For context for the uninitiated or those who don't want to be detective. He had upwards of 250k subscribers and was doing sponsorship deals on his videos. He had a Patreon with lots of subscribers, one of whom found out James had plagiarized from them when they watched one of his videos. He also created a fundraiser for Telos Pictures where he said he would make queer indie films. The fundraiser made 63k US. There were updates every 6 months or so. He would usually just buy clip art, make a slapped together idea for a movie, and claim that there was some issue in production. Like a movie being set in summer but it was winter.... It's all dumb.
@@TheLeftistOwl And still dropping. I didn't think to unsub because I figured the channel would just be abandoned, only bothered to unsub after the last video, and I doubt I'm the only one.
@@CatHasOpinions734 Oh, I knew he wouldn't delete the channel. I figured he'd go away for several months to a year, rebrand the channel (maybe including putting someone else on-camera) and then "start fresh" with a quarter million subscribers. It's a lot easier for a new project to gain traction with the algorithm, when you don't have to start from zero.
Sorry Rebecca, you lost me on this one. This is one of the most disrespectful things I've ever heard, and as a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community I am livid! Raccoons are intellegent, insightful, and charismatic little trash pandas that would have put more time, care, and attention into their grift that James Somerton. They Definitely aren't bad enough to be marketing majors. Slanderous and disappointing.
Raccoons are fantastic little thieves. I used to hang out with a girl who had a pet racoon (and yes, she's exactly like you're imagining) that would steal jewelry and watches and weed grinders and whatnot. Anything shiny, basically. It would stash them all behind a dresser. Very annoying, very cute though. Do not recommend as a pet whatsoever (she raised it from a baby, so that's the best case scenario and and it was still a little monster)
As a Canadian, I can confirm that reading comes much later in our education. First 5 years of school are dedicated to maple syrup production and moose wrestling. Even after that, we are only taught reading after we get our accents perfected (referred to as our Eh, B, Cs).
As a person with ADHD and memory issues I can verify this. Our diagnosis is literally limiting us to only stealing and lying. P s that was, also, a lie
At ppl thinkin like that, i think they shud show class unity; rather than to take from those who struggle like them. Tis better to do like many of us do and take instd from those who rule us
Gods i had to be very very careful writin that comment, and made it much more vague; automod hated several other more power to the ppl oriented versions of that comment. I guess they were too much of a call to action **shrugs** Damn megacorps bein megacorps, censorin anythin against them
Plus, its super heroic for me to steal the work of disadvantaged/bipoc queer people and claim it as my own because I'm a white man, so its the only way to share the work with all the cis-hets in my mainly queer audience. So really, i did all those ungrateful queer people a favor by claiming the work they fid was mine and taking all revenue from it
Strongly recommend the Todd In The Shadows video about Somerton, which focuses less on his plagiarism, and more on the wild inaccuracies of his videos, and his weird tendency to editorialise about how women are bad (he says "white women" so it's okay) and how everyone is, was and should be hot for shirtless Nazis.
I'm literally neurodivergent in SOME of the ways he claims and he can suck rocks. When I think my ADHD or ASD is going to interfere with work I inform my co-workers and clients of limitations I have BEFORE the project starts and we figure it out and I still do my part. The neurodivergent thing frustrates me because I am actually forgetful and I take meds and set up reminders and have a whole series of steps at same age as him to make sure I don't mess up. And you know also I do my own work.
Neurodivergent people constantly Works. A Lot Of Them graduate and research. James Somerton has billions Of red flags. This one is not The case. BTW if he implied that neurodivergency is a reason to not work on society = is not. One Of the most influential musicians and composers From the 20th century was an neurodivergent folk. Have you ever Heard Of a dislexical folk From Liverpool named John Winston Lennon?
His excuses were unbelievable. "Guys, my memory is so bad i cant tell if i wrote something or not and that's why i dont copy/paste in one color/font and write in another and also i somehow made it out of college without accidentally plagiarizing 95% of my work even though I can't help it, i managed to not do it for a couple years.
Jesse Gender was beyond gracious in how she handled everything Somerton threw at her. It was insane what he did. It was hilarious how hung up he was about Nebula wanting nothing to do with him.
I popped into his stream once and he was talking about Nebula and such, and the fact that he is a blatant plagiarist makes so much sense now. He always gave me a sort of off feeling that I just assumed was sad gay man behavior (based upon the vibes of my also gay toxic ex best friend, I really should've known better lol).
I was a big supporter of Somerton and my theory is that he did have potential lines of communication and negotiation with Nebula. But he played it as them "leaving him on read" because he knew he couldn't withstand any level of official scrutiny, as would happen with a curated, invite only platform. I was a mod for some of his live streams and people were often dropping things like, "I chat with X creator on Nebula, I can hook you up!" And his response was always something to the effect that he'd already exhausted all avenues but DM him the deets and he'd try. We now know that Jessie herself had invited him to a discord with Nebula people and he never showed. Flat out, he knew the jig would be up if he went there and he was playing games to make it not appear that he was purposefully avoiding it, including smearing Nebula as anti-LGBT, which they are _not._ Such a slimeball.
Jessie is such a sweetheart and I also think James felt safe mentioning her because she would be measured in her response. Everyone else is super pissed at him and would only dress him down further if he mentioned them by name.
This was my impression as well. He wanted to be seen to at least be apologising to someone who could actually respond, but not someone who'd rip into him too much. It had to be someone who wasn't generally prone to that, and apparently that meant Jessie Gender.
I don’t think James even watched most of Hbomb’s video. He literally tried to lie in the exact ways and about the exact things that Hbomb specifically called out. He lies in ways where it’s obvious he doesn’t know much about how anything in the real world works lol.
Sad thing is he still watched more of the video than thousands of Internet Historian fans claiming that um actually stealing an entire script is transformative.
Rewatching the Hbomberguy video after Somerton's newest apology really hammers home how bullshit his "i forgot what was mine and what was copy and pasted" excuse is because of all the lengths he goes to intentionally disguise his plagarism (besides the obvious point of "Who copy and pastes entire passages *directly into their script* without even including the source")
i'm glad you found the apology hilarious bc as a former fan i was infuriated by it, like he really sat there and typed that horseshit up thinking "yeah they're dumb enough to buy this, let me reactivate my patreon" anyway your perspective made me learn to laugh again so thanks for that lol
I actually like how you're framing Jessie here. I usually hear of empathetic and sweet people as being described as "gullible", but I genuinely appreciate how you're framing that as a positive here.
It's also just indicative of how much of a douchebag James Somerton is. His whole drama with her was based on her pressing him to correct his entirely false assertion that Nebula doesn't have queer creators (Probably because he didn't want to admit that what he meant was Nebula doesn't have any cis gay male creators, aka the only queers that matter to him). You have to be a genuinely deep down *good* person to want to give that guy the benefit of a doubt.
Most people responding to it are like "I can empathize with x thing he said IF TRUE, which we have no reason to believe it is", I think it's understandable because they don't want to be callous to the suffering of others, that is what I would do, but it's kinda refreshing seeing people like you who just throw to the garbage anything the says and laugh in his face, it's cathartic and honestly pretty earned.
100% agree, it's so refreshing to not get all the equivocating. Dan Olsen also made a reaction where he is completely up front about the fact that he believes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the apology video, but unfortunately it's only available on his patreon.
I used to feel guilty that I didn't watch more of James' videos (they always seemed to be on important subjects, but something about his presentation didn't appeal to me), now I feel guilty that I can't get enough of this drama.
Same. He always seemed to have such a superior attitude. Plus I was watching one of them and I said to myself 'That's some grade A BS right there - you just made that up." I turned it off and never watched anything else by him. Felt vindicated later by ToddIntheShadows video about how what wasn't plagiarized was just completely made up.
I don't like barely suppressed aggression, which is what I got from his vibes. I tried to listen bc the history my community is important to me. It was so validating to know I wasn't imagining sh-t.
I've been so impressed by Somerton's former followers. In all that I've seen - comments on Hbomberguy's exposé, comments on other videos covering the drama, and the open thread on Somerton's Patreon (before he nuked it) - they were all eloquent in their expression of hurt and disapproval. His content obviously attracted a lot of decent people, who deserved better. The same can't be said for the followers of the other targets of HB's video.
I was a former Patron of James Somerton. I was in the discord server when the backlash began after HBomb’s video went up. People were asking him all the hard questions, and the only thing he had for us was “Goodbye, everybody” before nuking the entire server. I’m now heading a project to publicly document *everything* this man stole, as some sort of weird cathartic atonement for liking this guy. At time of writing, we’ve found 120 unique sources that he plagiarized from.
Everything that wasn't stolen was whole cloth lies his co writer Nick made up. His stuff is unfortunately garbage all the way down and should be avoided :(
@@Tustin2121 My heart goes out to you for being in that situation. When I watched HBomber's video on plagiarism I couldn't help but think an awful lot about those who watched his videos and supported him financially. I cant truly understand how you felt when James nuked his own community server, but it is clear that James is only upset that he has been caught. Best of luck in cataloguing all the work James had stolen. I imagine it was a lot.
He didnt even plagarize Jessie!!! He was apologizing for other non-sense he got up to, primarily on twitter! He didn't even name any of the creators or writers he stole from to send people to go look them up. According James the only way to support the, still unnamed, masses he stole from is to watch his MONETIZED apology video so he can donate the adsense, maybe...if he remembers to do that...
