James Somerton's TRASH Disney takes and why we need to READ.
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- Опубліковано 5 гру 2023
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Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. - Розваги
i was supposed to have another disneycember video go public today but this situation has had me so upset and just want to express how i was feelings. let this being a leason learned that just bc a person has a well put together video doesnt automatically mean its a genuine video.
girl disney supports israel in the genocide of palestinians. idk but shit talking disney is super fair rn. disappointed of u
hi, i have made it VERY clear that i do not support disney and i have been VERY open about how they have been funding the genocide. i have been VERY open about my support for the palestinians. i am no way shape or form DEFENDING disney in this video. the purpose of this was to talk about how james often made up things about the company (and others) and it was not needed because there's already so much about disney that is A MESS and needs to be discussed. him spreading false info about the company contributes to why people refuse to learn history because they will just assume everything is lies. i usually do not respond to comments like but one thing you will not do is make it seem like i am supporting this shit WHEN I ABSOLUTELY AM NOT.
@twilightinparislol yep they absolutely did deleted it so fast
I think that James's plagarism and misinformation is horrible. But i think the worst thing he said that the survivors of the AIDS crisis were "" the boring ones"", and that the only reason they were fighting for the right to marriage was because they were obsessed with respectability politics. Its not like gay people couldn't be with their dying lovers because their relationships weren't officially recognized by the state, or that married couples have protections and benefits that nonmarried couples don't have.
I’ve never watched his content but reading this… oh my god. That’s horrible. Acting like HIV/AIDS isn’t still a massive killer. I can almost certainly tell that he doesn’t know much about HIV/AIDS as a pathogen or pandemic. Disgusting. People don’t only get HIV/AIDS from unprotected intercourse- protected intercourse still runs a risk, oral intercourse poses a risk, drug use poses a risk. And guess what! It’s never anyone’s fault they get HIV/AIDS! And while no longer a death sentence, your risk of death is still higher having it, and it can lock you out of spaces simply for your HIV status.
That comment made me so angry. I had to pause the video and walk away before continuing.
HE ACTUALLY SAID THIS?! Disgusting. (No I'm not shocked in disbelief I just wasn't subbed nor watch EVERY vid of his so I probably missed it I'm glad)
@@nfsiiihp I think it’s a badly retold reference to a dark Fran Lebowitz joke (IIRC, her joke was that Broadway musicals weren’t as good as they used to be because the gay men with taste died/directing them of AIDS), but without that context or setup, James just said it and it came out like wrongly timed wit
I hate what marriage represents because of the whole religious aspect and it's misogynistic origins but it's definitely true that getting married gives you privileges in society, and that not letting people from certain groups get married is very much wrong
As another commenter in another video said about James before - "you're gay because you like men, I'm gay because I hate women, we're not the same." I had no idea he said some wild misogynistic takes about queer women, i don't keep up with his contents before, but after learning about his true color - I've unsubscribed.
It was on hbomberguy's video on James' plagiarism(at least that's where I found it)
@@robertolie6798Yeah that is the video I was talking about, lol
What's wrong with that statement?
@@skoop651 It reeks misogyny and lesphobia all together. He hate women.
I don't get how hating women would make you gay. I mean a penus still looks and feels like it does, that isn't going to get better because you don't like people with vaginas.
Reading is being taken for granted nowadays and it's time people should start reading again!
Hmmmm...or is it we are all not interested in reading about Disney?
The problem is reading is hard for a lot of people, and people don't know how to pick apart media anymore. I'm not gonna go on a rant, but BookTok is a product of what happens when people with no media literacy skills read books.
real af but also i usually watch video essays about stuff i plan on digging into further afterwards and if the topic ends up not being as interesting as i thought i click off the video and don’t end up reading more and it looks like that’s the case for a lot of ppl lol
@@cinemuhhhhh
I'm the same way with books, movies and games. I'm got gonna spend money on trash lol.
@@vvitch-mist20 I recommend RoyalRoad, a site for writers to post their work for free.
Mostly you'll find fantasy stuff, but it isn't all that.
My favorite story is Mother of Learning, a magical time loop story that I found well written and fun.
I've come to prefer reading to watching shows and movies.
I was a fan of his too somewhat. I put his videos on in the background while doing something. The reveal of his plagiarism, misogyny, biphobia, and lesbophobia was mind boggling.
The constant lies, the dehumanizing of women, erasing bi women while complaining how us as queer folk are being erased. I don't think he can ever come back from this.
I can't even say I'm sad, just disappointed. But at least from this situation I have found more queer creators who don't plagiarize. Kaz Rowe and Matt Baume are who I recommend.
EVEN lesbophobia?! But that's just homphobia even though he was supposedly against it *sigh*
@@nfsiiihpyes a lot of his comments were about lesbians having it easier. I find it lesbophobic due to the fact that he makes it seem like we get everything when we don't. He doesn't really acknowledge our struggles, or a lot of queer women struggles in general, unless the work he plagiarized does.
@@loserbutch0 WLW and MLM are the same thing and they both struggle with problems the fact that he divided that is stupid oml
i’m going to second Kaz Rowe! they’re a great historian i’ve learned so much from their videos
Stupid people's internet drama comment section
There’s so many issues with Disney there’s no need to make things up when there’s so many things to choose from to talk about and call out. 😭
no literally
Exactly
I stopped watching *that* man because of his heartstopper video. I agree we need more wholesome queer content like heartstopper, but they way he was shitting on the other queer shows like they did nothing and excluded wlw representation felt very much misogynistic and felt very *white*
Is THAT why he has the comment section off??
James Somerton (a queer content creator) basically plagiarized off of articles about LGBT stuff.
