Even funnier is that HBomberguy predicted he would try to do exactly this. So did Somerton just not watch the video detailing the evidence against him predicting he would try to use Nick as a scapegoat, or did he watch it and just try to do it anyway even knowing people would expect it?
@@EmpiricalPierceDude goes from, "I lost my best friend" to "This is all his fault." Gee, I wonder why he doesnt want to be friends with you anymore. You plagiarized a bunch of stuff and are now trying to blame him for it. That's not very cash money of you.
@@rotary1742 That doesn't sound like what he said at all. He repeats more than once that they were 50/50 in term of their contribution to the material.
@@madpoetsociety2917 it’s the implication of it though. You can see in videos where he’s accused of plagiarism James says Nick writes them. You can see this in hbomber’s example too. James knows that he’s stealing videos and then says Nick writes em when he’s accused of plagiarism
It's not lies, it's misinformation. And if was lies, then I didn't write it. And if I wrote it, I didn't mean it. And if I meant it, you probably deserved it. And if you didn't deserve it, it was Nick's writing. But like, don't blame Nick or anything.
Simultaneously the hero-victim. so brave, so put upon. Slings and arrows! How could this happen to someone so wonderful? Truly everyone else must be wrong.
Its the overuse of passive language for me. he didnt plagiarize, plagiarism somehow managed to sneak into his downloads folder, upload itself to his premiere pro media library, drag itself into the subclip editor, and insert itself on the timeline quite sneakily without him noticing.
Literally what Hbomber said in the video, how in these apologies they never say "the people I've wronged", it's just "the people who've been wronged". The jokes literally write themselves
@@mhm77887 " too far buddy." What's too far? He's a grifter who acts as if he's smarter than everyone around him, he refused to build community and just drained and abused everyone around him. He sent his twitter followers/discord to harass his critics, he lied to everyone repeatedly to steal money for a fake movie company, I gave him some money for a short time after his first "youtube censoring me" claim until I got creepy vibes and unsubbed. It's not "too far" to observe that a guy who hurts people AND falls back on the pity-me game thinks everyone around him is a stupid mark.
JSYK, because I didn't either, that number you see on Patreon is everyone that is following him- including people that are following but not donating, which is the large majority of followers. I didn't know this either and thought everyone on Patreon was BALLING
@@bloodprince9779 true but if you have a patreon you can figure it out enough for a reasonable estimate. Some folks really can't budget well or want to live within their means.
Remember it's a choice to leave in the crying so hard he can't speak. And leading off with "I've been in the hospital" immediately into "I'm not trying to turn this into a sob story". What a clown.
@@NinBendo1 " I don’t get why people think crying in them will ever make us feel guilt or empathy." Leaning into the parasocial, the last refuge of a scoundrel.
He's literally incapable of not making anything about himself. The minute I saw him crying & talking about the hospital, I just rolled my eyes because I knew this was going to be a shit apology from there. lol
Even funnier is that HBomberguy predicted he would try to do exactly this. So did Somerton just not watch the video detailing the evidence against him predicting he would try to use Nick as a scapegoat, or did he watch it and just try to do it anyway even knowing people would expect it?
*Comment i left on the original video* As a former fan who participated in your friday livestreams, as H.Bomb said, if you harrass James Somerton, you are worse than him That being said, no, don't come back. What is there to bring back ? It's all stolen. Not inspired, stolen, literally word for word. *copy pasted* If you do put the videos back up, don't start a fund yourself. Nobody trusts you anymore, everyone will call you out on that. Give it to H.bomb I think one moment is very revealing at 26:25 : "Instead of *putting it into my words and citing them properly* and giving them credit, that's where the laziness came in" James, you aren't making 5th grade essays. Proper citation is not "taking their research, putting it into my words and say they wrote it". *That's not citation, that's plagiarism with rewording instead of copy pasting**
@@ayahner90 Yeah, that moment for me just made me realise i don't think he *really* understands what was wrong with what he did, or maybe i'm just reading too much into a clearly improvised, stressed out apology because i'm trying to make sense of this thing that happened to everyone involved At this point, i'm just really really disappointed in him. I feel betrayed because i really trusted him that those eloquent words he spoke were his. I even participated in his friday livestreams on a few occasions :(
I can totally understand that. It's really upsetting when someone you look up to lets you down in such a way. Especially when they say or do something that's harmful/hurtful to others or you if you fall into that target demographic. It becomes hard to reconcile all the time you spent watching/consuming their content. I also am not sure he understands completely what he did wrong. I think there is a lot of plagiarism on the platform in general. Additionally, I think many people confuse it with "Fair Use." Citing sources or the impact of plagiarism isn't really taught outside of specific classes in high school or college. Hbomberguy's video was really important and impactful because it showed how much of it was being done by some really influential creators. I think it was a necessary thing. **TW** Below Also, I really struggle with the part that he mentions his **TW** attempt to unalive himself at the start of the video. While I sympathize with him and do not want him to be suffering in this way and am glad he is okay, it feels disingenuous and emotionally manipulative to be making an apology video to the people you have hurt by first mentioning this. It may not be intentional, but to me it is almost like he is saying "Look what this has done to me," and is trying to manipulate viewers and victims into feeling sympathy and forgiving him so he can come back to create content. I could be wrong on that, but as someone who has struggled with that issue in the past, it feels a bit icky.