As I understand the spat with Jessie, it went like: Jessie recommended Nebula to James, and James tried to get on Nebula. Nebula apparently rejected him or something, so James in a tweet criticized Nebula as anti-gay. Jessie responded by saying "I really don't think Nebula is anti-gay." Next James claimed that Jessie's followers were coming after him with death threats and that he'd had to call the police about it. In response to that, James's followers went after Jessie with death threats and such.
Yeah, the only plagiarized person he mentioned by name was Vito Russell, and that was to promote the upcoming documentary he's trying to put up about Russell soon.
@@nebufabuJessie said so herself in her video. Paraphrasing "it's weird that he mentioned me specifically by name when he didn't even plagiarize me, at least I don't think he did". So we don't *know* if he stole from her, but he probably didn't because he liked to copy/paste text, and Jessie Gender almost exclusively makes video content. That said, he did steal a lot of video content as well so it's entirely possible he did, but nobody has found any evidence of that so far. It's still insanely funny that she was the FIRST and MAIN person he apologized too, and then even started praising her as if that has any relevance to an apology.
The whole employer epilepsy thing had me rolling with laughter! I'm like my dude, I'm not buying this. As someone with actual epilepsy, I can say without a doubt, the medications they have are so powerful, it's nearly impossible for me to have seizure now-a-days. So much so, I didn't even know they renamed Grand Mal ... Tonic-clonic? WTH is that? lol Never have I ever, had an employer take me off the job due to having episode. At best I was asked to go home, at worst I was allowed to stay at the job site, sit around until I felt better and went right back to the line (of my own volition, this employer wasn't the monster, it was me, I was the monster. I was the one insisting I didn't want to go home). So like, NO James, that isn't a thing. Even with a history of having episodes at the job, insurance doesn't come into the picture unless your seizure somehow injured or killed someone else. (I shouldn't give him ideas, now he'll make up a lie about how he was driving a forklift at the time, or some such nonsense)
As someone with epilepsy who was a postal worker for over 15 years, I agree. I told them I had it when I interviewed for the job and they hired me anyway. I did physical labour (delivering mail and inside mail handler) and did it well. I even operated a forklift. There were never any insurance issues for my employer. Being a UA-camr is not the only work James CAN do, it's the only work he WANTS to do.
I don't have epilepsy, but I called bullshit on that too because I have friends with epilepsy. One's is so severe that she isn't able to get her driver's license, and yet she's held down jobs of all sorts without that coming up at all.
@@thoughtquake7516 He's clearly incapable of an honest day's work. Profoundly unemployable. Guys like him and like George Soros (and like all the ones who don't achieve, or flunk up to notoriety/infamy) can't help themselves; a life of grifting and hustles is all they're cut out for.
She is, but Rebecca is right to point out Jessie is polite and kind to a glaring fault. She can be so willing to take obvious bad faith talking points by the likes of Chappelle and Rowling at face value that you’d think she just fell off a turnip truck.
A not-terrible person would disappear from the internet and never be heard from again, but Somerton had a sweet sweet grift going, and he doesn't want to give it up, and he thinks if he makes the right mouth sounds he can somehow salvage the situation and go back to grifting like nothing ever happened.
Honestly, we need more people just blatantly calling out his lies. I'm probably about as empathetic as Jesse and watched her video and did want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but watching a few more people talk about it, there's just so much that's obviously wrong. Like, fragrantly wrong too, since he could have just said basic, believable stuff like "I had to step away when my mom died" and instead had to make up this entire story about his dad being illiterate and that's why he had to spend time off. Like, he can't help the lying, and he does it even when it directly goes against him.
same here. my bullshit radar is so fucking bad sometimes I catch myself giving tucker carlson the benefit of the doubt, and immediately go "wait, no he's fucking tucker carlson". watching rebecca be this blatant and confident is amazing, because she clearly has an amazing bullshit radar, especially considering most of what she does in her main channel is talk about bullshit, so it's good to see someone who I see as a trustworthy source of bullshit callout, well, calling out his bullshit lol
Jessie is a bottomless well of human kindness, and there are people in this world who will see another's kindness as a resource to exploit. Because they're scum.
The best part, by far, was when he claimed he couldn't film his script when he moved to Ontario, because Ontario has no campgrounds. James Somerton claimed Ontario has NO CAMPGROUNDS.
The "cover" he did of the Celluloid Closet was INSANE I cannot believe he got away with it. He straight up remade the movie word for word with cropped video from the movie.
So, you're saying that his dad leaving school at seven? to go work in the mines? of suburban Toronto? to feed and clothe his many siblings might be a bit of a stretch? 😂😂
Some of my favorite bits were about his "movies". Like, how he swears he was ready to get started on one, but he realized they would have to schedule out filming for several months to accommodate the season. So, his incredible solution was not to book things in advance and use the time to be fully prepared. Instead, he just threw the "script" in the garbage and decided they had to start over on a project they could film immediately. Nothing was ever filmed.
The thing that got me on this was him saying his dad dropped out of school really young to work to feed his brothers and sisters, and thus didn't know how to read or write. Like. Was this in the great depression? If he said his dad had crippling dyslexia I'd believe it. If he said his dad had dropped out really young to work to feed his brothers and sisters and so could only do minimum wage jobs I might believe it. But dropping out of, what, first grade? To become the bread winner for your family? Was he a newsie?
It seems like a lot of people are mistaking this for your main channel. As a main channel subscriber, I think this is the first "VS Life" video I've had pop up on my front page, no doubt due to James' name being heavily favored by the engagement algorithm. Maybe I should have picked a different video to comment on, but oh well. I didn't think there was much that could get me to laugh at the moment, but this video cracked me up. Long time fan, here. Thanks for the years of content and integrity.
Rebecca, you dragged James for filth worse than Mack Attack, and that was delicious. EDIT: I just figured it out! The whole thing is a screen play! He's changed plots so many times he figured this one would fit the scene.
It warms my cold little heart thinking about how James will spend the rest of his life in Narcissist's Hell. He's seen the world from the mountaintop, backed in the power, the prestige, and the sweet, sweet praise of his adoring audience. For a brief, shining moment, he was actually receiving all of the things narcissists are so convinced they inherently deserve. But because he is an idiot with no actual skills or talents, even for doing bad things, he completely bungled and got blown out of the water by an Hbomb. And now he will spend the remainder of his sad little life chasing the memory of that high, desperately trying to claw back some of the stolen respectability that he lost (but still wholeheartedly believes he is entitled to). And, again, because he sucks, he will just get laughed at and mocked every single time he reemerges. A lifetime of mockery, of being made to feel _small._ Nothing worse you can do to a narcissist. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy! Well, it probably could have, but I'll take what I can get 😂
Okay so obviously we don't take anything James Somerton says at face value but just as a general information point, I'm Canadian, in the same region as James, & worked for several years in an office providing a range of community services to folks dealing with poverty & food insecurity & I do think most people would be surprised how common illiteracy is. I had a roster of regular clients who couldn't read fairly basic stuff (like, they had to take my word for it what was written on a piece of paper that was intentionally written as simply & in as large type as possible, but could sign their name to it), & they were pretty much all men in their 20s-70s who often had a pretty solid skillset in a variety of odd jobs & relied a lot on their partners to cover for them. I'm sure there were other clients who were in the same boat & just let their partners cover it so much that they never told me. Those who were upfront about it were some of the most patient & pleasant clients I ever worked with, tbh. Anyway, it doesn't have much to do with when you're *supposed* to learn to read in our school system, but who falls through the cracks.
@@RebeccaVersus I don't believe James either. But as tough as it is to imagine, there are people who got through school via some combination of social promotion, moving to new schools a lot, being a regular truant... and can't read. A good third of the mechanics I work with are at best minimally literate in English even though they speak it fluently. It took me forever to realize that was why they never followed up on anything... I was used to writing stuff down, and it took forever and some random video talking about writing as a technology before it occurred to me that the problem was that they couldn't read well enough and depended on having whatever was written down communicated verbally as well. (They aren't completely illiterate, but they definitely bail if they see a full paragraph.)
@@mxpants4884 you're right, way more people are fully or functionally illiterate despite going through most or all of primary and secondary school. However, the way Rebecca was laughing at it, I think she's making fun of the WHY James gave for his father's illiteracy. He framed it as his father was so young when he left school he didn't have a chance to learn to read and that he left school because he had to go to work to support his many brothers and sisters. NOT that he was so poor his schooling included frequent absences and prejudiced teachers so he was failed by the system and so his best choice was to drop out as a young teen to start working... No, he was working as like a 7 yr old to support "many many" brothers and sisters (who apparently all disappeared from their lives because why would you not help your older siblings who made a sacrifice like that later in life, not one of his many siblings stuck around to help their brother when his wife dies of cancer?). The point is that everything in the video was either lies (often contradicted in the same video) or embellished even if partially true to get maximum sympathy even though it's not relevant. So it's hilarious to imagine it happening the exact way James says it. I personally also imagined his grandmother popping out quadruplets back to back to back after his dad for there to be enough younger siblings quickly enough for the story to be literally accurate. Just say your dad was poor and was denied an education so he can't read or handle the legal stuff on his own... Or actually don't, because either way it's not relevant to the plagiarism.