He said misogynistic stuff about women by calling, bisexual women who wrote stories about gay men were either straight or lesbian.
He Misgendered ND Stevenson, a transmasc person who is also the creator of “She-ra in the princesses of power” who also wrote the graphic noval “Nimona” which eventually became a animated hit movie on Netflix, and Rebecca sugar, a non-binary bisexual person who is the creator of Steven universe and curtain writer, storyborder, and composed some songs for “Fiona and cake” which is a adult spin off of “adventure Time”
and probably even worse was he lied about queer history, a history about marginalized that is, and currently is very poorly documented.
Also, he said that those who were killed during the aids epidemic were the “the artist gays” and those who are aroace, single and survived were “ the boring gays” implying that the only way for queer person to not be boring is if they got laid.
@@dixiereynolds9909 I was hoping that "you're boring if you don't zeggz with someone" stupidity died but NAAAH
@@dixiereynolds9909 Sorry for again but now I'm even more glad he got (methaphor) caught with pant-down in white-speedo, like he the "boring" thingy and divining mlm and wlw/bi even though IT'S THE SAME THING is jarring like oml
@@dixiereynolds9909Wtf bumping uglies isn't that important dude is sick
Reading non fiction books really really helps with being able to discern someone's biases and other perspectives. The more boring, the better. I know it's a bit of a learning curve, but reading studies and academic papers is essential when fact checking on complex topics you're not familiar with. A bibliography won't do much good if you can't read the sources. Best to not get in the habit of doing a vibe check to make sure it's there.
Analyzing can be fun! No one is above you! The only difference between between someone who makes informative media and someone who doesn't is one started typing or turned on a camera. That's it. Keeping my personal opinions about the specific situation to a minimum. Learning and growing is always the most important thing at the end of the day. Knowledge is power
I like this! Although I'm a student of fiction, the same thing applies. It's so hard to find people who you can talk to about literature, not just old stuff like Shakespeare or the epics but also just going through books like Jade City and talking about different interpretations, thoughts, feelings, etc. Everyone can bring a unique perspective into the world of books even if no one ends up agreeing on anything.
@@infinitecurlie jade city 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🙏🙏🙏
@@infinitecurlie Holy cow you read Fonda Lee! Hello! fellow fantasy reader
@@infinitecurlie ooooo i'mma shove that series in my to-read list the wikipedia blurb for the first novel sounds cool
i didn’t hear about him until i saw a clip of him talking about revolutionary girl utena, and it was him just complelety misunderstanding one of the leads’ relationship with s**ual abuse that came off as victim-blamey 💀 so i’m happy i never watched him
who IS he??
@@Eepop_stuffsI think they’re referring to James Somerton who was recently exposed for plagiarism, misogyny, transphobia among other things.
@Artsy913 ohhh yeah I remember him lol. He is fucking weeeiiirrdd
I hate when bad/ab77ive victimblaming relationships get romanticized SM
oh nooooo, which character was he talking about???
This whole situation has been really upsetting as someone who used to like his video essays. I thought that they were interesting and it was good to get some perspective on LGBTQ+ history. Something about his videos was slightly off in that I'd notice something misogynistic and then ignore it. I knew that what he was saying was bad but I didn't think much of it because the rest of what he said seemed really respectful towards women and I think there was also some internalised misogyny as well. I'm so used to seeing it everywhere that it felt normal to ignore it because it just came with being online. His mostly inclusive videos made me excuse the parts that were less so (an issue I feel is common in society).
I also felt slightly uncomfortable when he was talking about the nazis in his body image video because I felt like he was a bit too 'objective' about the whole thing. I also ignored how a lot of what he was saying sounded far fetched because I felt it wasn't my place to tell someone who had done lots of research into the subject and was openly gay that they were wrong. I like to practice media literacy and check sources but I just took his popularity and patreon numbers as reason to trust him.
I'm middle eastern so I can't come out to my family or act outside of conventional gender roles so I didn't feel 'queer enough' to take my suspicions any further and once I got past this, I genuinely enjoyed his videos and respected him. They seemed well-researched and well-made, with history I would never be able to spend too much time researching myself. To find out that the parts I liked and the parts that resonated with me weren't written by him was like a stab to the chest when I first watched "the video" but I feel like this is going to be a catalyst for change on youtube.
The bit about reading and misinformation also stuck out to me. Especially with tiktok, some people hear a fact and run with it without being critical. I already tried to do it before but from now on I'll be trying harder to fact check anything I come across.
I'm sorry for the mini-essay but I felt like I needed to get this off my chest with all the comments on youtube being like 'I'm glad I never watched him' etc. You don't need to feel bad about having liked James in any way. I'm not sure how to end this comment but uh I hope everyone has a good day. Free Palestine!
Even though I didn't watch every vid of his religiously and frequently I used to like him for highlighting MLM history and even though I wasn't a stan or anything it's just... depressing especially he was making QUEER content that he turned against???
I relate to all of this 😞
I used to recommend James to anyone I could, provided they were queer of course
free palestine 🇵🇸 🖤❤️🤍💚
This is tragic element of Somertin’s. People who don’t have supporting communities geographically around them turn to the internet for support. His industrial scale plagiarism damages not just online communities but individuals. But there are fabulous LGBTQ creators out there who are not grifters. Hang in there. Free Palestine!
Hey I agree with you but I just wanted to tell you: you're valid. There are countless closeted people out there, and not one of them is any less valid for being closeted than someone who is out. You have just as much right to speak on things as someone out would!!! Give yourself more credit. And I hope one day you're in a safe place with people who love you for you.
