton vs the chad chuggaaconroy
I'm not 100% in the loop on what's going on but my biggest problem was him talking about his past and movie ideas. That should've been a seperate video from the apology.
I think James underestimates how many people have had head trauma and adhd. I got a pretty severe head trauma in school long term memory I have is shot but I know not to plagurize people. If you're taking that much from other people, do you really have something to say on the topic? Thank you for going over this! I didn't want to watch his video directly.
I feel like everyones overlooking the most important offense - why is he so close to me!?! I feel like he's coming through the screen lmao
Citing sources is at the very least taught in highschool. And even if you forgot how to do it, there are videos like this one that cite other sources in their video. Sommerton just doesn't have integrity and doesn't care.
"I think this is the last of this situation" and then james faked a suicide attempt, blamed hbomberguy and nick for it on sock puppet accounts that were blatantly and obviously him, and then immediately posted hole. in case it wasn't obvious how much he genuinely doesn't care about what he did. hopefully that was the last of it for real though, it took me this long to watch this video just because i got so tired of his bullshit
Hi enjoying your video's. Landed here via the mamamax and was nice have a non-blokybloke approach. You mentioned getting book txt to screen being a problem/faff. I've been using OCR app/devices and thought might be useful, quickly give you the text in a digital format.
I don’t know what that is but I will look into it
@@MikasRhetoric sorry, I put too much trust in acronyms. App extracts text from a photo/scan of book page, and converts it into a word doc.
stands for "optical character recognition"!
James Charles did nothing wrong (at least as far as those original tati Westbrook allegations go) watch big Joel's the existential horror of tati Westbrook
Can't wait for A Measured Response: A Measured Response.
Omg 😭😭😭 that will be a serve tho I feel it
The best part about that for me would just be getting two Hbomb videos in the same year!
Nah. A Measured Response: A Measured Response: A Measured Response is a better response
Hate to be a killjoy, but I highly doubt that will happen. HBomb will perhaps comment on socials on some practical stuff like answering when being asked about James contacting him. But he was already apologetic about contributing to the drama mill by making the video in the first place, which, no matter how constructive and called for, all of this debriefing discourse process is contrubuting to like it or not. I mean I'd also be super happy about an extra video on the aftermath and I think keeping people updated about anything in his end would be a reason enough to make one. But I'm not keeping my hopes up after how he explicitly stated in the video about not wishing to continue this as any sort of beef between them.
A Measured Response: Remeasured & Reloaded
i would have never thought "i plagiarized cause my mom has cancer" would have ever be used
Yeah that threw me for a loop
As someone who got the same kind of breast cancer my mom had, I will now think of my cancer not as a present from Mom’s genetics, but the time I plagiarized Mom’s genetic code.
@@mst3kharrisI’m so sorry about your cancer, but this joke was INCREDIBLE
"your honor please understand, I simply had no choice but to rob that bank, my mom died of cancer"
@@Gingersnaps1978 I have laughed my way through my entire cancer experience and I plan on continuing!
It's amazing how James gets annoyed about people thinking that he'd plagerized his movie idea. Dude... You did a comically evil amount of plagerism. You don't get to be pissy about people thinking all your ideas are copied.
He doesn't seem to grasp this is what happens when you are proven to be a liar, EVERYTHING you say from that point onward is going to be under a microscope.
Also, who says that was even the original plot idea for the movie? We only know what he tells us which can't be trusted. So he could have plagiarized the plot of another movie and then literally just come up with a different plot to describe for this video. He could have said it was about unicorns or something. The script is probably only on his computer. Nick might know what the plot is because he supposedly read it, but Nick hasn't said anything and probably isn't watching Jame's videos so catch him in the lie. So James describing the supposed plot of this movie means nothing.
@@abbyrudy167Exactly. Somerton did not put any actual work into any of the movies. He might have written a script or something, but, writing is really hard but also literally the easiest part of making a movie.
@@abbyrudy167I'm just saying look up Final Girls (2017) By Sage Riley.. bro did swipe someone else's idea by re-directing his "haters" to a different book that was more well known....
@@abbyrudy167 Also, it's a red herring to begin with. He didn't plagiarize Final Girl Support Group because he never made anything with Final Girl. He didn't produce anything, so it's kind of a moot point whether it was derivative because it doesn't exist and never will. It's a distraction from all of the money he stole from his fans for his fake movie.
His apology was dead in the water once he tried justifying his choices instead of just apologising for each problem, acknowledging the harm and stating how is going to be better moving forward. It shouldnt be hard to give an apology.
I’ve never understood what the point of justifying things you were caught red handed doing
If you also noticed he didn't address the misogyny at all.
@@FukaiKokorohe must have forgor
@@FukaiKokorohonestly, I'm not sure he watched hbomb's video
Between the Who the Fuck Did I Marry? TikTok and the crackhead Willy Wonka thing, I hadn’t even realized he’d uploaded ANOTHER apology 😭😭
LMAO I have been avoiding that tiktok series because I can’t commit to
As a Scotsman I cannot tell you how proud I am of the Willie Wonka catastrophe. It's our best modern accomplishment. And I hear the petition to bring it back is gathering considerable steam.