Not sure if it got mentioned, but the Todd In Shadows video about all the Somerton lies is a good complimentary video to HBomberGuy's plagiarism video...
You don't understand. James is a vampire born in 1849. His papa had to leave school to work the mines. He got fired from work because he can't come in during the day. It's the only way it makes sense
Dan Olsen has an unlisted video on the apology video. The story of his father illiteracy just makes no sense from his perspective of what Canadian schooling was like according to him. I'd buy that possibly dealing with his mother's death paperwork could have been too much for his dad. but the whole illiteracy thing is wild.
I have non-epileptic seizures and when I worked at a hotel, where I regularly handled expensive luggage and glassware, the only precaution my employer had was, "Just don't drive the company van." This dude's excuses are a joke.
1st James is probably 100% lying about everything. But as an adult who didn’t read with comprehension till 6th grade. Who later in life graduated from Tulane with a BS, and studied Global Health at Harvard. I wish you would really look into learning disabilities and what happens to kids in poor schools in America (not sure about Canada). A good starting point is to listen to the Podcast, Told A Story. Your laughter and dismissal of how illiteracy would be impossible because, “time in school equals literacy” is just illogical. Time in seat doesn’t equal knowledge.
yup, in elem school in third grade my class partnered with 5th graders to do a cross-grade reading thing (we did it every year w different grades, this one is just relevant). the fifth grader i was assigned could barely read a sentence in a book written for second graders. it happens
God the epilepsy thing was wild to me bc my mother has epilepsy. If she takes her pills she can go YEARS without having a seizure, and it's never gotten in the way of her getting a job, and she doesn't even have a degree, let alone one in an area like marketing where you gotta what, take pictures and sit on a computer? And his fsther being fully illeterate? Eve if he dropped our reading and writing are one of the most basic things that even your parents can teach you. He never taught himself? His wife never tried? James himself? From what James says it doesnt seem like they lived in the middle of nowhere on a farm raising chickens, the man HAS to know how to read and write to interact with society.
disclaimer: none of this is to defend Somerton because that dude just needs to hand in his internet privileges. I know way too many adults who are completely illiterate. A lot of factors can come into play there. Mostly learning disabilities we had very little understanding of back then. My uncle could barely read and write. One of my mom's ex's can barely sign his own name (she had to be the one who teach his son how to read and write when he was in kindergarten). Some I met dropped out of school as soon as humanly possible to work on family farms. Hell, one of my classmates growing up struggled a lot with some sort of learning disability his family never got diagnosed. I always made sure I sat nearby in shared classes to help him. And this was 1991-2003.
@@TheoRae8289 i understand there are a thousand situations why an adult may be illiterate, however i dont belive that this is the case bc this doesn't seem to fit in any of those situations. James wants us to believe he's the kind of son who was helping his father after his mother's death bc he (the father) being illiterate meant he couldn't manage things on his own and James didn't want him to be taken advantage of, yet apparently in his at least 30 years of life he didn't think of teaching his father to read. His mother was apparently the one who took care of everything and again she never taught her husband to read. James has a marketing degree and apparently went to film school, meaning they were well off enough to afford to send him to uni, and saw the importance of an education, was his mom the main provider of the household in every way? He's given no indication that he grew up in a farm or anything of the sort, so there aren't many other jobs an entirely illiterate man might be doing. If it is true, that he dropped out to work at a young age, i dont understand how nobody in his family helped him learn in adulthood, leaving him entirely dependent on his wife and child and practically disabled if they were to die/move away. And given he's said little else in the video that didn't give reason to doubt, i don't see why this one thing might be true. It might be partially true, just like how he might actually be epileptic bc of a head injury, but definitely overstating it to make his audience feel bad for him and his hard, difficult life.
@alexfolmer2204 gotta hate how he takes just enough of a real-life possibility to try to bend it to his own ends. It feels like his bullshit makes it harder for people who actually do live those lives to be taken seriously.
i dont believe a single thing out of james's mouth but this is a bad argument lol. your moms personal experience is not representative of the disorder. his dad being illiterate is also not unreasonable, apparently canada has around 20% illiteracy rate. but because its james somerton im immediately doubtful
Pretty difficult for James to ever tell the truth at this point when 2-3% at best of what he's said online has been his own words and not demonstrably untrue. I wish I was exaggerating as a joke on that one. It's impractical to even listen to him speak. He can apologize all he wants, of course, it just doesn't mean much until it comes after heavy therapy for compulsive lying, and maybe a decade or two
I came to the same conclusion. He mentioned Jessie because she's the nicest person on the internet and is probably the last person associated with Nebula that will give him a moment of attention. How did this guy ever develop a following? He has zero charisma.
ZERO!!! I feel bad mentioning it bc I bet a lot of people liked his videos and I'm obviously coming in biased but god damn his voice makes me brain start leaking out my ears
I watched a few of his videos and felt like they weren't about anything I hadn't already seen presented more capably elsewhere, but since we did at least seem to broadly agree on the kind of topics that are worth covering and his work had the vibes of someone who *wants* to be good at making videos, I figured I'd chuck him a subscription anyway... in case he eventually grew into making something with a more original point of view. In hindsight, that's obviously deeply funny 😅
When you got to your sad racoon experiment = James Somerton, my initial thought was "a bunch of chemicals got spilled on a bootleg copy of Tinker Bells and Evil Queens and a pair of horn rimmed glasses and THAT'S how JS came to be"
One day many years ago my niece came home from preschool with a sticker on her shirt that said "I bumped my head. Please keep an eye on me." (As well as a detailed note from her teacher, not the point of this story at all but she's fine) After James finished his story about not being able to get a job because of chilhood head trauma I spent the rest of his video imagining that sticker stuck to him instead. I live in Canada and I worked with a young lady who has epilepsy and had a workplace accident because she had a seizure on the stairs. She wound up with a head injury of her own and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Know what didn't happen? She wasn't fired and as far as I'm aware my workplace didn't even get a bill for anything because this is Canada and we have healthcare provided by the government here. Know what did happen? Once her doctor confirmed she was well enough to cone back to work, she was allowed to do so. Her doctor recommended she work with a buddy and that she should not climb ladders so she was scheduled to work with someone else at all times and everyone pitched in to make sure she never climbed a ladder. It was our responsibility to modify the workplace and her responsibilities so that she could work safely. I'm pretty sure you're right and firing a person with a disbility because of their disabilitiy (especially if you tell them it's because of their disability) is illegal because it's discrimination.
I was already skeptical, but his dad being illiterate because he had to leave school to support his family was so over the top. Is he a time traveler from the past? Can Canadian 4 year olds make enough money to support a family? He never tried to learn to read later in life or learn along with his son? But it just kept getting crazier 🤷🏻♀️
This whole thing kind of makes me want to help James out with more reasons that he had to plagiarize rather than doing work himself. For example: He was doing his compulsory military service in Israel (he has dual citizenship) and didn't have time to write. He was inventing a way to clear up the Pacific Garbage Patch, which took precedence. He was helping his cousin Rocket and his friends with some project he can't talk about. He was fighting laser dolphins in Guam with Anthony Padilla. (Anthony's fighting laser dolphins in Guam is a joke by Courtney in a Smosh TNTL episode.) He was paralyzed in a car accident and had to dictate his writing by blinking. (See: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) A couple of guys (they were up to no good) started making trouble in his neighborhood. He got in one little fight and his (then living) mom went "no" and said "You're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Pictou."
UA-cam suggested this video because I watched another reaction to the Somerton apology, and I couldn't be happier. This was hysterical. Now I have to check out your other videos and Jessie Gender's, too, I guess. Have a good one!
honestly even IF everything about his parents was true, literally the whole time he was talking about it i was thinking "okay???? and what does that have to do with you being a plagiarizing scumbag????" like...the whole reason people are critizising him is that he made shitty decisions that affected a lot of people badly, while he made a profit. and then hes like "yeah but i was JUST making some shitty decision i didnt mean to HURT people ))):" YEAH JAMES. thats what we want you to take accountability for!! that YOU, a grown ass man, made DECISIONS, that were detrimental to other people. all his excuses may be reasons for making those shitty decisions, but im sorry james sadly that doesnt exempt you from having made those shitty decisions, which means you need to own up and correct those. like its that simple. several minutes into his "apology" i was thinking..."literally why do i need to know about your mothers life insurance" like it made me uncomfortable!!! i dont need to know your dad apparantly cant read!! that isnt at all relevant here!! uuuuugh
I think one of my favourite lies is how he keeps swearing they didn't take the Telos money and spend it all, while also refusing to show any evidence of still having it and not refunding the large portion of people asking for money back. Hm. Strange. Where is that money, then, James?
AND in the first "apology" he reopens his Patreon and the 2nd apology video is monetized (to give money to hbomberguy's fund for those he stole from, of course). The gall of this guy 🙄
There are a number of youtubers whose work I enjoyed and who I had to realize were disingenuous hacks. It sucks. What sucks even more is that most of them keep doing just fine. The fact the Somerton, for one, suffered actual consequences for his disingenuous hackery is, one one hand, comforting, on the other hand and in light of the fact that so many others still get away with their own disingenuous hackery just because theirs isn't as clumsy as Somerton's, it isn't, really...
It was so bad. Dude has no idea what he even did wrong, like hes apologizing for the wrong stuff. Then, he just says its actually all for reasons, then he says its actually all hi fault he could have fixed it all, BUT "I guess i couldn't bring my mom back to life" and its like, dude, you made this video for sympathy, not apology. I already sympathized, so it wasnt even necessary. He's gotta stop. I gotta stop watching him go.