Thank you! It definitely took me a minute to get all my thoughts on it put together lol. By the way, thanks for saving the video! I wouldn't have been able to see it at all if you hadn't and I'm glad I was able to talk all this out! 😊
It is so fucking manipulating that he starts off this "apology" by crying into the camera talking about himself. I dont know if what he's done is true or not (though considering his endless string of lies I have my doubts), but even if it is true, it is so fucking manipulative to do this. It pains him as the tragic victim of this, when this apology should be made with the focus on his victims and all those he's harmed, scammed and plagerized. This feels so much like something made to manipulate his young queer audience into once again jumping to his defence because everyone is calling out this "innocent homosexual gay man".
Because it’s not an apology. Like you said it’s a manipulation by him to try and win as many people back over to his side as he can by acting like he’s somehow the victim in all of this. I enjoy watching police arrest videos quite regularly and 95% of the time you’ll have someone acting cocky and smug while committing a crime, disrespecting police or both and when the police finally have enough and arrest them you always see them start crying and putting on the fake water works to try and gain sympathy even though they’re the ones in the wrong. It’s the same thing here. James knows he has absolutely no defence or justification for stealing peoples work and so he’s trying to get around that by making his views pity him and sympathise with him. And the fact he took the video down is frankly all the proof we need that that’s what he was indeed trying to do and upon realising it wasn’t working he took it down. He isn’t sorry for stealing content. He’s sorry he got caught
This guy reminds me of my partner's friend who has been desperately trying to leave their manipulative boyfriend. Boyfriend would threaten to kill themselves to force their partner home from work, always depressed and refusing help for it, never would accept that people did care (and showed it by showing up every time for him, but NooOOOoO that meant nothing), and when friend finally made plans to leave - immediately bought a gun and threatened to kill themselves again AS WELL AS SHOOT THEIR EX PARTNER. This Somerton guy has been exposed as a serial liar, and now he's doing what every manipulative liar does. We need to walk away and ignore him. Folks like that don't learn to grow up and change if they think they can still skate on how they've been.
Yeah, when he makes his harming of self the thesis of the video the detail is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether he "intended" it to be the means to the end at the time, but he has absolutely presented it as a "look at what you made me do" to people who don't want this, but it's how he's gotten his way successfully in the past.
All the reflexive language, “ended up being in the video”, “got put in the script”, “weren’t cited properly” like he had nothing to do with it. PLUS, he clearly thinks the problem was that he didn’t cite enough and/or didn’t reword other people’s work enough - no James, you can’t just give credit for reading out entire pages of copyrighted work you didn’t pay for. If you don’t want to be committing plagiarism or constantly paying for “adaptation” rights, you have to make your own arguments! Thanks for the re-upload, I totally see why he took it down.
Yeah, exactly my thoughts. It's astounding how he's trying to protect his sense of self by refusing to acknowledge this isn't about not giving credit. And using the word "adapted" really cracked me up.
For real. Still making this out to be a failure of proper citation & shit. Like, no, you very deliberately stole people’s content. There’s not even a debate to be had about it.
@@olivialund455 I'm not super informed on the situation, but is that all he did? He stole content? I mean the backflash he's getting made me think that he did something predatory, or something else along those lines.