It will never not bother me that he never talked about Wanda Maximoff’s Romani heritage and ignored her being whitewashed. There’s also a line in the video where he says that he head cannoned Wanda made her children gay so that she could be the queer community mom.
That would require him to do some research and we now know that he unfortunately never bothers to do so :/
Late but I ALWAYS preferred original Maximoffs
Today on “a gay man parroting alt right talking points about queer folks doesn’t mean he gets to endorse or repeat anti queer propaganda because he happens to be gay.” He’s hiding behind it like vunsh hides behind being autistic. No, sir, that’s not what’s wrong with you.
@DVOSC what is wrong with taking about her Romani heritage?
I am not a comic book nerd nor do I know much about Romani culture so I don't understand the misstep.
@@GothBiDemiGirl He *didn't* talk about it; Wanda is a canonically Jewish and Romani character and that has informed how she has been written in Marvel comics for decades, but she is played by a white actress in the MCU which a lot of fans have taken issue with.
There's some reductionist leftists, James gave a reductionist gay politic, I remember in one his videos that discussed the Hayes code he said this line (paraphrase) "black people were allowed on screen" in reference to the exclusion of queer people. It was like he was doing oppression Olympus, and had a gay persecution complex. This behavior also showed up when he attacked Nebula for not having sufficient Queer content/creators. It does.
Dont forget that all women who criticise him are apparently straight, id still like to know how he can sniff that out. /S
@@annabeinglazy5580 don't forget misgendering! I remember his bs calling Rebecca Sugar she. They are non binary. But to make her "straight" which she isn't.
Also she was the reason we had the gay gems and Marcy and Bubblegum... Ugh
It's like he didn't even know their most famous work
He also says it's "safer to be racist than transphobic these days" at 3:08 in his JK Rowling video, with that and the Hayes code comment it really does seem like he's got this recurring need to assert that queer people are somehow "more oppressed" than people of color
I hope this isn’t off topic, but there was a tic tok of his circling Twitter the day Hbomb’s video came out where he is horrifically anti-Palestine and anti Semitic (equating Jews and Israel) and I think that circles back to your point. He inserts himself into a discussion of genocide to proudly side with the perpetrators because he thinks they are less homophobic (Israel doesn’t allow same-sex marriage). The whole world is reduced to gay or straight, all other factors be damned.
@@donnacasey8890 The phenomenon of using gay rights as a means to drum up liberal support for hawkish foreign policy has started to be studied and analyzed since the late 00s. Jasbir Puar was afaik the first to write about it and coined the term "homonationalism." It's pretty interesting and it definitely crops up a lot in the discussion of Israel-Israeli "public diplomacy" has pretty successfully leveraged the image of Tel Aviv as a modern city with a lively gay culture as a part of the moral justification for their aggression against the Palestinians.
One thing I vividly remember is James blaming Bob Chapek for what happened to “The Owl House” even though Dana Terrace has repeatedly stated Chapek had nothing to do with that.
Tbh I hold myself responsible, but I feel so embarrassed I was just so trusting and quick to assume that someone presenting themselves as a supporter of marginalised communities wouldn't try some mess like this. xx
Why would the victims be held responsible?
as someone who this has happened to an embarrassing amount, its not your fault. they came here to lie and deceive, so obviously at least one person was going to be caught in the crossfire. as long you didnt go and do some horrible thing about it, youve done nothing wrong but trust and have faith.
You know it: Reading Is Fundamental.
What you said about James seeming like a ‘well read’ guy which made his plagiarism/misinfo less obvious really struck me. I spotted Illuminaughty’s plagiarism months ago because she couldn’t read ‘her own’ scripts. Mispronunciations and wrong emphasis’ abound as if she’d never read it before. James was able to slip under the radar because he leaned so hard into the “I’m a respectable white guy wearing glasses and pronounce all the Italian dishes *correctly* at restaurants, how could I be wrong?!” and it’s just another level of sinister to present himself as some intellectual, at least illuminaughty was pretty clearly mostly a drama channel
Matt Baume is another gay media history channel. He's been on UA-cam since his channel was JUST following the fight for marriage equality. His vibe is so sweet and informative for retor TV I was born too late for.
Also fuck yeah Princess Weeks and Shanspeare!!!
Matt baume just seems so down to earth and I’m saying this as a straight person who has learned a lot from him.
Matt Baume’s positivity is the antithesis to JS. ❤👍
Seconded on all 3 counts! I think Kaz Rowe does some queer video essays.
Maybe we should make a nice big list of creators to follow instead of James
Hbomberguy made one in the description of his video calling out JS!
@@grumpysphinx4911 oh fuck dude you're 100% right, I forgot that entirely! Absolutely, exactly what I wanted
I watched Somerton a lot last year and I feel bad for not picking up on shit bad takes back then. There were some things he said that made me kinda do a double take but I passed it off as “ this is just you not being smart enough to understand.” Now I feel stupid for not looking into why for not knowing better. I don’t want to believe that any queer creator would literally either steal or have shit takes but now I understand that it’s important to be even a little critical about all media you consume. Especially if it’s from someone you like.
literally same 😭 i thought his content was interesting (especially all the horror content) and whenever he made a questionable statement i just thought that it was a bad take that he didn’t think too hard abt and ignored it bcs i assumed that he was a decent person.
Well I used to liked him but I wasn't his stan I just liked his vids on history (even though I didn't watch EVERY one of them which is why I HAD NO IDEA about the Nebula/ "boring" gays&wlw bashing but now I'm glad he metaphorically got caught with pant-down in red-speedo xD
@@lilacfields I used to like his horror content too
This is so common in his audience. Don’t feel bad. It just shows it’s very easy to fall victim of a well produced video with disinformation. Sometimes you need to trust your gut. I was a subscriber but stopped watching his videos because they felt cold, distant, and boring. We know why now. And he’s disdain for women and “woe is me” vibes turned me away, too.