I think you're mixing up apologizing with making excuses. I heard very few actual apologies. It was just a lot of excuses and BS reasons why he did what he did.
Thank you, this is exactly the summary of all this that I really wanted and needed . I did watch the full h bomber guy video but I couldn't stomach the apologies . So thank you
Thank you for sharing, I completely thought he was lying but I felt crazy and I just needed someone else to say it too! Your video made me laugh so hard, thank you for this😁
I think he wants us to think his dad was like some 1910's street urchin that had to go to work in a textile factory cleaning out the machinery when his dad was at the latest born in the 50's. My favorite lie was the life insurance company refusing to pay out because his "mom" "forgot to mention someone in the family had diabetes, not her but someone else so they wouldn't pay out the full policy and only gave back one year of premiums".
I do believe that insurance companies are greedy enough to use any reason they can find not to give you the money; if it was anybody but Somerton, I'd probably believe it. But he's said previously (like, really bitched about it, at length) that the insurance company didn't pay out because of a history of depression. Of course, he can't use that story now, or people will think his attempt to end himself was because of his own mental illness, and not because Hbomb is a big ol' meaney.
@@Bonadueceit’s possible and totally legit for a life insurance company to not pay out for failing to disclose certain things in the application - it’s effectively seen as fraud to induce the company to underwrite you at a lower risk level to decrease your premiums. however, it’s EXTREMELY unlikely and almost impossible for them to do so based upon failing to disclose some condition in your *family* history. plenty of people don’t have the full story about their parents’ health history. hell - I struggle filling out family history despite being very close to both of my parents who are only in their early 60s. they would have to be able to show that you knowingly concealed that info at the time of application - that you knew about the condition at the time and failed to disclose it when asked specifically about it. and the company would have had to discover this fact somehow on their own after the insured’s death? i’ve worked in insurance coverage law for years and I have never even once seen that happen. the most common scenario is failure to disclose some diagnosis in YOUR OWN health history. it’s much easier to prove you knowingly withheld info about diagnoses you personally had. insurance companies invalidating a policy for that reason is a good thing - it’s an anti-fraud mechanism to protect the thousands of other people insured by that pool of money. all that said, the depression story makes much more sense… even though disclosing a mental health diagnosis is rarely going to have much of an impact on underwriting, since a death caused by depression (aka suicide) is generally an exclusion to getting payout anyway … however, given james’ insane penchant for lying, I would bet it was a combo of the 2, and that mom actually failed to disclose a pre-existing diagnosis of diabetes for herself.
Sad thing, it worked, to an extent. Absolutely nobody believes a word he said about either his YT channel or Telos, but I've seen a few people whom I expected to know better going "hmm, maybe there's something to it," regarding the whole Nebula situation... I don't know a thing about Nebula beyond the ads, but I'm pretty sure anything James Somerton said about it is his self-serving confabulations, because everything else definitely is.
My favorite thing about the dad being illiterate was it was so random and had nothing to do with the web he was trying to spin. Just like a random thing he tacked on it was so bizarre
I didn’t know who JS was until the hbomberguy’s video was being reacted to. Never saw his work other than clips in subsequent reaction videos. And yet I am watching the series of reaction videos to his series of apology videos with nearly the passion illuminatii has engendered. And possessed her latest plush for the time it took to open the package (I had 2 plushies en route) and walk to the trash…
These stories remind me of the Barry Keiogan character in Saltburn. Just making up his origin story with weird factoids when his family is just ordinary alive and chilling in the burbs.
I heard he was still deleting comments on his videos since posting what he posted but it seems like his channel is gone now so idk Edit: nvm it's still up he just rebranded as James of Telos
@@melephs_capHe changed the name of his channel to James of Telos. Edit: I initially thought it was gone, too, but it turns out he deleted the 2nd apology video and changed his channel name sometime in the last few days, prior to this latest development.
I know multiple older adults who are completely illiterate (boomers and early Gen X). in that generation there was a lot of leaving dyslexic and people with other learning disabilities to fall through the cracks. My mom had to teach her on-off ex's son how to read and write at home because his dad can barely sign his name (dude drives without a license because he can't take the written). Granted I'm from Tennessee.
To actually answer the silly question, children learn how to read and write in kindergarten. Like, day one of first grade we know how to write our name. Day one of second grade I was reading a book without pictures in it. (Which is why I skipped right on to day 2 of third grade, but that’s a different story)
Adult illiteracy is definitely plausible, especially when it comes to official government like documents, people tend to lose any confidence they have in their limited abilities. That said, there are usually resources available you can ask for if you can't understand what's being told to you by a government official. The bigger issue is excuse making, justifying his appalling behaviour on things that most of us would never ever dream of using as an excuse for our own shitty actions.
Yeah, adult illiteracy is uncomfortably common, especially in poor areas. That said, I don't believe for a second that James's dad is illiterate. I just can't believe anything he says, it's all lies.
His dad was taken out of school at the small age of 6 to work in the factories because it's the early 1800's in James' world he's just so creative he is an aspiring director after all! he's so good at coming up with believable things what a smart guy
For context for the uninitiated or those who don't want to be detective. He had upwards of 250k subscribers and was doing sponsorship deals on his videos. He had a Patreon with lots of subscribers, one of whom found out James had plagiarized from them when they watched one of his videos. He also created a fundraiser for Telos Pictures where he said he would make queer indie films. The fundraiser made 63k US. There were updates every 6 months or so. He would usually just buy clip art, make a slapped together idea for a movie, and claim that there was some issue in production. Like a movie being set in summer but it was winter.... It's all dumb.
TY I did not have the energy haha
He had 330k subs just before the Hbomb dropped. He lost 100k subs since.
He had over 330k subscribers
@@TheLeftistOwl And still dropping. I didn't think to unsub because I figured the channel would just be abandoned, only bothered to unsub after the last video, and I doubt I'm the only one.
@@CatHasOpinions734 Oh, I knew he wouldn't delete the channel. I figured he'd go away for several months to a year, rebrand the channel (maybe including putting someone else on-camera) and then "start fresh" with a quarter million subscribers. It's a lot easier for a new project to gain traction with the algorithm, when you don't have to start from zero.
Sorry Rebecca, you lost me on this one. This is one of the most disrespectful things I've ever heard, and as a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community I am livid! Raccoons are intellegent, insightful, and charismatic little trash pandas that would have put more time, care, and attention into their grift that James Somerton. They Definitely aren't bad enough to be marketing majors. Slanderous and disappointing.
it’s true and you have cut me to the quick!!! my long pause was me thinking “don’t say raccoon don’t say raccoon”
Raccoons are fantastic little thieves. I used to hang out with a girl who had a pet racoon (and yes, she's exactly like you're imagining) that would steal jewelry and watches and weed grinders and whatnot. Anything shiny, basically. It would stash them all behind a dresser. Very annoying, very cute though. Do not recommend as a pet whatsoever (she raised it from a baby, so that's the best case scenario and and it was still a little monster)
Disrespectful of the LGTB community (Little Gremlins That Bite)
You had me in the first half ngl lol
Me at that part, "Some of my best friends are raccoons!"
As a Canadian, I can confirm that reading comes much later in our education. First 5 years of school are dedicated to maple syrup production and moose wrestling. Even after that, we are only taught reading after we get our accents perfected (referred to as our Eh, B, Cs).
I hear that the last the test is to say, "Sore-E." If your accent is off, you can't progress and have to stay in the same class for another year.
As a fellow Canadian I can confirm this.
@@KathrynsRavensI third it 🇨🇦
I know you're trying to fool us here because you didn't mention _igloo building_ with even just a single word.
@@Thiesi that's an advanced skill that doesn't come until after our mandatory RCMP service
no u dont get it i have to steal peoples work and scam people out of their money. its my only viable career
oh dang okay!
As a person with ADHD and memory issues I can verify this. Our diagnosis is literally limiting us to only stealing and lying.
P s that was, also, a lie
At ppl thinkin like that, i think they shud show class unity; rather than to take from those who struggle like them. Tis better to do like many of us do and take instd from those who rule us
Gods i had to be very very careful writin that comment, and made it much more vague; automod hated several other more power to the ppl oriented versions of that comment. I guess they were too much of a call to action **shrugs**
Damn megacorps bein megacorps, censorin anythin against them
Plus, its super heroic for me to steal the work of disadvantaged/bipoc queer people and claim it as my own because I'm a white man, so its the only way to share the work with all the cis-hets in my mainly queer audience. So really, i did all those ungrateful queer people a favor by claiming the work they fid was mine and taking all revenue from it
Strongly recommend the Todd In The Shadows video about Somerton, which focuses less on his plagiarism, and more on the wild inaccuracies of his videos, and his weird tendency to editorialise about how women are bad (he says "white women" so it's okay) and how everyone is, was and should be hot for shirtless Nazis.
The weird sexual digressions on Hot Nazis were WILD.
James will fail to cite this video in his next “why I hate women” video, but we’ll know.
😂😂😂😂😂
I also noticed, from watching a few of his videos, what a sexist he is! Thanks for pointing it out.
"why i left the left"
James Somerton takes up about 8% of my brain since December. Insane clout goblin of the year.