"I don't think those things about ace, bi, lesbian, straight people, ect..." You read the script. You said it out loud, recorded it, edited it, and posted it. There were so many chances for you to reevaluate and rewrite things that make you come off as a bigoted assh*le but you didn't. This was your "work" (I use that term loosely based on the situation). Even if Nick wrote most of the scripts (questionable), it's still your face and your voice. You had a responsibility to be original and as factual as possible, and you didn't do either.
The part that rings most hollow to me is "I'm not sorry I got caught, I'm sorry I did it." Except he was specifically called out before and instead of owning up he tried discrediting the people who called him on his BS. He had a chance for redemption long before Hbomberguys video came out. By the time that video came out, the time for redemption was LONG past. If someone straight or with half the audience Harry has made that video, he'd have just called them homophobic or ignored it. It's the fact it's someone he couldn't just play the gay card on (I'm a lesbian, I'm not saying queer people do that, I'm saying HE'D do that) or ignore that made him go into hiding and make a disingenuous "apology". Sorry, this made my blood boil.
“I want to thank hbomberguy for setting up a fund to provide money to the people who were wronged.” You want to thank him for giving his own money to the people you wronged so that you don’t have to? How about you say “I want to tell hbomberguy, please tell me how much money I owe to reimburse you for the money you’re giving away on my behalf”
…. Then he continued to talk about starting a fund from the Adsense and figuring out a payment creators could agree on. Granted, not the same thing as giving them money already made, but your comment does misrepresent the quote as if he didn’t offer any money at all. There’s a lot to criticize anyway, so it seems silly to phrase something a little dishonestly.
@@slaphappybulletReading between the lines of that "Adsense" reactivation really just makes it sound like he wants to make his videos public again so he can continue to get views. And does he really expect us to trust that he'll honestly give all of his Adsense money away? Or any of it? And the way he repeats the "I want to thank HBomberguy for setting this up" as much as he does sounds... forced and a bit rehearsed even. Like he's making sure to say that enough times to "prove" how "sorry" he is.
"at some point I'd like to make videos again" Please don't. Don't make your videos public again. Disappear and go work in a completely different field. There is nothing to salvage here
I think he should make them public again. It's a great archive of this moment in history. The comments will make it clear to future watchers and maybe the writers can get some money back.
@@ry8539Homberguy has done much more for the recognition of this moment and for reimbursing the authors than I think Somerton’s videos can ever do. I wouldn’t trust people’s ability to interpret context from critical comments on a video to not fall for his tricks. A library of everyone he’s stolen from would be far more valuable, and it would even leave out all the misogyny.
@@tentrilliconlp7748 when a person openly admits to guilt, sure, forgive. When they make a thinly veiled attempt to salvage their career, which was entirely built on as POSING as a critical essayist off the back of other people’s work, and then uses a sob story and passive language as though this ‘happened’ to him, as though his clearly naive co-writer was actually stealing vast tracts of articles, documentaries, criticism and essays, when it was claerly his own doing, sorry mate, NO. This guy needs to go and break rocks for a few decades. I mean to call what he did, ‘adaptations’ when it was just the wholesale plagiarism of the so called ‘adapted’ work is total bullshit. This guy is NOT a video essayist, he is a grifter and a liar. He says here, “I promise you I didn’t write that stuff” and a minute later “I’m not trying to throw Nick under the bus”, which is pretty much exactly what he does, sorry this isn’t contrition, it’s self serving bollocks. He still insists he was WRITING stuff, for God’s sake, when the entire issue is that virtually his entire output wasn’t written by him, he was copy pasting other articles and essays and taking money from a community he pretended to be advocating for. It’s disgusting, like thoroughly morally repugnant, on every level!
I won't make fun of the beginning, because whether or not it's true I believe having your career blown up so quickly and thoroughly could put a person in that mindspace. And nobody deserves to be made fun of for that. As far as the rest, he doesn't seem to understand that citing sources and "putting it into his own words" still isn't how you make an essay. An essay isn't just regurgitating information, you have to have a point that you yourself are making. Sources just support and supplement the point you're making.
when you make an essay, it should add something new to the conversation. research and quotes is how you can build on top of the existing conversation. I hope he can improve from this, but even in this video it doesn't sound like he addressed that.
i'm absolutely with you about not making fun of his implied self harm, but he never had a "career". His "work" was a giant fraud that was finally uncovered. And now he's trying to manipulate people into thinking he's done some woopsie mistake.