@@mhawang8204 Exactly, not only he seemed eloquent just bc of stolen scripts but also had that ultranice editing and his way of speaking BUT his takes on WLW and bi and "boring games" were huge red flags (especially when he supposedly was doing QUEER CONTENT just to do the opposite??) BUT the most horrifying plottwist was when in one of his history vids he spoke on Germany and leather which was terrifying like DUDE ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND??
Does anyone remember a video of his where he said at some point that every queer person is bound to end up in an abusive relationship?
I'm certain he said that and it's not out of the ordinary for him to say since most of the time he has no idea what he's actually saying and has used the words straight out of an "anti-woke" writer's mouth.
But I haven't seen anyone bring it up and I'm beginning to wonder if it was an auditory hallucination that I had because I've had those before.
i think i remember that too but i can’t say which one for sure. possibly the toxic queer love one? i took it as him saying intimate partner violence is common within queer couples but idk if he had a citation for that or anything
I didn’t watch it, so I can’t be sure, but he had a video on Stalking Killing that might have matched the vibes of that statement, given that webcomic’s contents
That sounds a lot like a paraphrase of a more nuanced article. I _do_ think certain kinds of toxicity (I don't like saying "abuse" necessarily) are really common in the queer scene, because there are very common forms of queer/ND trauma that tend to bounce really unhealthily off of one another. A lot of us have brain problems and that can strain any relationship! I think there's a complicated point to be made there about how collective trauma can compound and feed off itself.
But I have no doubt James put it really clunkily, and also presumably found a way to blame women for it.
@@donnacasey8890 I think it was in the toxic queer love vid, there was a segment with Killing Stalking that was honestly hot garbo on Killing Stalking and felt more like an attack on the (female) author than criticism of the webtoon site categorizing and pushing the story as LGBT romance instead of the k-horror it was WRITTEN AS.
(yes I'm still mad)
Jesus Im reminded of the time Princess Weekes was praising James as "The most inteligent person" in one of her videos/livestreams & now we know what made him so "inteligent" 💀💀💀
Basically stolen facts/essays and disguised with editing, I was dissapointed but now I'm glad he methaphorically got caught with pant-down in white-speedo especially after his takes on WLW
Oh no… Princess actually said that?!! It shows the best of us could be duped 😟
@@mhawang8204 To be fair, it was before the allegations came out (not to say he was perfect bc in one of his vids on history the things he said on N77is, like WAS THAT REALLY NECESSARY?!
@@nfsiiihp he completely made up the stuff about the nazis too. The first modern bodybuilder was a jewish man called eugene sandow and the silver age of bodybuilding started in the late 20s. He completely fabricated a narrative about nazis inspiring fitness culture out of some weird hatred towards bodybuilding to try and make the community look bad.
This is a great video, and I’m sorry it’s impacting you this hard. I watched a few of his videos awhile back and while the first one or two seemed fine I started noticing that he hates women, especially queer women. He frequently scornfully accuses authors and tv show producers or being “straight white women fetishizing gay men”, which does happen, but he only ever uses that argument against bisexual women and non binary people like Rebecca Sugar. He is the harshest to people who are actually out there doing the work and trying to create more representation for the community, just because they’re feminine presenting. The more I watched and especially after watching the Todd in the Shadows and H. Bomber guy videos, the more clear it became that he thinks that it’s okay to be misogynistic as long as she’s white and appears to be straight.
I’m a bi white woman so frankly I’m used to people like Somerton trying to strip me of my identity, backhandedly trying to tell me I don’t know who I am and that I don’t belong. But I think it’s made all the worse because the only parts of his videos that are 100% his own ideas are the misogynistic, biphobic and transphobic ones. None of the resources he stole from made any statements about women the way he does. He claims to care about the LGBTQ+ community but he only really cares about the G.
Anyway, media literacy is dead and the internet killed it.
And really, he only cared about the WHITE G---I don't think he grasps intersectionality on ANY level. And it seems to me that he only paid lip service to intersectionality solely bc he was stealing the work of other people who were genuinely being intersectional.
I think I found you via Princess Weekes. I, too, watched James and was disappointed by everything. Seeing his comments towards Maggie and Jessie would've been massive red flags. I just never saw the tweets.
What James Somerton did was unacceptable.
Imho it is worse. What he did is nigh unforgivable.
@@page8301 You got that right
AND hypocritical not to mention treating mlm and wlw like a competition
describing it as bye sister has me dead 😂 i was trying to pin down my feelings on all this and you hit the nail on the head
this is bye sister for nerds lmaooooo
🤓 💅
@@harriyanna his chanel is gone!!! He nuked The whole thing today apparently? Its gone beyond "bye sister" its gone nuclear! 😵😧🤯💀
I'm glad everyone has been learning one lesson from this: All of us should cite our sources better. Every one of us could just as easily be spreading misinformation.
Also, I've been watching Todd in the Shadows for five years. if somebody, even just two years ago went up to me and said "hey, this guy is going to help blow the lid off of one of the most harmful scandals in youtube history" I would have shrugged at them, turned back around and kept watching the "summer in paradise" video.