"I'm literally neurodivergent and a (business) minor"- Sames Jomerton.
Lmao
I'm literally neurodivergent in SOME of the ways he claims and he can suck rocks. When I think my ADHD or ASD is going to interfere with work I inform my co-workers and clients of limitations I have BEFORE the project starts and we figure it out and I still do my part. The neurodivergent thing frustrates me because I am actually forgetful and I take meds and set up reminders and have a whole series of steps at same age as him to make sure I don't mess up. And you know also I do my own work.
Neurodivergent people constantly Works. A Lot Of Them graduate and research.
James Somerton has billions Of red flags. This one is not The case.
BTW if he implied that neurodivergency is a reason to not work on society = is not. One Of the most influential musicians and composers From the 20th century was an neurodivergent folk.
Have you ever Heard Of a dislexical folk From Liverpool named John Winston Lennon?
His excuses were unbelievable.
"Guys, my memory is so bad i cant tell if i wrote something or not and that's why i dont copy/paste in one color/font and write in another and also i somehow made it out of college without accidentally plagiarizing 95% of my work even though I can't help it, i managed to not do it for a couple years.
*Minor coded adult 😂😂😂😂
Jesse Gender was beyond gracious in how she handled everything Somerton threw at her. It was insane what he did. It was hilarious how hung up he was about Nebula wanting nothing to do with him.
Legit: I spent most of her video assuming she was doing a bit.
I popped into his stream once and he was talking about Nebula and such, and the fact that he is a blatant plagiarist makes so much sense now. He always gave me a sort of off feeling that I just assumed was sad gay man behavior (based upon the vibes of my also gay toxic ex best friend, I really should've known better lol).
I fully believe Nebula called him out on the plagiarism, and he was just playing the victim. That's his one move.
I was a big supporter of Somerton and my theory is that he did have potential lines of communication and negotiation with Nebula. But he played it as them "leaving him on read" because he knew he couldn't withstand any level of official scrutiny, as would happen with a curated, invite only platform.
I was a mod for some of his live streams and people were often dropping things like, "I chat with X creator on Nebula, I can hook you up!" And his response was always something to the effect that he'd already exhausted all avenues but DM him the deets and he'd try.
We now know that Jessie herself had invited him to a discord with Nebula people and he never showed. Flat out, he knew the jig would be up if he went there and he was playing games to make it not appear that he was purposefully avoiding it, including smearing Nebula as anti-LGBT, which they are _not._
Such a slimeball.
@@CorwinFound - Interesting. It's kind of surprising that he has that level of self-awareness.
Jessie is such a sweetheart and I also think James felt safe mentioning her because she would be measured in her response. Everyone else is super pissed at him and would only dress him down further if he mentioned them by name.
This was my impression as well. He wanted to be seen to at least be apologising to someone who could actually respond, but not someone who'd rip into him too much. It had to be someone who wasn't generally prone to that, and apparently that meant Jessie Gender.
I don’t think James even watched most of Hbomb’s video. He literally tried to lie in the exact ways and about the exact things that Hbomb specifically called out. He lies in ways where it’s obvious he doesn’t know much about how anything in the real world works lol.
It was so embarrassing to see that. Did he not even ask a friend to watch it first to make sure anything made sense?
@@celisewillislol friend?
Sad thing is he still watched more of the video than thousands of Internet Historian fans claiming that um actually stealing an entire script is transformative.
Rewatching the Hbomberguy video after Somerton's newest apology really hammers home how bullshit his "i forgot what was mine and what was copy and pasted" excuse is because of all the lengths he goes to intentionally disguise his plagarism (besides the obvious point of "Who copy and pastes entire passages *directly into their script* without even including the source")
i'm glad you found the apology hilarious bc as a former fan i was infuriated by it, like he really sat there and typed that horseshit up thinking "yeah they're dumb enough to buy this, let me reactivate my patreon"
anyway your perspective made me learn to laugh again so thanks for that lol
I actually like how you're framing Jessie here. I usually hear of empathetic and sweet people as being described as "gullible", but I genuinely appreciate how you're framing that as a positive here.
It's also just indicative of how much of a douchebag James Somerton is. His whole drama with her was based on her pressing him to correct his entirely false assertion that Nebula doesn't have queer creators (Probably because he didn't want to admit that what he meant was Nebula doesn't have any cis gay male creators, aka the only queers that matter to him). You have to be a genuinely deep down *good* person to want to give that guy the benefit of a doubt.
Most people responding to it are like "I can empathize with x thing he said IF TRUE, which we have no reason to believe it is", I think it's understandable because they don't want to be callous to the suffering of others, that is what I would do, but it's kinda refreshing seeing people like you who just throw to the garbage anything the says and laugh in his face, it's cathartic and honestly pretty earned.
You are so right. This was a great reaction.
100% agree, it's so refreshing to not get all the equivocating. Dan Olsen also made a reaction where he is completely up front about the fact that he believes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the apology video, but unfortunately it's only available on his patreon.
James Somerton doesn't have parents, he was created by a crazy scientist who brought a turtleneck sweater to life.
This explains my immediate aversion to him besides all the lying and whining about the consequences of his actions and stuff
I used to feel guilty that I didn't watch more of James' videos (they always seemed to be on important subjects, but something about his presentation didn't appeal to me), now I feel guilty that I can't get enough of this drama.
we're in the same boat lmao
Same. He always seemed to have such a superior attitude. Plus I was watching one of them and I said to myself 'That's some grade A BS right there - you just made that up." I turned it off and never watched anything else by him. Felt vindicated later by ToddIntheShadows video about how what wasn't plagiarized was just completely made up.
Yeah, i got those same vibes! There were also multiple points where he just lifted directly from other creators, like Lindsay Ellis.
I don't like barely suppressed aggression, which is what I got from his vibes. I tried to listen bc the history my community is important to me.
It was so validating to know I wasn't imagining sh-t.
I've been so impressed by Somerton's former followers. In all that I've seen - comments on Hbomberguy's exposé, comments on other videos covering the drama, and the open thread on Somerton's Patreon (before he nuked it) - they were all eloquent in their expression of hurt and disapproval. His content obviously attracted a lot of decent people, who deserved better. The same can't be said for the followers of the other targets of HB's video.
In a strange way it's ok separate the art from the artist, and enjoy his work, because it isn't his and he didn't make it.
I was a former Patron of James Somerton. I was in the discord server when the backlash began after HBomb’s video went up. People were asking him all the hard questions, and the only thing he had for us was “Goodbye, everybody” before nuking the entire server.
I’m now heading a project to publicly document *everything* this man stole, as some sort of weird cathartic atonement for liking this guy. At time of writing, we’ve found 120 unique sources that he plagiarized from.
Everything that wasn't stolen was whole cloth lies his co writer Nick made up. His stuff is unfortunately garbage all the way down and should be avoided :(
@@Tustin2121I've seen the work you've done on the transcripts. Very impressed, and thank you for all your hard work :saluting_face:
@@Tustin2121 My heart goes out to you for being in that situation. When I watched HBomber's video on plagiarism I couldn't help but think an awful lot about those who watched his videos and supported him financially. I cant truly understand how you felt when James nuked his own community server, but it is clear that James is only upset that he has been caught.
Best of luck in cataloguing all the work James had stolen. I imagine it was a lot.
You were unfair to raccoons
Just tell Jessie "James Somerton exists because of a transporter accident" - she'll get it :)
Like Tuvix except this time it was Harry Mudd + a Ferengi
I immediately pictured the transporter scene from Galaxy Quest, James being the inside out pig-lizard.
Perfect!
He didnt even plagarize Jessie!!! He was apologizing for other non-sense he got up to, primarily on twitter! He didn't even name any of the creators or writers he stole from to send people to go look them up. According James the only way to support the, still unnamed, masses he stole from is to watch his MONETIZED apology video so he can donate the adsense, maybe...if he remembers to do that...
Are you sure he didn't plagiarize her though?
@@nebufabu None of the videos he published plagiarized her, but he might've plagiarized her source(s) of info at least once.
As I understand the spat with Jessie, it went like: Jessie recommended Nebula to James, and James tried to get on Nebula. Nebula apparently rejected him or something, so James in a tweet criticized Nebula as anti-gay. Jessie responded by saying "I really don't think Nebula is anti-gay." Next James claimed that Jessie's followers were coming after him with death threats and that he'd had to call the police about it. In response to that, James's followers went after Jessie with death threats and such.
Yeah, the only plagiarized person he mentioned by name was Vito Russell, and that was to promote the upcoming documentary he's trying to put up about Russell soon.
@@nebufabuJessie said so herself in her video. Paraphrasing "it's weird that he mentioned me specifically by name when he didn't even plagiarize me, at least I don't think he did". So we don't *know* if he stole from her, but he probably didn't because he liked to copy/paste text, and Jessie Gender almost exclusively makes video content. That said, he did steal a lot of video content as well so it's entirely possible he did, but nobody has found any evidence of that so far. It's still insanely funny that she was the FIRST and MAIN person he apologized too, and then even started praising her as if that has any relevance to an apology.
Have George Santos and James Somerton ever been seen in the same room?
OMG! I am now picturing James Somerton using a mystery baby to deflect answers from hostile UA-camrs and I am dying laughing.
Santos is an awful person, but he does have a certain weird charisma and style, which kept people glued to his antics. Somerton has none of that.