@@kyletitterton you guys created a new SCP "The Uknown" the evil phantom living in Willie Wonka's choclate factory stealing the souls of children. I'll bet it'll be the most popular costume this year for halloween
@@kyletitterton I would have paid scalper money to see that in person
@@kyletittertona true piece of modern absurd surrealism 😂 , Bravo! 🙌 (I mean that lol)
He’s not sorry. He’s never going to be sorry because he thinks he’s done nothing wrong. It’s always some outside force that caused his actions, never him. He just wants everything to blow over so he can restart his gravy train. I also noticed the absence an apology for his blatant misogyny. He’s just not sorry.
He's only sorry that he got caught
Which is why he puts such a huge emphasis on simply not crediting better instead of.... Yk
Copy pasting others work lol
I thought it sounded at one point like he was saying, “Of course I plagiarized, I’m white and cisgender.” And as a white, cisgender person myself I was like, “That’s not how that works, I don’t think?”
@@mst3kharris I am also white, cis and gay yet I have never stole from anyone, and my texts had been plagiarized since I was in high school. he is just a goddamned asshole that should go to hell
@mst3kharris It's part of him trying to pass off his plagiarism as an unfortunate mistake. He ignores how long he was doing it, how he specifically worded his scripts to make it seem like he wasn't doing that, how he sought reprisal against the people he stole from and drove mass harassment their way when they accused him publicly, how he selectively cited some sources (without indicating what work was theirs) to mask just how many people he actually stole from, or anything Hbomb's video accused him of. He just hoped no one remember the specifics of that video, despite it still being up.
He presents himself in this apology video as a person, who is borderline incapable to function. He gives no examples of what steps he has taken to prevent these issues from happening again, and just expects us to believe that all of the problems wil not just come back the next time he experiences some difficult life event. When he explained how he repeatedly messed up his filmmaking projects with nothing but lack of planning, general incompetence and no filmmaking industry knowlegde, despite going to filmschool, and he still has NOTHING to show for it. No short film, no trailer, nothing. All he did with that is just explained that he should not be trusted with money. He doesn't have the skills to make a movie, short or full length.
I know, it does not make ANY sense as James tells it, but I have an alternate explanation:
It's a corporate apology, you know "i'm sorry you feel that way".
James has been caught telling untruths and plagiarizing. He went to business school. How would a business handle this?
1. Do not admit fault.
2. Disavow responsibility, so plagiarism was accidental, not deliberate. This keeps away legal trouble too.
3. Distract people, this is done with side stories about Jesse and head trauma, which have nothing to do with the issue at hand, but make him "relatable".
Its all a textbook corporate apology for when they get caught doing something terrible, and is about as sincere.
You must be right. i guess i am just baffled how badly it's not working for him, and how much worse he comes across from his explonations.@@andreaslind6338
@@andreaslind6338exactly 🙌
I’m so glad that you pointed out how nasty he was to those who were trying to hold him accountable initially- long before Harris’s video. Painting himself as some martyr for the queer community that needed to be protected from prosecution and going on the attack towards his critics, hoping his audience would rise to defend him (check) calling them homophobic when in many cases they were also part of the LGBTQIA community… it speaks to how cutthroat his behavior is with any semblance of power. Reminds me of Creepshow and Illuminaughtii with how they acted behind the scenes. And he KNEW their criticism was valid. There is no excuse for that and he should never be trusted again as far as I’m concerned. He’s already proven he will cut every corner and run over anyone who dares to get in the way of his success and profit.
The Jessie Gender thing is the perfect example too. TL;DR: She was trying to help him out bc he desperately wanted to get on Nebula and when they hadn’t offered him a spot yet, he started trying to create the narrative that it was a platform to prop up cis white men with no room for LGBTQIA creators in spite of the fact that many of the creators on that platform are from diverse backgrounds and many were focused on LGBTQIA content. When some of those creators spoke out to say ‘hey- what about me? I’m on Nebula’ he cried victim and claimed he was being dogpiled. Jessie spoke out to say that no one should be attacking him and he responded saying that it was her audience that was sending death threats.
I don’t believe it. Jessie’s content is incredibly emotionally intelligent and empathetic- always. I think he targeted her because he knew she would do the most to tamper things down for him and he’d be able to tarnish her reputation in the process. When she reached out to see what was going on- he said the police instructed him not to speak with her. Very manipulative. Just like all the emotional manipulation (poor me) he used in the past two apologies trying to distract from the primary issue. And I think the reason she is the only one who received a personal apology is because he wanted to appeal to her to help him out of the shitstorm he created for himself. Luckily, she seems to see through that and want nothing else to do with him.
As for his return, one word comes to mind… NOPE!👎
Becky Albertalli very kindly informed him that 1) she's not straight, and 2) the kind of language James used in his video was why she was forced to come out before she was ready. She pointed out that the same thing happened to Casey McQuiston and Alice Osman (who James misgendered). He turned that into "being attacked" and continued to claim that "straight white woman" (none of the above are straight, two are NB) are the problem.
It’s baffling to me that he expects people to believe that he couldn’t differentiate his own writing style and ideas from published writing. No sir….