Crazy small world.
about the nickelodeon tangent, the funny thing is that it has a similar problem to cheetah girls. there ARE problems with schneider's work and racism, but it's NOT sam being black coded supposedly in minecraft. one i can remember from the top of my head is quinton from quinton reviews talking about how in victorious they try to have an "urban accent" and how that puppet that i forgot the name started off weirdly black coded (even tho he looks like robbie who is a white-passing jewish guy and his va was white.... yeah)
Puppets name was Rex and it was super weird yea
@@quinnfarris YES THANK YOU I didn't watch victorious bc i felt a little too old at the time for that and it was when kpop became a major special interest to me so i had to rely on other people's word on that and lemme tell you when I discovered I was flabbergasted THERE WAS NO FUCKING REASON
I completely understand the distress! My jaw dropped seeing all the plagiarism. I majored in English and looking at ALL the sources that were straight up ignored I want to go back and thank some professors for making us cite diligently and use Turnitin
I've always had trouble with reading, but the accessibility of audio books has changed all that. I highly recommend trying it.
I think I was most horrified by his interesting take on the uh N*zi’s…. Like does he have a *thing* for them?!
I was in disbelief when I saw it, I was like DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?? like I get it, "history video" but DAFAQ??
@@nfsiiihp Also he got the history wrong (i.e. just made shit up. Like, no, the SS was not infamous for being bribed by blowies.)
This man getting tagteamed by the whole commentary/video essayist youtuber community is the funniest thing ever to me.
FREE PALESTINE!!!
Thank you for making this!! Somehow even in my super queer, video-essay corner of YT I didn’t run into these accusations before your post and video.
I was subscribed to this guy and saved a bunch of his vids because they sounded interesting, but I only watched a few. Didn’t super dig him (just came off a bit snobbish), but I didn’t think to look deeper into his sources. Your points about respectability shit are such a good wake-up call! Just because someone has high production values and a big following and “looks” like a reputable video essayist does not mean they aren’t fabricating shit or stealing content from other creators. Definitely going to get his content off my list and find an article about one of those topics instead.
Appreciate you and your work sharing your knowledge with us. You’re the intro to African American studies I never got in college, and I am so grateful to you for including materials and sources for further reading.
You might be interested in the channel Dreamsounds. The creator concluded the channel very recently but it gives a lot of interesting Disney history and LGBT history. It's focused on the musical aspect of Disney which I found fascinating. She also goes into the differences between translations of songs.
dreamsounds’ videos are incredible!!!!
i forgot about dreamsounds, thank you!
I never heard of James Somerton until Hbomberguy’s video. It made me relook how I view channels and their content now… how much of their script is plagiarized? Especially if their production quality is very good, I can’t help feeling like they cut corners with the script (like you said, James’s presentation convinced you that he knew what he was talking about).
As a gay woman, thank you for taking about James Somerton.
He always rubbed me the wrong way and I feel he does a lot more harm to the gay community than good.
GIRL I GOT A GRAMMARLY AD FOR THEIR CITATIONS FEATURE BEFORE THIS
I've seen HOURS of advertisements before his essays as well. The idea of having so many ads and also saying that finances are tight is so much what my friends are currently upset with. If you give more money, you shouldn't be cosplaying poverty and telling people that you're unfairly obscured. If you give tons of money, people are going to notice!
I fell off of James many years ago when he made his Disney video that I found out just recently he plagiarized from a book and inserted some misogyny here and there for flavor 💀
Loved your opening line “it’s so much to drag Disney for we ain’t gotta lie” 😂😂😂
I read that Disney removed Anginette because they couldn’t find talented enough twins to play the roles. They considered the Mowry sisters, but ultimately they were too old for the role.
So they merged the two sisters into 1 character and cast Aqua.
((Personally that’s a load of BS to me if that’s true. Maybe it would have taken a little bit more time but I know there’s black twin girls out here who can sing! wtf did they hold auditions for 2 weeks?? 🥴))
let's be honest if anything needs a redo it's THE CHEETAH GIRLS. disney white washed that story so much.
@@harriyanna it’s the fact that they really thought they were giving peak diversity with the original series 😭😂
this is all very disappointing to me. i really connected with his videos about killing stalking and the origins of the "fit" body type obsession from world war 2 (i am trans, fat, come from a jewish family, and have had experience with controlling abusers). now i'm not even sure what's real or not and it's just... sigh.
I am trans, fat, queer, come from a mixed Jewish family, have experience with controlling emotional abuse, and my new hyperfixation is doing an autopsy on James’ “fit” body origins w relation to nazis and American fascism because not only is he wrong, he’s *_deeply, disturbingly wrong._*
I can’t promise a timeline but I’m so fucking mad I’m gonna do it for people like us 👀
If you want a similarly accessable resource on fitness stuff, fatphobia, body standards etc I'd recommend the Maintenance Phase podcast.
Same, I enjoyed his videos, but those two especially did really stand out....
There are a lot of better sources for you out there! Fat liberation is the term to look for, but sadly my brain isn’t giving me the names right now.
i'm so dumb i really thought he was being sarcastic with how overdone it was. like, how could anyone say that shit for real?!
I am very early and I just wanted to let you know that I absolutely adore your content. As someone who was raised by boomers on the edge of a retirement, right-leaning town, I am constantly looking for sources to better my knowledge so I can properly respect everyone and their backgrounds.
Your in-depth analysis' are very helpful in showing me the ways that I might have hurt others without the proper awareness, and as someone who likes to write and draw, it makes me comfortable knowing I have a knowledgeable source to turn to to make sure that my content is respectful ❤❤ thank you for the learning, Captain
Thank you for speaking on this, Capt 🖤
The Cheetah Girls was a book series?? Oh my god, child me would have loooooved those, I'm so mad I didn't know about them.
"A plethora of f-ckery" is so apt we should adopt it into the language, like ideal category phrases such as "a murder of crows", "a herd of cows", "a pod of whales" etc.