@@KlueBat My brain went for "Remember the baby George Santos said wasn't his (yet)? This is him now" alongside a picture of James, and I hate that 😂
Now I want to see Ziwe interview James Somerton
Canadian here. We don't teach people to read until post grad level. Because socialism.
Bonhomme forbids otherwise.
😅😅😅
The whole employer epilepsy thing had me rolling with laughter! I'm like my dude, I'm not buying this. As someone with actual epilepsy, I can say without a doubt, the medications they have are so powerful, it's nearly impossible for me to have seizure now-a-days. So much so, I didn't even know they renamed Grand Mal ... Tonic-clonic? WTH is that? lol
Never have I ever, had an employer take me off the job due to having episode. At best I was asked to go home, at worst I was allowed to stay at the job site, sit around until I felt better and went right back to the line (of my own volition, this employer wasn't the monster, it was me, I was the monster. I was the one insisting I didn't want to go home).
So like, NO James, that isn't a thing. Even with a history of having episodes at the job, insurance doesn't come into the picture unless your seizure somehow injured or killed someone else. (I shouldn't give him ideas, now he'll make up a lie about how he was driving a forklift at the time, or some such nonsense)
As someone with epilepsy who was a postal worker for over 15 years, I agree. I told them I had it when I interviewed for the job and they hired me anyway. I did physical labour (delivering mail and inside mail handler) and did it well. I even operated a forklift. There were never any insurance issues for my employer. Being a UA-camr is not the only work James CAN do, it's the only work he WANTS to do.
I don't have epilepsy, but I called bullshit on that too because I have friends with epilepsy. One's is so severe that she isn't able to get her driver's license, and yet she's held down jobs of all sorts without that coming up at all.
@@thoughtquake7516 He's clearly incapable of an honest day's work. Profoundly unemployable. Guys like him and like George Soros (and like all the ones who don't achieve, or flunk up to notoriety/infamy) can't help themselves; a life of grifting and hustles is all they're cut out for.
Jessie is one of the most kind people you can find on the internet.
yeah she seems to genuinely approach everything in good faith
I'm a major Trekkie, and Jessie's takes are always so incredibly insightful and help me appreciate perspectives I never would have come to on my own.
She's dope
LOL I read Jessie as James and saw 69ish (nicelol) likes and was like "what am i missing?" 😅😂❤
She is, but Rebecca is right to point out Jessie is polite and kind to a glaring fault. She can be so willing to take obvious bad faith talking points by the likes of Chappelle and Rowling at face value that you’d think she just fell off a turnip truck.
His dad ignores texts and just told James he “can’t read.”
LMAOOOOOOO
A not-terrible person would disappear from the internet and never be heard from again, but Somerton had a sweet sweet grift going, and he doesn't want to give it up, and he thinks if he makes the right mouth sounds he can somehow salvage the situation and go back to grifting like nothing ever happened.
Honestly, we need more people just blatantly calling out his lies. I'm probably about as empathetic as Jesse and watched her video and did want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but watching a few more people talk about it, there's just so much that's obviously wrong. Like, fragrantly wrong too, since he could have just said basic, believable stuff like "I had to step away when my mom died" and instead had to make up this entire story about his dad being illiterate and that's why he had to spend time off. Like, he can't help the lying, and he does it even when it directly goes against him.
You said "fragrantly" instead of "flagrantly" but it still works because it smells like utter bullshit
I could have looked it up to double-check, but I got fired from my job because they couldn't insure my dictionary.
🧑🍳 💋
same here. my bullshit radar is so fucking bad sometimes I catch myself giving tucker carlson the benefit of the doubt, and immediately go "wait, no he's fucking tucker carlson". watching rebecca be this blatant and confident is amazing, because she clearly has an amazing bullshit radar, especially considering most of what she does in her main channel is talk about bullshit, so it's good to see someone who I see as a trustworthy source of bullshit callout, well, calling out his bullshit lol
On behalf of Raccoons, James Somerton is actually a bottle of chemicals spilled on a wet noodle
Jessie is a bottomless well of human kindness, and there are people in this world who will see another's kindness as a resource to exploit. Because they're scum.
a bottomless well of kindness and even SHE was like "apology unaccepted" get wrekt scumerton
I really hope James Gunn doesn't get hold of that Somerton "sad raccoon" origin story.
James Gunn already made a Sad Mutant Raccoon story. The real problem is how badly Somerton is plagiarizing it.
@@mcfeelyat ditto!
how dare you lmao
Even James' origin story is plagerized 😂😂😂
Its just like with Tommy Talerico... _is_ his mother very proud?! We will never know...
I clapped when I saw Tommy Telerico! I know that reference!
"Tommy wants mommy"
His house is for sale now though so some rich benefactor can buy it and report back
How DARE you slander the inventor of the Karma Gaming Engine!
The best part, by far, was when he claimed he couldn't film his script when he moved to Ontario, because Ontario has no campgrounds. James Somerton claimed Ontario has NO CAMPGROUNDS.
Blaming Ottawa for his grifting was a piece de resistance. Absolutely novel way of defending a scam. "Sir, see... So I was in Ottawa...."
"going to the lake" is just a fun thing Ontarians say every weekend it's above 15 degrees C.
Honestly I'd watch you drag James Somerton for another 20 minutes easily. He deserves it, and your wit is so funny and sharp.
The "cover" he did of the Celluloid Closet was INSANE I cannot believe he got away with it. He straight up remade the movie word for word with cropped video from the movie.
The Lab Leak Hypothesis of James Somerton
So, you're saying that his dad leaving school at seven? to go work in the mines? of suburban Toronto? to feed and clothe his many siblings might be a bit of a stretch? 😂😂
pretty sure hes from the maritimes, not toronto, but still it's... intersting
He had go work on a lobster trawler! At age 3! And he couldn't get a job as a fisherman so he had to be a lobster net instead!
He's from Eastern Canada. (He says.)
if james somerton tells you good morning, you'd better double check the time
Some of my favorite bits were about his "movies". Like, how he swears he was ready to get started on one, but he realized they would have to schedule out filming for several months to accommodate the season. So, his incredible solution was not to book things in advance and use the time to be fully prepared. Instead, he just threw the "script" in the garbage and decided they had to start over on a project they could film immediately.
Nothing was ever filmed.
The thing that got me on this was him saying his dad dropped out of school really young to work to feed his brothers and sisters, and thus didn't know how to read or write.
Like. Was this in the great depression? If he said his dad had crippling dyslexia I'd believe it. If he said his dad had dropped out really young to work to feed his brothers and sisters and so could only do minimum wage jobs I might believe it. But dropping out of, what, first grade? To become the bread winner for your family? Was he a newsie?
It seems like a lot of people are mistaking this for your main channel. As a main channel subscriber, I think this is the first "VS Life" video I've had pop up on my front page, no doubt due to James' name being heavily favored by the engagement algorithm. Maybe I should have picked a different video to comment on, but oh well.
I didn't think there was much that could get me to laugh at the moment, but this video cracked me up. Long time fan, here. Thanks for the years of content and integrity.
It's the thumbnail. It looks like her main channel's usual layout 😂
Rebecca, you dragged James for filth worse than Mack Attack, and that was delicious.
EDIT: I just figured it out! The whole thing is a screen play! He's changed plots so many times he figured this one would fit the scene.
It warms my cold little heart thinking about how James will spend the rest of his life in Narcissist's Hell. He's seen the world from the mountaintop, backed in the power, the prestige, and the sweet, sweet praise of his adoring audience. For a brief, shining moment, he was actually receiving all of the things narcissists are so convinced they inherently deserve. But because he is an idiot with no actual skills or talents, even for doing bad things, he completely bungled and got blown out of the water by an Hbomb. And now he will spend the remainder of his sad little life chasing the memory of that high, desperately trying to claw back some of the stolen respectability that he lost (but still wholeheartedly believes he is entitled to). And, again, because he sucks, he will just get laughed at and mocked every single time he reemerges. A lifetime of mockery, of being made to feel _small._ Nothing worse you can do to a narcissist. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy! Well, it probably could have, but I'll take what I can get 😂
Okay so obviously we don't take anything James Somerton says at face value but just as a general information point, I'm Canadian, in the same region as James, & worked for several years in an office providing a range of community services to folks dealing with poverty & food insecurity & I do think most people would be surprised how common illiteracy is. I had a roster of regular clients who couldn't read fairly basic stuff (like, they had to take my word for it what was written on a piece of paper that was intentionally written as simply & in as large type as possible, but could sign their name to it), & they were pretty much all men in their 20s-70s who often had a pretty solid skillset in a variety of odd jobs & relied a lot on their partners to cover for them. I'm sure there were other clients who were in the same boat & just let their partners cover it so much that they never told me. Those who were upfront about it were some of the most patient & pleasant clients I ever worked with, tbh. Anyway, it doesn't have much to do with when you're *supposed* to learn to read in our school system, but who falls through the cracks.
he literally (lol) said that his father can not read or write after leaving school.
@@RebeccaVersus I don't believe James either. But as tough as it is to imagine, there are people who got through school via some combination of social promotion, moving to new schools a lot, being a regular truant... and can't read.
A good third of the mechanics I work with are at best minimally literate in English even though they speak it fluently. It took me forever to realize that was why they never followed up on anything... I was used to writing stuff down, and it took forever and some random video talking about writing as a technology before it occurred to me that the problem was that they couldn't read well enough and depended on having whatever was written down communicated verbally as well. (They aren't completely illiterate, but they definitely bail if they see a full paragraph.)