THATS ALSO TRUE
Especially after apparently graduating from university and film school 🤨
James, looking at a chunk of text in a completely different style, relating the writer's firsthand lived trans experience to the topic: "Yeah I probably wrote that bit"
Every text processor app has a changes history that you can check to see how every word on a document was introduced in it. He has no excuse; even if he is unable to differenciate his own writing style and ideas; given how much he has plagiarized is possible that he doesn't even recognise his own voice anymore. /s
Actually that’s itself not that unbelievable, like sometimes I’ve added sentences into notes for academic essays that I’ve planned to paraphrase (or quote, but markers generally prefer paraphrasing) (and OBVIOUSLY cite directly after) but not remember when putting it all together whether I’ve ALREADY done the paraphrasing or whether those are the author’s words. People tend to sound similar when writing in an academic style.
What’s UNBELIEVABLE is copying an entire article into your notes with minimal to no changes (apart from meticulously removing any references to the actual author ofc) and trying to pass it off as your own work because you… “forgot” you didn’t actually write the whole thing??
I don’t think James expected so many people to remember the allegations because Hbomberguy’s video is quite long and it took me honestly about 3 watches to comprehend the scope of his actions. However, when you make good not plagiarized content, people are much more likely to watch it over and over and remember every detail. Or who knows maybe his memory issues are that bad that he couldn’t remember all the evidence against him
there is a pattern for some big youtubers. It's apologize but make sure you know it isn't really your fault, then later downplay what you did, then make it sound like pointless drama, then finally months later start telling your fans it's all lies. It has worked a stupid amount of time for people.
@@Lazrael32 very good point!! It might also be a tactic to avoid more criticism from people outside of a creator’s direct fanbase. After a creator returns from a controversy we’ve seen how the first videos get a lot of scrutiny and coverage but then the only people who stick around longterm are the fans. It might be an attempt to get the best of both worlds: seem apologetic to people outside your fanbase while absolving yourself of responsibility to your fans. Very similar to how James Charles has gone back on his first apology video where he admitted to sexting minors.
@@Lazrael32Textbook Colleen Ballinger play
@@Lazrael32 Yeah, it's the "Nothing happened, if something did happen, I did nothing wrong, if I did something wrong it was an accident." type of thing. Which shows that he doesn't feel sorry at all.
At no point did James ever express that he understands what good writing is. If his process is taking other people's work and then rewriting it into his own words, that is still plagiarism.
I just came from a video by a creator (BBG on youtube) who was once plagiarized by James and, after calling him out, was attacked by his fans. He pointed out that James is trying to rewrite history which I absolutely agree with.
He's begrudgingly admitting he plagiarized now but gave ~10 separate excuses as to why, all of which are to elicit sympathy and income later down the line. Hence why he isn't deleting the channel and starting from 0 subs/views. Hence why he's deleting comments like Todd in the Shadows'. Hence why he monetized everything INCLDUGING THE APOLOGY. Once a liar and a fraud, always a liar and a fraud.
Also I woke up from a nap to HBomberguy's video playing and it was at the misinformation part. It's so much worse than I remembered and so much worse than James presents it. He literally stops plagiarizing to give his opinions (usually woman hating opinions) or to give "accounts" completely opposite to the source he was plagiarizing.
I think we need to keep rewatching the original video to not forget just how egregious this whole situation is lol...
Love how James was like "I reached out to people i plagiarized from and they were so nice!" And BBG was like "he hasn't reached out to me and no I am not nice."
“Videos we didnt want to make” this is why most creators either post polls of video ideas they have, or ask for suggestions and make polls of the video ideas They Like. It is so easy to get content YOU LIKE from your fans 🙄
Yup that’s what I do
That "I have a bad memory" part is so confusing to me. You don't need a good memory to literally paste a link alongside the text you just pasted from somewhere else. Even just that is enough to show your future self that you should be citing things. Or like me at my most academically lazy: you can paste/copy in text in a particular colour (red, purple) and then once you've heavily edited/reworded it/picked out quotes and attributed them then you change the text to black again. Why would someone who knows they have memory issues go out of their way to rely on their own memory like that? Sounds like a concerted effort not to do their own work.
Also you can highlight on a google doc like??
This is also beside the fact that he shouldn't have just... Copy pasted so much in the first place
EXACTLY. like you said, if he knows it’s a problem why isn’t he taking steps to help himself out? i am very scatterbrained but ive figured out methods to keep content organized and i’m still a sophomore at uni. you’d think a grown man would have figured out a decent system by now.
He very good at remembering dates and particular events that happened throughout his life however 🤔 just not the one specific thing that he’s gotten in trouble for.
Is you noticed he didn't address the misogyny at all. As I'm aware he even made a jab at women. Talking about he didn't just pop a bunch of pills. Which is typically a method used by women. I saw this pointed out by someone else in another comment section. And I felt it was weird on his part.
He seems so hateful towards women. It's odd to me.
woah i didn’t even put that together… it was very jarring of him to specify a method he *didn’t* try, but it makes a lot more sense through the lens of distancing himself from those “dramatic straight white women” he hates so much
The point regarding plagiarism is SO good! You can't use most or all of someone else's work, even if quoted, because it's STILL NOT YOUR WORK. In education the point is very much to demonstrate your understanding of the subject matter by using sources to support YOUR thoughts and YOUR thesis.