I’m glad I follow the right people that just don’t mention this guy as a trustworthy source, cuz I had no idea of his existence until recent
Hate the fact his content is either stolen or just flat out wrong
I felt the same as you- a psychological horror, the news caught me so off guard. I didn’t deny it, but I couldn’t believe it either. This situation reminded me to be more vigilant. I thought I was too good to be manipulated/scammed like that, but that’s life-it can happen to anyone!
Great video!! It's so important to criticize things based on actual fact rather than going by gossip and rumors
Also speaking of fact checking, I need people to not use tweets as a source anymore fhdjsks. 😭
Weirdly enough I keep getting James bad omens video pushed in the slew of videos about him these last few days when I hadn’t before. That’s absolutely wild. I’d only watched his video on vampires before this.
I been waiting for this! Not only does he have problematic takes, he presents them in such a matter of fact and pretentious way that gives me horrible icky vibes
I only recently subscribed to him a bit back cause of his video of the gay horror manga he did if The Summer Hikaru Died, other than that I hadn't seen his other videos, but when I went back to the video to see the name of the manga while writing this, I now see that his comments are turned off which is kinda suspicious because if he's innocent why the comments off 🤨? I also unsubscribed from him cause why be subscribed to somebody that can't get facts straight or even do very basic research that he can look up on the effing internet very easily😑, Disney has done a lot of very iffy shid but why lie about said iffy shid when there is plenty to be truthful about and then make a video about lying about iffy shid said company has done? That defeats the purpose of educating, we get enough of that twisting truth and lying shid in the education system we don't need it over here 😂, and again, the fact that he got the comments turned off after these allegations don't help him at all and his vidoes were in fact REAL professional that shid looked EXPENSIVE but not good looking stuff aint always the quality that it looks like I guess 🤷🏿
god. if i'm being honest, i have not seen any of these longer videos talking about him yet but i feel just... dumbfounded. hadn't watched anything of his in months but i had watched and appreciated his videos because i truly thought that like... they were actually doing something. but fully flat out plagiarizing and then flat out lying? and then like? i've certainly heard other things stacked up on top of this, i really need to try and figure out a bigger picture of what's going on but i'm just.. dumbfounded. i mean, i'm so embarrassed to say this but i was on his patreon. or... am? i stg i tried to cancel my membership but it just said he was "inactive" and didn't properly let me cancel and i'm fuckin scared hes gonna be active again and it's automatically gonna start charging again. i mean,, god. the whole situation sucks and i'm just like.. god i feel everything you're saying. proper research, citing sources, these things are necessary! as somebody who does library work especially like this is such a big thing i feel we should be talking about! so to see this it's just like... damn. i clearly need to be doing more with my own research and not immediately assuming every creator knows what they're talking about just because of their production quality or whatever.
I remember his owl house video and how wierd some of his takes even were. He had a whole tangent about lack of M/M representation in animation and hates how most disney shows who have it always have it as gay dads of a side character rather then a main character.
And while that in itself was a fair point, he then followed that up with a whole thing about how it was a shame that hunter and gus would never be anything more then bros?
Implying the show had been hinting at them romantically and the only reason they wouldn't be canon is cause of Disney's meddling.
And that statement felt like a slap to the face cause -
A. Gus is 12 and hunter is 16, its a wierd ass age gap.
B. It was painfully obvious hunter had a romantic interest in willow, like PAINFULLY obvious. Something james said on twitter he didnt pick up on at all when called out on it.
C. Nothing about their bond on the show read as anything more then brotherly.
It came out of nowhere and the fandom itself was extremely confused. Hunter is a bi character and yeah it'd have been nice to explore his attraction to guys more, but james's wierd assumption hunter and his 12 year old friend had a thing despite his nonstop blushing over his actual crush was the most out of pocket thing.
It might be minor compared to most other stuff he said, but it now feels like foreshadowing to his many examples of making wierd assumptions rather then paying attention to what the team was going for that everyone in the fandom.picked up on easily.
he also made comments about how wlw and mlm are treated the same in fandom and in media which is blatantly false
After this week I appreciate your content more than ever. You not only try your best to link and source when needed, but also I feel like you make it really clear when you are stating your own opinion. While James on the otherhand, presented everything he said as fact.
also, i get things wrong from time to time and i make sure to heart comments with the corrections and point out where i messed up in notes. like im human and i make mistakes but this NOTHING like what he did. ugh this situation had me so frustrated because it really could have been avoided if he just READ.
I just got done watching his submission for "Lamest (non)Apology of the Year," and this popped up afterward. It's a nice palette cleanser for sure.
I stumbled on his channel last winter and checked in every now and again to educate myself on such a glossed-over field and acquaint myself with more queer perspectives. Of course, with all the persecution the gay community deals with, I assumed he'd be standing in solidarity and speaking in good faith. Why take advantage of other queer folk? Haven't enough spotlights been stolen from them already? And why make stuff up?
Buuuut he presented himself professionally enough and I feel like such an idiot for falling for the act. If I had known about his "film" "ventures," I'd like to think I might've caught on to his questionable character.
Really can't emphasize enough how important research and fact checking are. He was getting paid to steal stuff from the marginalized and rake in 5-digit viewcounts. Wtf James.
OMG yes I wasn’t expecting a video on him from you ❤❤❤
trust me it was VERY unexpected but it ended up falling in line with disneycember so WE HERE lol
Omg!!!! I used to watch you all the time!!! I stopped watching YT alltogether for a while and it mustve unsubscribed me so im so glad i came across this vid!
welcome back!
Haven't finished the video yet but I was going to leave this comment anyways.
I've always been appreciative of UA-cam videos that are informative about marginalised groups, especially in the context of popular culture (it's something I'm really interested in), but the whole Somerton situation has given me a whole new new level of appreciation for creators who do put time, effort, thought and research into what they make.