@@mxpants4884 you're right, way more people are fully or functionally illiterate despite going through most or all of primary and secondary school. However, the way Rebecca was laughing at it, I think she's making fun of the WHY James gave for his father's illiteracy. He framed it as his father was so young when he left school he didn't have a chance to learn to read and that he left school because he had to go to work to support his many brothers and sisters. NOT that he was so poor his schooling included frequent absences and prejudiced teachers so he was failed by the system and so his best choice was to drop out as a young teen to start working... No, he was working as like a 7 yr old to support "many many" brothers and sisters (who apparently all disappeared from their lives because why would you not help your older siblings who made a sacrifice like that later in life, not one of his many siblings stuck around to help their brother when his wife dies of cancer?). The point is that everything in the video was either lies (often contradicted in the same video) or embellished even if partially true to get maximum sympathy even though it's not relevant. So it's hilarious to imagine it happening the exact way James says it. I personally also imagined his grandmother popping out quadruplets back to back to back after his dad for there to be enough younger siblings quickly enough for the story to be literally accurate. Just say your dad was poor and was denied an education so he can't read or handle the legal stuff on his own... Or actually don't, because either way it's not relevant to the plagiarism.
Not sure if it got mentioned, but the Todd In Shadows video about all the Somerton lies is a good complimentary video to HBomberGuy's plagiarism video...
You don't understand. James is a vampire born in 1849. His papa had to leave school to work the mines. He got fired from work because he can't come in during the day. It's the only way it makes sense
"Maybes James is vampire?" - Tommy Wiseau
Dan Olsen has an unlisted video on the apology video. The story of his father illiteracy just makes no sense from his perspective of what Canadian schooling was like according to him. I'd buy that possibly dealing with his mother's death paperwork could have been too much for his dad. but the whole illiteracy thing is wild.
Link?
Delicious 😋
You got a link?
Omg that origin story is still a better screenplay than anything he’s written or promised to write
I have non-epileptic seizures and when I worked at a hotel, where I regularly handled expensive luggage and glassware, the only precaution my employer had was, "Just don't drive the company van." This dude's excuses are a joke.
Hey twin!!! Same here
Thank you for being the literal only person to say that you don't believe any of it.
There is a positive note about his apology. You can tell right away that it is not plagiarized.
1st James is probably 100% lying about everything. But as an adult who didn’t read with comprehension till 6th grade. Who later in life graduated from Tulane with a BS, and studied Global Health at Harvard.
I wish you would really look into learning disabilities and what happens to kids in poor schools in America (not sure about Canada). A good starting point is to listen to the Podcast, Told A Story.
Your laughter and dismissal of how illiteracy would be impossible because, “time in school equals literacy” is just illogical. Time in seat doesn’t equal knowledge.
The story wasn't learning disabilities though.
yup, in elem school in third grade my class partnered with 5th graders to do a cross-grade reading thing (we did it every year w different grades, this one is just relevant). the fifth grader i was assigned could barely read a sentence in a book written for second graders. it happens
God the epilepsy thing was wild to me bc my mother has epilepsy. If she takes her pills she can go YEARS without having a seizure, and it's never gotten in the way of her getting a job, and she doesn't even have a degree, let alone one in an area like marketing where you gotta what, take pictures and sit on a computer?
And his fsther being fully illeterate? Eve if he dropped our reading and writing are one of the most basic things that even your parents can teach you. He never taught himself? His wife never tried? James himself? From what James says it doesnt seem like they lived in the middle of nowhere on a farm raising chickens, the man HAS to know how to read and write to interact with society.
disclaimer: none of this is to defend Somerton because that dude just needs to hand in his internet privileges.
I know way too many adults who are completely illiterate. A lot of factors can come into play there. Mostly learning disabilities we had very little understanding of back then. My uncle could barely read and write. One of my mom's ex's can barely sign his own name (she had to be the one who teach his son how to read and write when he was in kindergarten). Some I met dropped out of school as soon as humanly possible to work on family farms. Hell, one of my classmates growing up struggled a lot with some sort of learning disability his family never got diagnosed. I always made sure I sat nearby in shared classes to help him. And this was 1991-2003.
@@TheoRae8289 i understand there are a thousand situations why an adult may be illiterate, however i dont belive that this is the case bc this doesn't seem to fit in any of those situations. James wants us to believe he's the kind of son who was helping his father after his mother's death bc he (the father) being illiterate meant he couldn't manage things on his own and James didn't want him to be taken advantage of, yet apparently in his at least 30 years of life he didn't think of teaching his father to read. His mother was apparently the one who took care of everything and again she never taught her husband to read.
James has a marketing degree and apparently went to film school, meaning they were well off enough to afford to send him to uni, and saw the importance of an education, was his mom the main provider of the household in every way? He's given no indication that he grew up in a farm or anything of the sort, so there aren't many other jobs an entirely illiterate man might be doing.
If it is true, that he dropped out to work at a young age, i dont understand how nobody in his family helped him learn in adulthood, leaving him entirely dependent on his wife and child and practically disabled if they were to die/move away.
And given he's said little else in the video that didn't give reason to doubt, i don't see why this one thing might be true. It might be partially true, just like how he might actually be epileptic bc of a head injury, but definitely overstating it to make his audience feel bad for him and his hard, difficult life.
@alexfolmer2204 gotta hate how he takes just enough of a real-life possibility to try to bend it to his own ends. It feels like his bullshit makes it harder for people who actually do live those lives to be taken seriously.
i dont believe a single thing out of james's mouth but this is a bad argument lol. your moms personal experience is not representative of the disorder. his dad being illiterate is also not unreasonable, apparently canada has around 20% illiteracy rate. but because its james somerton im immediately doubtful
Pretty difficult for James to ever tell the truth at this point when 2-3% at best of what he's said online has been his own words and not demonstrably untrue. I wish I was exaggerating as a joke on that one. It's impractical to even listen to him speak. He can apologize all he wants, of course, it just doesn't mean much until it comes after heavy therapy for compulsive lying, and maybe a decade or two
I came to the same conclusion. He mentioned Jessie because she's the nicest person on the internet and is probably the last person associated with Nebula that will give him a moment of attention. How did this guy ever develop a following? He has zero charisma.
ZERO!!! I feel bad mentioning it bc I bet a lot of people liked his videos and I'm obviously coming in biased but god damn his voice makes me brain start leaking out my ears
It’s because his words were stolen from people with charisma 😂
I liked the material (😅) but I stopped watching his videos well before the truth came out purely because his delivery rubbed me the wrong way
I watched a few of his videos and felt like they weren't about anything I hadn't already seen presented more capably elsewhere, but since we did at least seem to broadly agree on the kind of topics that are worth covering and his work had the vibes of someone who *wants* to be good at making videos, I figured I'd chuck him a subscription anyway... in case he eventually grew into making something with a more original point of view. In hindsight, that's obviously deeply funny 😅
He's like the chocolate salesman from Spongebob. _"Every morning i break my arms, and every night i break my legs."_
I was born with glass bones and paper skin😅😅😅
Did he erupt from a stone fully formed?
He's not my baby
He does kinda have Gem vibes doesn't he
When you got to your sad racoon experiment = James Somerton, my initial thought was "a bunch of chemicals got spilled on a bootleg copy of Tinker Bells and Evil Queens and a pair of horn rimmed glasses and THAT'S how JS came to be"
One day many years ago my niece came home from preschool with a sticker on her shirt that said "I bumped my head. Please keep an eye on me." (As well as a detailed note from her teacher, not the point of this story at all but she's fine) After James finished his story about not being able to get a job because of chilhood head trauma I spent the rest of his video imagining that sticker stuck to him instead.
I live in Canada and I worked with a young lady who has epilepsy and had a workplace accident because she had a seizure on the stairs. She wound up with a head injury of her own and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance.
Know what didn't happen? She wasn't fired and as far as I'm aware my workplace didn't even get a bill for anything because this is Canada and we have healthcare provided by the government here.
Know what did happen? Once her doctor confirmed she was well enough to cone back to work, she was allowed to do so. Her doctor recommended she work with a buddy and that she should not climb ladders so she was scheduled to work with someone else at all times and everyone pitched in to make sure she never climbed a ladder. It was our responsibility to modify the workplace and her responsibilities so that she could work safely. I'm pretty sure you're right and firing a person with a disbility because of their disabilitiy (especially if you tell them it's because of their disability) is illegal because it's discrimination.
I can't believe you would throw raccoons under the bus like this.
This is the best react video to his apology I could possibly imagine I’m so grateful for this
I was already skeptical, but his dad being illiterate because he had to leave school to support his family was so over the top. Is he a time traveler from the past? Can Canadian 4 year olds make enough money to support a family? He never tried to learn to read later in life or learn along with his son? But it just kept getting crazier 🤷🏻♀️
this is the part that really sent me over the edge.
This whole thing kind of makes me want to help James out with more reasons that he had to plagiarize rather than doing work himself. For example:
He was doing his compulsory military service in Israel (he has dual citizenship) and didn't have time to write.
He was inventing a way to clear up the Pacific Garbage Patch, which took precedence.
He was helping his cousin Rocket and his friends with some project he can't talk about.