He dodges that concept all the time and it’s so weird!!
Yep and only a certain percentage of your entire written essay can be quoted content from sources.
There’s so much to unpack with his response but I still can’t get over how he’s make it out to be hbomberguy’s responsibility to give out the money from his James’s video? Why should his team be the ones to do that? He even pulls some manipulative bs when he says “if they don’t accept it” like he’s a horrible person if he doesn’t play along with his garbage. James is the one who stole it, it’s his job to get in contact with the people he stole from, his job to find out what they want done with their stolen money, do right by them, and leave the internet. No one should be doing that but James and James some
Edit: also he’s staring into my soul…
I will say that I think a lot of people might justifiably be skeptical of James being in control of any renumeration procedure or organization. He stole their work in the first place. I don’t trust him to be in charge of fairly and transparently repaying them.
Blaming memory issues and adhd for stealing from people is still insane to me.
If those are problems you're aware of then either take steps to mitigate it's effects on your work or don't make content like this.
He's so bad at deflecting it hurts
Literally the first thing my therapist told me when giving me my adhd diagnosis was "dont use this as an excuse"... harsh maybe but something jimmy boy should have been told
Its deflection, I have similar issues TBI, high functioning autism, memory issues. But I don't plagurize people in school or in my personal writing!?
@@raistlinmajere7149 same lol
even if he does have those things, he'd be able to recognize his writing style from others 💀
I feel like we’re at the point where, whenever UA-camrs make an apology for something heinous, they CANNOT give insight into their life experiences or tragic back stories or even their state of mind at the time. Whenever these get brought up, no one believes it anymore. Audiences see it as a plea for sympathy now, and it always backfires. Especially once your integrity has been called into question.
I have god awful memory issues due to years long untreated depression. My short term memory is none-existant and I have ADHD
I have to work extra hard to learn anything.
And I have worked out ways to deal with it. Sure never dealt with the issue of feeling a need to steal other's words and be sneaky about it.
So yea James. I am calling that a bullsh excuse! Because thats what it is!
i’m in a STEM discipline and correct citations are SO important like your entire career can be ruined if you have a plagiarism stain on your record
wait...he's saying he's sending money to Hbomberguy 'to be disbursed'? He wants Hbomberguy to do the work for him??? He's not your employee James.
That gets me too!!!! Like, Hbomberguy literally laid out in HIGHLIGHTED TEXT a good handful of people that had their work stolen. James couldn't even be bothered to try and read it all. As someone that has memory issues sometimes- I write things down. Color code it. It's no excuse at this point, especially while he's trying to make 'amends'.
why is he always downplaying his actions 😭😭😭 that’s not an apology or taking accountability. you fucked up just own it and go offline lmao!! this is the consequences to your own actions
2:06 That sounds like something a grade school student would say. "Teacher, yes I copied someone's work. But it was because I didn't want to do the assignment."
One thing that bothers me is the fundraiser stuff. Because you can't fundraise one idea and go "well, I'm gonna try to make another movie" like the people donated to the original movie idea, not the new movie. if you are going to make a new movie refund peoples money and start a new fundraiser with the new movie idea. Because maybe those people wouldn't have donated if he had pitched the new movie script or idea. To me it's weird. Just my take.
I'm pretty sure they promised several different movies, one after the other, and none of them were even written, let alone made. He's all "but it's not a grift [teardrop]" and like, show us something then, anything! He has made nothing, and still kept the money. That's a grift.
I think a thing that I found disgusting that I haven’t heard many people discussing is that he was still throwing Nick under the bus, though more subtly now. And I found something strange in the story about Nick suddenly moving away. It seems like there was more there. Of course I'm speculating but I can imagine that living with James that long would be toxic in many ways. He also kind of almost says the relationship was codependent but catches himself.
But yeah, the main thing is that the reality is that James has nothing of substance to offer. It is illustrated by his inability to grasp the situation or even understand what he did wrong. He needs to just stop. Do something else. It's a false dichotomy that the only 2 options are manual labor or youtube.
Working a more traditional job would probably be good for him, maybe he will finally grow up
The way he was, like, following Nick was place to place was so strange. Partway through his description I was there going HE CLEARLY WANTS YOU TO LEAVE HIM ALONE
the gall of naming that video "a measured response". thats been hbomberguys brand for 8 years now lmao. its not quirky when youve actually plagiarized james hbgxdhbnghb
The moment you pull out: Im sorry you feel/felt that way, Im out.
Its a phrase that says loud and clear you arent actually sorry. Youre sorry you got caught and had to deal with the consequences of being caught.
James got a business degree, and business schools only exist because of donations from rich people in an attempt to give the air of legitimacy to "business studies" (i.e. applied psychopathy.) Like, what actual research is done in business schools? How to most efficiently screw over your workers for shareholder profits?