Your videos have been so valuable in helping me to learn about racial minorities- especially black people- and issues regarding how they're portrayed/represented in media, or how they're treated behind the scenes, or anything valuable to know as a white person who lacks any such insight into the experiences of racial minorities. I've learned so much from you and other creators who actually do know what they're talking about, and admit when they've said something wrong. I'm so glad that so many other people also want to learn about things that are important and valuable. And, I hope that continuing to learn from people who take the time to share important things about issues relating to their identities will help me to become a better ally to the communities that I am not part of but fully support, an informed queer person who is connected to the years of queer history that precedes me, and someone who knows enough to stand up for something.
It's unnerving to know that I could just be watching a video, take a statement at face value and later learn I have been misinformed, deliberately or not. This has really opened my eyes to the fact that I really need to work on my media literacy, to question things more than I do, and read up on things myself without relying solely on second-hand information given to me by someone on UA-cam or Instagram. These places really are valuable places to spread awareness, but it's clear that misinformation can spread like the plague, even by people who have no malice in what they're unwittingly doing. Really, it's a wakeup call that I should have come to realise sooner.
me: i dont wanna read :(
ms. harriyanna: we need to READ
me: o7 right away WE NEED TO READ EVERYONE !!!!
I recently watched his Queer as Folk retrospective and now I’m wondering if that was plagiarized too!
Whats his name
@@gigiloveyeah James Somerton. that guy who was called out for constant plagiarism.
...Yeah it was
@@captaincaspian42that’s crazy and insane bcs in that video he made the show seem so personal to him 😭 wtf
Oh, I remember this dude! I think only watched 4 of his videos: a video about Killing Stalking, Painter of the night, the Harry Potter controversy and his video about The owl house. The first three were kinda good. The cracks started showing with his The owl house video. There was a section where he discussed one of the characters named Hunter and he started talking about the character's bisexuality and that he might have a crush on his friend Gus. There's a lot to unpack here. First, the age gap: Hunter is 16 and Gus is 12. Second, the two have a brotherly relationship, which is proven by the show multiple times. Thirdly, Hunter's bisexuality was only confirmed after the show ended. That take on these two characters was just very weird. I remember think "Where did you even get that idea, dude? Did you even watch the show?"
Harri coming with the heat 🔥
This has almost been like finding out EmoBlackThot was a man, all over again 🤦🏾♀️
OMG DONT REMIND ME OF THAT SHIT 😭
@@harriyannaListen… I still feel the whiplash..
I slowly started pulling away from Twitter after that. I jumped ship a couple years before Elon bought it, and turned it into its current hellscape. 😂
Very well said, love the energy in this video
💙💙💙
I think the reason you’re so upset (rightly so) by Somerton’s bullshit is that you are trying to spread education, or at least get people thinking. And he was straight up doing the opposite while pretending to do the same.
I've never seen you like this. But you're point of view is understandable.
i can't pinpoint when or why, but in the past couple of months everytime a james somerton video came up in my subscriptions bar, i wouldn't feel a rush to watch it but i would just add it to my watch later and forget about it. when hbomberguy's video came out and exposed him, i was shocked but also? surprised that my subconscious had pushed his content to the bottom of the totem pole for what i deemed watch worthy. the only video of his that i especially remember watching was during the whole hogwarts legacy controversy i went through an emotional binge watch of any content creators that were being outspoken towards jk rowling - and so i feel betrayed knowing now that my pain was weaponized what with the way he 'produced content' to begin with.
your frustration is totally valid and felt by a lot us who'd watched his videos - and yeah if anything, i think that most of us are going to be looking at the content we consume by other video essayists with a keener eye.
I feel so lucky that the first and only video by Somerton that I clicked on was a topic I already knew about. Within the first 5 minutes I knew he was getting things wrong and was able to leave and not come back. But had I not known about asexuality, I could have so easily spent hours of my time listening to him instead of queer creators who actually put in the work to learn deeply about their topics and write original content. I hope that next time a person like this rises to prominence the many women who speak out against them will be taken more credibly.
Yup, yup, yup! I've always believed in the sentiment that if you truly believe your cause or argument is right, you shouldn't need to lie about it. Disney has SO many problems across their history, but making up things buries the very valid arguments with PROOF AND CITATIONS under a pile of lies. It won't help the cause be taken more seriously and is not a better alternative to just presenting the truth.
I find it wild he got away with the Buster Baxter meme
Not sure I understand your Dorinda point. If 3 out of 5 Black or Biracial Black characters in the book were either taken out or replaced with a non Black actress, they were correct that a white girl replaced a Black girl, even if they were wrong on the details of the twins. Calling it a complete lie is baffling. White Dorinda replaced Black Dorinda. There was never a white one. That is not a complete lie,that’s just a confusing of two characters names.
Now, I was a huge fan of 3LW and Cheetah Girls as a kid, so I’m not raging that it happened, but you basically confirmed it and that is VERY different from what James does which is MAKE SHIT UP OUT OF THIN AIR or completely lie about the origin.
For me, with adapting books, I do not mind if PoC are cast because we are often not (such as Tia and Tamara in Twitches when I remember the book having white twins). It doesn’t really take away from white people because they have so much media already. Switching the Cheetah Girls on the other hand DOES take from Black representation, however it also made the group successful to be so multicultural because they went on to have such successful albums and tours so again I’m not saying business wise it was a bad choice, only that 3 out of 5 Black girls in a Black story were absolutely erased/replaced so while both are misinformation, James was fully lying and the Dorinda situation was more like telephone where people talk and the details get muddy.
ok the dorinda thing. people were saying that dorinda wasn't in the book and she replaced aqua's sister in the movie. which is completely false. they were saying they took a black girl out and replaced her with a white girl. also alot of people don't know that dorinda is half black in the books, but we don't find that out until later on in the book series so we just think she's monoracial up until that point in the series where it's told to us. i apologize for the confusion! i was so upset when i recorded this.