He was fighting laser dolphins in Guam with Anthony Padilla. (Anthony's fighting laser dolphins in Guam is a joke by Courtney in a Smosh TNTL episode.)
He was paralyzed in a car accident and had to dictate his writing by blinking. (See: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
A couple of guys (they were up to no good) started making trouble in his neighborhood. He got in one little fight and his (then living) mom went "no" and said "You're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Pictou."
Like Venus from the foamy waves, a Boltzmann Somerton emerges from the quantum fields. Fully formed and ready to party.
I considered suggesting he sprung fully formed the brow of zeus but that would imply he had a willing father
UA-cam suggested this video because I watched another reaction to the Somerton apology, and I couldn't be happier. This was hysterical. Now I have to check out your other videos and Jessie Gender's, too, I guess. Have a good one!
honestly even IF everything about his parents was true, literally the whole time he was talking about it i was thinking "okay???? and what does that have to do with you being a plagiarizing scumbag????" like...the whole reason people are critizising him is that he made shitty decisions that affected a lot of people badly, while he made a profit. and then hes like "yeah but i was JUST making some shitty decision i didnt mean to HURT people ))):" YEAH JAMES. thats what we want you to take accountability for!! that YOU, a grown ass man, made DECISIONS, that were detrimental to other people. all his excuses may be reasons for making those shitty decisions, but im sorry james sadly that doesnt exempt you from having made those shitty decisions, which means you need to own up and correct those. like its that simple.
several minutes into his "apology" i was thinking..."literally why do i need to know about your mothers life insurance" like it made me uncomfortable!!! i dont need to know your dad apparantly cant read!! that isnt at all relevant here!! uuuuugh
I can't even believe he's still trying to come back.
literally cried laughing just from your title lmao
I think one of my favourite lies is how he keeps swearing they didn't take the Telos money and spend it all, while also refusing to show any evidence of still having it and not refunding the large portion of people asking for money back. Hm. Strange. Where is that money, then, James?
I AM THE OVERLAP
AND in the first "apology" he reopens his Patreon and the 2nd apology video is monetized (to give money to hbomberguy's fund for those he stole from, of course). The gall of this guy 🙄
(In the voice of Hbomberguy screaming)
WHO IS HIRING CHILD LABOR IN CANADA JAMES?!?!?!
YOU?!?!?!!!
I'm absolutely cackling at this and this is now my favourite James Somerton origin story.
Don't you know? Having a bad memory means stealing peoples work is just an oopsie daisy.
James’ backstory is probably a “Saltburn” thing.
There are a number of youtubers whose work I enjoyed and who I had to realize were disingenuous hacks. It sucks. What sucks even more is that most of them keep doing just fine. The fact the Somerton, for one, suffered actual consequences for his disingenuous hackery is, one one hand, comforting, on the other hand and in light of the fact that so many others still get away with their own disingenuous hackery just because theirs isn't as clumsy as Somerton's, it isn't, really...
James Somerton is the result of a lab accident involving a mangy raccoon, 3 gallons of mayonnaise, and a 55 gallon drum of refined audacity.
It was so bad. Dude has no idea what he even did wrong, like hes apologizing for the wrong stuff. Then, he just says its actually all for reasons, then he says its actually all hi fault he could have fixed it all, BUT "I guess i couldn't bring my mom back to life" and its like, dude, you made this video for sympathy, not apology. I already sympathized, so it wasnt even necessary. He's gotta stop. I gotta stop watching him go.
I think you're mixing up apologizing with making excuses. I heard very few actual apologies. It was just a lot of excuses and BS reasons why he did what he did.
Life hack: do ALL the excuses and maybe one sticks.
I never heard of him before now; now I just want to forget that I did hear about him.
Thank you, this is exactly the summary of all this that I really wanted and needed . I did watch the full h bomber guy video but I couldn't stomach the apologies . So thank you
In light of recent revelations, oh I think you’re 100% right lmao. He’s gotta be somewhere in top 20 evilest gay guys.
Thank you for sharing, I completely thought he was lying but I felt crazy and I just needed someone else to say it too! Your video made me laugh so hard, thank you for this😁
I think he wants us to think his dad was like some 1910's street urchin that had to go to work in a textile factory cleaning out the machinery when his dad was at the latest born in the 50's. My favorite lie was the life insurance company refusing to pay out because his "mom" "forgot to mention someone in the family had diabetes, not her but someone else so they wouldn't pay out the full policy and only gave back one year of premiums".
I do believe that insurance companies are greedy enough to use any reason they can find not to give you the money; if it was anybody but Somerton, I'd probably believe it. But he's said previously (like, really bitched about it, at length) that the insurance company didn't pay out because of a history of depression. Of course, he can't use that story now, or people will think his attempt to end himself was because of his own mental illness, and not because Hbomb is a big ol' meaney.
@@Bonadueceit’s possible and totally legit for a life insurance company to not pay out for failing to disclose certain things in the application - it’s effectively seen as fraud to induce the company to underwrite you at a lower risk level to decrease your premiums. however, it’s EXTREMELY unlikely and almost impossible for them to do so based upon failing to disclose some condition in your *family* history. plenty of people don’t have the full story about their parents’ health history. hell - I struggle filling out family history despite being very close to both of my parents who are only in their early 60s. they would have to be able to show that you knowingly concealed that info at the time of application - that you knew about the condition at the time and failed to disclose it when asked specifically about it. and the company would have had to discover this fact somehow on their own after the insured’s death? i’ve worked in insurance coverage law for years and I have never even once seen that happen.
the most common scenario is failure to disclose some diagnosis in YOUR OWN health history. it’s much easier to prove you knowingly withheld info about diagnoses you personally had. insurance companies invalidating a policy for that reason is a good thing - it’s an anti-fraud mechanism to protect the thousands of other people insured by that pool of money.
all that said, the depression story makes much more sense… even though disclosing a mental health diagnosis is rarely going to have much of an impact on underwriting, since a death caused by depression (aka suicide) is generally an exclusion to getting payout anyway … however, given james’ insane penchant for lying, I would bet it was a combo of the 2, and that mom actually failed to disclose a pre-existing diagnosis of diabetes for herself.
Sad thing, it worked, to an extent. Absolutely nobody believes a word he said about either his YT channel or Telos, but I've seen a few people whom I expected to know better going "hmm, maybe there's something to it," regarding the whole Nebula situation... I don't know a thing about Nebula beyond the ads, but I'm pretty sure anything James Somerton said about it is his self-serving confabulations, because everything else definitely is.
My favorite thing about the dad being illiterate was it was so random and had nothing to do with the web he was trying to spin. Just like a random thing he tacked on it was so bizarre
classic liar’s folly - over explain and add too many extraneous details.
I didn’t know who JS was until the hbomberguy’s video was being reacted to. Never saw his work other than clips in subsequent reaction videos. And yet I am watching the series of reaction videos to his series of apology videos with nearly the passion illuminatii has engendered. And possessed her latest plush for the time it took to open the package (I had 2 plushies en route) and walk to the trash…
These stories remind me of the Barry Keiogan character in Saltburn. Just making up his origin story with weird factoids when his family is just ordinary alive and chilling in the burbs.
He actually looks like a supervillain with those turtle necks he wears!
Haha! This was great. I'm deep diving into the reaction videos to Apology Part Two and this one is a hidden gem.
What's Therapy? has a 3+ hour one.
I've watched it. I enjoyed it very much.
I absolutely despise raccoons, but you were grossly unfair to them in this instance.
Hoping the latest news about dude isn't true
I heard he was still deleting comments on his videos since posting what he posted but it seems like his channel is gone now so idk
Edit: nvm it's still up he just rebranded as James of Telos
@@melephs_capHe changed the name of his channel to James of Telos.
Edit: I initially thought it was gone, too, but it turns out he deleted the 2nd apology video and changed his channel name sometime in the last few days, prior to this latest development.
I guess we´d have confirmation by now, if it was true.
I know multiple older adults who are completely illiterate (boomers and early Gen X). in that generation there was a lot of leaving dyslexic and people with other learning disabilities to fall through the cracks. My mom had to teach her on-off ex's son how to read and write at home because his dad can barely sign his name (dude drives without a license because he can't take the written).
Granted I'm from Tennessee.
To actually answer the silly question, children learn how to read and write in kindergarten. Like, day one of first grade we know how to write our name. Day one of second grade I was reading a book without pictures in it. (Which is why I skipped right on to day 2 of third grade, but that’s a different story)
Adult illiteracy is definitely plausible, especially when it comes to official government like documents, people tend to lose any confidence they have in their limited abilities. That said, there are usually resources available you can ask for if you can't understand what's being told to you by a government official.
The bigger issue is excuse making, justifying his appalling behaviour on things that most of us would never ever dream of using as an excuse for our own shitty actions.
Yeah, adult illiteracy is uncomfortably common, especially in poor areas. That said, I don't believe for a second that James's dad is illiterate. I just can't believe anything he says, it's all lies.
I never heard of James until the HBomberGuy video.
But why would he lie? Jessie treated him so nicely that obviously he feels guilty now.
When Rebecca goes on a roast-fest I always get the popcorn...
If his parents are raccoons, that would explain why his dad can't read and write
His dad was taken out of school at the small age of 6 to work in the factories because it's the early 1800's in James' world he's just so creative he is an aspiring director after all! he's so good at coming up with believable things what a smart guy