Applied psychopathy 😂😂😂 I love that 🙌
aah i'm so glad you covered this! i can't believe the lack of self-awareness he seemingly has in regards to this whole situation! he can't even grasp that plagiarism isn't the whole issue - it's the misinformation, the misogyny and transphobia, the constant lying, and conning people into believing him to be something he is not for the sake of monetary gain. how does he not see this? as a person with a degree in business administration and a self-titled 'marketing expert', how are you unable to see that your audience is upset at you for scamming them out of their money?
no, no, see, they're only mad because they "felt" scammed!
he makes me sick
Those apology emails are so disingenuous because Sommerton would be using those people's work in order to rebuild his channel. They would be lending their legitimacy to his attempts to scurry back into the limelight. It's disgraceful.
In order to be disgraced, you need the capacity for shame. James seems to be the living embodiment of Devine's character from Pink Flamingos. He should start dressing in garish drag and really lean in to the bit. He will do almost anything else for money, so I'm not sure what is stopping him.
I hope I didn't accidentally speak something into existence. I hope Canadians are different enough from Americans to prevent that arc from happening in real life.
This video is genuinely informative, didn’t know canadians leant citation that young. I had personally bought James’s epilepsy excuse but you actually explained it very well, he was too selective for it to be genuinely an acute symptom of any health condition. I understand he’s probably in big trouble because he moved to an expensive city but i think he needs to realize he won’t get his career back, maybe it’s time to move to his hometown. If he genuinely is facing discrimination for being epileptic then his attitude towards youtube is even more frustrating, he made it big and instead of being by grateful he went on to use his power to steal from his community and give those who caught him a hard time.
It’s crazy how he still tried to use the “i was getting harassed” excuse after Harry’s video.
His "brain damage" excuse makes me so fucking mad. I had a brain tumor that I didn't know about until it was almost too late and it left me with a seizure disorder, memory problems, and nerve damage in my right hand. These issues are my own, so I take steps so I can live my life as independently as I can. I keep a detailed calendar so I don't miss events and meetings, I keep to do lists written down so I don't forget to do something, I bought accessibility devices for my right hand (jar opener, lighter cups and straws, toothbrush grip, etc). I did what I could to do to mitigate my disabilities.
But James would just "forget" that he copied and pasted entire blocks of text from other people? He could have highlighted that text in the document so he knew it was not his words, he could have changed the font so he could use it as a quote, he could have done something right away so that he wouldn't just "forget". That is an absolutely wild way to write an essay with sources by the way. No university would encourage that kind of writing process, he absolutely did that because he was going to plagiarize.
Like his apology was excuses, excuses, excuses that pissed off so many different groups of people. So many of us are struggling and yet we somehow manage to not scam people and rip off the work of marginalized groups. If he wanted to do his videos right, he would have found a way. There was obviously a market for them, he just had to put in the work, which he never wanted to do.
My sister also had a brain tumor that left her with a seizure disorder, memory problems, and vision issues, and she's an academic librarian. The gall of Somerton to use those to excuse plagiarism is wild - those are challenges, for sure, but having challenges that make it difficult to do things the right way doesn't mean he gets to skip doing things the right way.
I almost left a comment on that video but I realized my voice will mean nothing and all I’m doing is giving him more engagement. He needs to stop this though. His weaponization of his mental health is disgusting, and if it’s so fragile he needs to stop trying to come back into a space where most people are going to be openly hostile to him. He has taken responsibility for nothing, just excuse after excuse that don’t even pass the smell test. And for god’s sake, he needs to leave Jessie the fuck alone!
Epileptics work “normal” jobs all the time. What is he talking about. My roommate is epileptic and worked at freaking Pita Pit.
Like why didn't he just get a part time job if they needed more cash flow? working 20-30 hrs a week? Like get a marketing job for anything else or do data entry if you can't lift anything heavy? Or work with a temp job agency that can help you navigate jobs with your disability in mind.
I went to a community college in the mid 90’s, and English was a requirement for all students to take in their first year. We learned all about plagiarism, proper citation, and bibliography. I can’t imagine James Somerton didn’t have to take a similar course.
this video is going to be interesting!! i didnt watch james's apology because i dont want to give him views but i saw jessie genders response video.
I haven’t gotten to Jessie’s response but I didn’t know it was up until one was already rendering
His video was. A LOT. I’m glad you’re making a video on it!!! I love how you go over things
I was shocked at how it got worse every time I watched it
The funniest thing to me is , he keeps addressing the plagiarism allegations, but still isn’t addressing The Todd in Shadows video that proved that everything that wasn’t plagiarized was just made up.
Omg I forgot about that. I watched Todd’s vid in full but it was a while ago and I watched so much for the hbomb vid that I didn’t even think to reference it again here
Mika showed great restraint not mentioning the "it was my dead Mom's last wish to make a movie" part. More restraint than I have lol
If you can't cite and have a university level degree I think you might have to hand your degree back. It's the main skill you learn... In year 1.
And he studied film which a big part is writing
I studied art/medianfor 2 years, fine art for 1 year and illustration/graphics for 2...every single year we got given a crash course on plagerism. I do not understand how he can talk about his business studies/time in film school yet not know he was plagiarising people's work? In regards to his supposed memory issues, he sure does cherry pick when it affects his work and doesn't
It wasn't even an apology, it was very bad fabricated storytelling that betrays his lack of understanding of a typical persons motivations and values.