I felt really embarrassed when I heard about what James did because I loved his videos, and I love a lot of the people he plagiarized too and I couldn’t believe I didn’t realize he was plagiarizing them because I didn’t fully understand what plagiarism actually was 😬😬😬
What a way to talk for so long yet say so little
Only good thing about these controversies: the fallout leads to people like you being more discovered. Subscribed, hope to see more.
And yes: we absolutely all need to read more, and F*C* Somerton.
thank you so much, welcome to thee pirate ship!
Literally I felt so stupid for not knowing better, but I was trying to learn! And he used that ):
Oh right, I remember Quinton Reviews made that Sam take. Didn’t remember it since I watched and didn’t realize it blew up.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen a victim to misinformation and am really embarrassed about it 😅 the lies that people (especially those who people look up to them) tell are taken very seriously and believed with no questions because we really care what a person we like says and just tend to trust them! thankfully now I’ve become more aware and research well and hear from different prospectives to understand the full truth and not just what someone tells me.
Thanks!
OHMYGOD THATS WHAT ALL THE VIDEO ESSAYS ABOUT FACT CHECKING AND PLAGIARISM AND (YOU)TUBE IS ABOUT!?!?😭 sorry for being loud I’m just gagged a bit that’s not what I assumed. I emptily assumed some of them were ai related or something regarding plagiarism and something on twitter had summoned the discourse train that always makes its way on to video essayist UA-cam and the others weren’t exactly related damn.
Girl that video blew my mind, I agree with a lot of what you said. There was something fishy going on with james somorton for a while.
Its tome to read 🙏
With the cheetah girls the reasons for the removal of twins if i remember right was that they couldn't find twins for the role
thank you for this fact check! i i couldn't remember the reason
@@harriyanna even then it struck me as a very strange reason considering they could've just casted look alikes instead of twins
whats your intro song
I never really liked his content because, to me at least, it was all old news presented in a super haughty, pretentious way. As if he’d ’invented’ queer cinema theory like horror isn’t well-known (even outside of gay circles) for its depiction of the cultural “other” and how often those experiences map close to those of disabled people/gay ppl/etc. Final straw was when he said something like “gay women have it easier” or whatever and i was like . They Absolutely Do Not Sir and just ignored him from that point. There always have been annoying, usually white gay men that get all misogynistic to feel superior and always will be, best just to isolate them.
I did Not expect a Four Hour Long video essay on how not only was I right in terms of the ‘old news’ thing to Such a degree that it required an entire year of production to parse out, that his weird comments actually did result in a harassment/smear campaign against an honest queer woman. God.
I am ashamed to say that I was also subscribed to him until recently. I also just found out that he went scorched earth on his channel. Everything including his profile picture is gone now
Holy shit...
I'm so sorry Somerton did this to you and to so many others who just wanted to learn some true history. Thank you so much for pointing out the need to READ and to CHECK YOUR FACTS. Also for mentioning the need to cite sources. Somerton was such a big part of UA-cam "learning" that if he had been honest, we would have been INFORMED, and not fooled. I think that's what hurts the most about his lying: he fooled a lot of people.
Thank you for pointing out how these lies make it harder to get people to learn and to value truth. Like even when ppl find out that it’s wrong, it’s like, “see, it doesn’t matter.” And yeah the production value and professionalism (I mean whiteness) gave him cred and that’s all ppl start to care about.
I haven't even begun listening to this video but I already agree: people DO NEED to read.
You’re everything
It's crazy because I had a feeling something was...off about him. I guess my instincts were right this time. It was when he did the gay cultural appropriation video. People have to understand that cultural appropriation is about colonization. When applying this term to white gay people...it gets murky because many of them were colonizers. So telling black people (even if they are straight) that they are appropriating white gay culture..it rubbed me the wrong way. I'm bi, nonbinary, and black...not surprised he is biphobic and transphobic.
Viewers like you. Yes, PBS! Great callback.
You should check out Matt Baume he's another good gay history UA-camr!
🖤📖🖤
wait are YOU not a queer creator? Did I just assume everyone I'm only subbed to queer people?
As far as I'm aware, Harri identifies as straight and asexual.
I've seen a lot of his videos, usually watching them in the background. I enjoyed a lot of them, but I did question some of his takes and what his rambling points even were at times. I am sad to see a queer man essayist turn out to this way as there aren't a ton of others to follow.
I really appreciate your videos and it was great to hear tour thoughts on it all.
I was such a big Fan of James, but to find out that the Videos I saw as so insightful were mostly plagiarised and that he was a bigot despite how he portrays himself online makes me so sad. This isnt the first time I felt lied to.
Why the “y’all” if you are speaking about yourself not checking things he was saying and not reading about it
this is kinda unrelated, but this need to be reactionary without researching is definitely been a struggle! within myself and dealing with it in others. for example, i work at 🎯 and people losing their minds over the concept of "black friday" being a monthlong event instead of one day has been really eyeopening. those tiktoks of the signs with specialized branding for the actual day of black friday being a scam made me laugh my ass off. like, yeah, be big mad at corporations, but ya'll are so dumb you don't realize all stores do their holiday sales this way, and has for at least five years? 😂
Wow, saying Sam was supposed to be black because all of those things is such horrific racial stereotyping. If it was true then that would be on the studio, but since it's not true and there's no evidence, that stereotyping is on the people who claimed it.