My sides went into orbit when he really said he plagiarized because he has memory issues 😂
It seems clear to me that if he wants to regain any credibility, he needs to be clear about how he’s going to help repay the people whose work he stole. The idea that he can somehow atone in exposure or promotion is absurd.
I also get the impression that he’s trying to use his invocation of his race and gender identity as both cause and excuse. By which I mean it sounded to my white, cisgender ear as if he was saying, “I realize I drowned out a lot of other voices because I’m white and cis” and “All work by white cisgender people drowns out other people’s voices.”
over 50 years ago I learned in college how to properly cite and what constitute plagiarism.
I’m honestly shocked he hasn’t deleted it yet tbh
*edit* he deleted it
I instantly downloaded it because I thought he would
i mean with that monetization on, we know what his goal is 🤑
Personally I might be too cynical but the video Todd in the shadows did on James was even more damning to me.
He should just do features on the writers he plagiarized if he insists on still making videos, then send the artist the ad revenue. Like, EVERY writer.
Right now, I seriously question everything he claims. Until I see transcripts from university, I don't believe he actually went to college. I don't believe his health issues. Lots of us have health issues and mental issues and are still able to make a living. I have a MA and write archaeological technical reports for a living. However, I'm able to submit them to my state monthly (for almost 20 years), yet still don't plagiarize. I understand citation and how to incorporate other's works into my original concepts to back it up. He needs to crawl back to NS and flip burgers.
not only was bringing up the "last girl" trope kind of irrelevant, I just can't help but think that, like, if it's such a popular trope wouldn't it be unoriginal anyway? if you're expecting people to realize it's a trope wouldn't you want to make something more creative and original? plus he literally names the film after the trope itself, it's like naming a movie "twist ending"
Yeah you usually want to avoid trope or cliche in writing
youd think since James was like "I'll pay the people that I've stolen from back" he wouldn't go the "pay but with EXPOSURE" route 😭 how pathetic can he get dude
Sooooo... Ive been plagerised before and it sucks. Seeing something you've worked so hard on. Something that was your mind and opinions chopped up to bits and not credited really hurts.
I wrote a opinion peice and sent it to a local Newspaper.. because sometimes they'll publish something if they like it.
They totally chopped it up and did things like make it look like the cheif of police was saying things I was saying or thinking. Like doing the " quotes ".
The way they chopped it was all very bizzare. And they didn't credit me at all. The only reference to me was "a citizen" they used most of my words..
might as well comment for the algorithm
:)
I have been following this James Somerton Nonsense since H.BomberGuy's Video... And I cannot believe he is still pulling this nonsense!!!
At 8:10 when he tries desperately to make yet another excuse... It angers me! NO ONE can be a voice of an entire community, That simple... Every single person is an individual and their life experiences will be their own... No two people have the exact same life experience! People can offer an overview of issues... But no one can speak for a community as a whole! So tis is just another laboured excuse...
What really winds me up with his video though is his "Epilepsy" Claims... Being fair, I am in the UK... Maybe it is harder stateside, I dont know... But I was married for 8 years (Together 14 years in total) to my wife who was Epileptic ... As such I know a lot about the condition! And yes, you can get memory loss, stuff like that, and I am in no position to say that he does not have epilepsy, I never will say that!
But he claims he was unable to work because of the diagnosis and to that I just want to shout BS! Epilepsy is a "Spectrum" Disorder... My Wife suffered what are called "Petit Mal" Seizures - Short, momentary lapses of consciousness, The body is awake but the brain is offline... Where she would stand or sit still and motionless for a few seconds!
Then as time progressed, She woudl have "Grand Mal" Seizures IN THE NIGHT as she slept...
That is not true of every epileptic, Some have Grand Mal Seizures at any time... Some can have so many that they genuinely are unable to work... Others may have one every 6 months! Some have nothing but Petit Mal... And in all cases, working with Computers and screens is DISCOURAGED as it can trigger seizures - Even in people who are not "Photo Sensitive Epileptic's" - Again, My wife is a perfect example... She worked in a Call Centre and during that time her "Grand Mal" seizures triggered more often, even though she was NOT a Photo Sensitive epileptic!
Epileptics CAN WORK in any industry... Dependent on the severity of their epilepsy! Again, it just came across as excuse after excuse after excuse...
And as so many others have pointed out - HE IS STILL PLAGERISING! A Measured response was also the title of H.Bomber Guys Video!!!
canadian here, did an undergrad in bachelors of business admin 2013-2018 or so, so he's only a few years ahead of me. Can definitely confirm you HAVE a mandatory tutorial course that drills plagiarism, its specifics, and how not to fuck that up. Guy either failed the class or just threw the whole thing out.
Telos is the name of the "film production company" James said he was creating.
As for the Final Girls thing... there's more than one book with that title and it's easy for him to say his movie was different and "read the book" when his movie DOESN'T EXIST and he's had now MONTHS to come up with a plot for the movie that doesn't exist that isn't just copy pasted. I've not seen proof of this so called script or when it was written.
The fact that he ended this "apology" with a Patreon plug is wild. You can't make this stuff up.
Love your breakdowns of everything. ❤ He 100% did not take actual accountability and is manipulative.
Thank you :)
I absolutely love this format and your detailed insight! An instant subscribe from me, it'll be fun to see what other wild topics the internet throws at you to break down next
🥹🩷
His excuse for plagiarizing is literally "I forgor"
"Hey im not the bad guy, this insurance company is way worse !" So hes still getting his "fans" to go after someone else.
Yes james it sucks bad when you pay someone for a product for the future that never happens.
Thanks again for the meal accompaniment content Mika 💜 I ate a scrumdilliumptious yogurt bowl with this one
I loooove that for you bestie
something that i also found... strange, i guess, was the other excuse about putting the videos back up. saying his co-writer nick deserves to has his work up so that 'nick can have work to point to for future job/employers' (words to that effect). why would nick want to be associated with work so mired in plagerism? surely that would be detrimental to nick?
the whole thing was a mess. no real apology, no real ownership of mistakes, excuses left and right, then a new patreon? gross.
his title is copied from hbomberguys "vaccines - a measured response" video im pretty sure lmaooo
On wikitubia it said one university he claims he attended had no record of him so it's entirely possible he is new to the concept of citation.
The bad UA-camr apology is entirely too cliche at this point.
Honestly, going to uni means nothing in regard to whether people know how to write academically because I encountered so many people at uni that didn't value the process or integrity involved in writing so they'd practically plagiarize their papers. I think a lot of people don't value other's intellectual property enough to feel bad about stealing it. Or they think because people put it out there that it's supposed to be used however they want. And when people call them out, they make excuses to convince others (and maybe themselves) that it was justified. Also I know the job market is hard, but its not as if he has no other options or resources available to him.
Saying you contacted the person who's video on you has been watched some 17 million times by now BUT THEN NOT CONTACTING SAID PERSON is insanely pretentious. I mean every single lie from now on will be under massive scrutiny, do you seriously think something like this might just slip by? Don't say things just because saying it might make you look better, IT WILL NOT.
That honestly goes with the entire "response" of his. There are PR stumbles that necessitate decent explanation, this was not that situation. Just say less. Don't start listing virtuous acts you didn't do or excusing things with memory, mental health, family stuff, being pushed into it by fans, not meaning to... Everything he says keeps adding to the inconsistensies, trying to give excuses or explain in any manner not in line with his previous behavior can _only_ make it worse. By now he's just digging himself ever the deeper hole to fall.
On some level I feel for him just slightly slightly. I said elsewhere already that I do think he's probably genuine in intent to a degree, is expressing realizations about these qualities pushing him to behave like he has, but can't seem to help but keep talking. I can't say for sure and hesitate extending empathetic feelings to him that I can't be sure are proportional and based on truth. I also understand wanting to share the personal side of things to any sympathetic followers/fans he has left, but it doesn't work like that when the rest of the video is formed like an apology and a promise of correctional responsibilities he's assigning himself. Why not just leave anything other than the direct apology and the promises that you're really going to keep to that patreon?
Can't even beging with the Jessie related tangent. Like she said in her video, it kinda feels like a misdirection and yet more airing out things that didn't need to be in here.
Honestly started rolling on the floor laughing when he said he was gonna give the video's revenue to hbomb's team. That's so wild. Bro just wanted one last grab of cash, since the publicity he got from being exposed was insane. And putting some of his videos back up too, oh man. I've never seen anything more moustache-twirling levels of selfish and malicious
I learned proper citation in ART SCHOOL as an ILLUSTRATION MAJOR so James has no excuse lol
I was just thinking about him yesterday for some unknown reason. He definitely downplayed and had crazy justifications for everything he's done.
He is definitely acting like I would expect a business major to act.
Preach! Mr. Somerton is still manipulative in his Apology 2.0
It’s actually kind of wild that after releasing yet another apology video that hasn’t even had a week to be soaked up by the public he’s already making new content
Yeah he said he had videos done already in the apology
WoW... My mom had cancer too! It definitely made me start plagiarizing my papers too!
OOOF🙄
i can't imagine why anyone would still want to give him money.
PREACH
James, nobody and nothing forced you to plagiarize!
All amazing points made in this video! This has to be one of the best analysis of his apology that I've seen. I'm not a neurologist, but I do have epilepsy and regularly work with other people with epilepsy; that's not how memory issues due to epilepsy work. I empathize with his struggles with memory, cognition, and discrimination 1000%, but never does that mean looking at a large chunk of text and being unable to recognize what is your work and what is not. It sucks that he would use this condition as an excuse for stealing and think he could get away with lying (again). I wish him well, and I hate to see the vitriol and harmful messages he has been met with. I hope he takes care of his mental health as he takes actual accountability for his actions.
hope it comes out that this is a plagiarized apology from someone else because then id believe james is just a performance artist
I hope the ace couple get their trello money back from james
You used the word "wild". I have used that a couple of times myself describing this guy. That he doesn't see how wild his actions continue to be is genuinely worrying. Either that or he's just a Machiavellian outright evil villain. Which I don't think he is. I think he's just caught up to his own bollocks to the point that he thinks he's somehow a victim of his own crimes.
There are so many things in his “apology” that bug me but I think it can be summarised with a story from my own life. I have a brain tumour, it’s inoperable but slow growing. It affects my life in many ways, including fatigue, headaches and pretty bad memory issues. I can’t be traditionally employed because oftentimes my body doesn’t work properly and I can’t get out of bed. During my final year of my undergraduate degree, my mom got cancer and had to have surgery, radiotherapy and a fair amount of assistance and support. This was very stressful and did cause some financial issues. However, I graduated with a first-class bachelors honours degree, in Social Sciences (the field James purports to deal in) and never ONCE accidentally or deliberately plagiarised someone in my work. His excuses are just that, excuses. Life will never put a g&n to your head and force you to hurt another person, you make the choice yourself.
it's really simple what's wrong with Somerton's video. It is not a real apology but rather a set of excuses: "I'm sorry for plagerizing but I have memory loss." "I'm sorry for plagerizing but I was under financial pressure." "I'm sorry for plagerizing but my mom had cancer." "I'msorry for plagerizing but I'm a Cis White man."
He keeps coming up with excuse after excuse aboout why he did it, seeking sympathy and acceptance. Instead he should ACTUALLY apologize and accept RESPONSIILITY: "what I did was wrong, there is no excuse, I am very sorry for what I did." THAT'S what an apoligy is. Not his ever growing list of excuses that border on justification.
And two: the rest of the video is an attempt to play the victim and garner sympathy. He says 'poor me, poor me' figuring people will feel sorry for him and forget the shit he did. This is manipulation. "I had an injury as a child." "My mom had cancer and died." "i dont blame people if they dont want to talk to me." "I tred to self harm." " People tried to killl me." All of this, whether true or not, is meant for us to feel sorry for him, and NONE of it belongs in an apology video, where he should be adressing what HE did to others.
Excuses and emotional manipulation. That's what's wrong with his video. Simple.
thank god you covered this because god knows I'm not giving him anymore views.
You're so underrated omg. Love your detail and attention. 😊
This is a really tiny, stupid detail to get hung up on, but the epilepsy excuse just... really pisses me off for some reason.
He claims his epilepsy is so bad that it interrupts his mind and life enough that he cannot hold down a 'normal' job, and even that he was dismissed from a job when they found out about his diagnosis. I just... there are medications for epilepsy! Really, really good ones, that allow most epileptics to live a completely normal life! And for those who are severe enough that medications won't ever be enough? That's called medical disability, and they probably aren't even allowed to own a driver's license. Are you allowed to drive, James? Also if you were FIRED for a MEDICAL CONDITION, you don't need to pump out youtube videos. You need to be focusing on getting one helluva bag from your wrongful termination lawsuit!
It just... it pisses me off because it's something so easy to see as bullshit when you think about it critically for a second.
He wanted to show an intersectional range of experiences, for example, the lesbian experience of having it so much easier!
It's interesting how James says he copy and pasted and then forgot the parts he'd copy-pasted, and yet plenty of the examples shown in Hbomb's video were obviously edited at least somewhat to try and obscure the original source. Eg. That whole section analyzing Mulan.
All of his excuses immediately fall apart by remembering all the underhanded tricks he (and the others) used to escape plagiarism accusations.
Blatent lying about the plagiarism, deleting videos before accusations came out, using his audience to silence his accusers, lies and half-truths to his audience when they'd ask about what happened, hiding or photoshopping evidence.
A lier knows the lie they told, and James KNOWS exactly what he's done which is why he never brings any of that up.
This was a major point in Hbombs video that people don't mention. These people are LIERS and theives. Regardless of the excuse, they knew exactly what they were doing, and took great lengths to hide it, making their "excuses" invalid.
Adhd (which i have) doesn't make you a disingenuous lier. If i had done a fraction of the things he did in academia, it would've been grounds for expulsion and he should know that too.
This whole thing just gets blown out of the water as soon as he blames it on ADHD, because PRESUMABLY he enjoys writing and you'd think if anything it would be a hyperfixation since he claims to love making videos, so in most cases he should remember MORE about his writing process, not less. He should be remembering minute details down to the music he listened to while writing it, and sure he might forget it when he's not looking at the script, but there's zero chance he wouldn't remember which parts were plagiarized (and keep in mind we KNOW he altered the quotes specifically to avoid seeming to have copied them so we have intentionality) as soon as he re-read his script he would have known 100% which parts were his original thoughts and which were plagiarized in detail.
Mesmerizing lip gloss, Squish Queen.
Has anyone heard or seen JS apologize to Nick yet?
It was long, but I came here after What Therapy?'s reaction video, which was pretty good, tried very hard to be balanced & give him grace while being disappointed in the overall quality of the apology & the wrongheadedness within the rest of his apology video ["nopology" video?].
I find it bullshit that he didn’t know how to site sources/give credits/ citations…
This mf graduated from MSVU no way he didn’t know
I’m from Bahrain, I went to a small private university where I studied interior design and they STILL sat us down and taught us how to site sources/credit properly in English