Nobody's going to cheer him on in the beginning (regardless of the veracity) but it centers the video in emotional manipulation. It's the James show, there is no community, only him. He is the only person truly hurt in all of this, by everyone and the fans need to bail him out YET AGAIN. Maybe he forgot that he just tried this by claiming that Nebula and RUclips were "homophobic" and again forgetting that nobody could see that his views, likes, etc didn't actually change like how he did. Also that he ignored Nebula entirely when they tried an outreach before he decided to clout-farm with their rep as bait.
It should be made fun of for being absolute bullshit and emotional manipulation. I honestly have no sympathy even if he was telling the truth. It's too pathetic.
@@mortified0 While I agree that he is faking for sympathy, I have to take major issue with the last part. Just so I have this straight, you would be okay if he was actually suicidal because he committed plagiarism?
Has the audacity to be outed as a plagiarist, and then makes an apology video using LITERALLY the tricks Hbomb describes in that same video. I wish I had balls that big.
Took the Patreon down after the numbers crashed, my guess will re-open it around next Patreon billing cycle in hopes that people have forgotten about it (just as he thinks his fans are that stupid this time around.)
It's so insulting to everyone who is actively or passively s-sidal or who has lost loved ones to s-side. Like, obviously I don't wish that on him, but way to hurt yet another community.
Jesus, 16 minutes in and he's still not apologised for stealing people's work. He keeps skipping around the point. All he should have done is directly look into the camera and say 'I am sorry I directly and intentionally plagiarised other people's work'. This video could have been less than 5 minutes. Admit you're in the wrong, say sorry then delete all the videos and never work in media again.
He never will, either. He hasn't acknowledged plagiarism, don't think he's spoken the word? Maybe his mother stole something from a garden while pregnant and he's suffered a foul curse, who can say?
... WHICH ONE?! Almost all apology videos are terrible... like MY SIBLING IN THE GODS, just say 'hi, im sorry that I [insert crime], i f*cked up, i ll continue to work hard, and make up for what i did wrong"
"I didn't realize that I was hurting people" is the most insane thing I've ever heard in my time on this planet. They TOLD him he was hurting them. He denied plagiarizing because he KNEW he was hurting people.
Interesting how the HBomberguy video literally taught us how to recognize the passive language that he's using to shift blame away. Like... on the one hand I feel for the guy, but on the other hand this is totally insincere and he brought it on himself...
The one honest bit here is “I should’ve waited longer to do this.” It’s horrible that he considered offing himself, and like Hbomberguy said, harassing this guy won’t solve anything. But if he’s in that much pain, he absolutely should have given himself more time heal. See a therapist, connect with loved ones, take a refresher course on academic ethics at a community college. THEN he can come back with a straight-faced apology that focuses on his wrongdoings and ACTUALLY APOLOGIZES TO THE PEOPLE HE HURT. As it stands, it looks like he’s desperate for pity, rather than actually interested in fixing his mess.
Probably because he is desparate for pity not actually remorseful. Remember, this is someone who made false allegations to get hate mobs to target people for recognizing what he was doing. This is someone who hates women on principle. Someone who is very open to the idea of being a terrible person. Don't trust anything they say.
@@Zaylicwhy on Earth would you mention how expensive the area you live in is during an apology if you’re not trying to indirectly say “I did this because where I live is expensive and stealing the work and content of other people was easier than trying to make my own original content” An apology should be just that…AN APOLOGY. Not filming yourself crying on camera like you’re somehow the victim in all of this. You don’t get to steal from other people and then try to play the “oh please have sympathy for me” card when you’re finally caught out and exposed. This is just a desperate attempt to save face and the fact he took it down shows you that he KNOWS he’s faking the emotion and the tears.
@@Zaylic Literally in this exact video. It's at 8:20. It doesn't matter how much money he did or didn't make. Even one dollar made on the back of someone else is wrong. This video was made in reference to the plagiarism. Any excuse he makes here is to try and weasel out of it.
You should read this twitter thread by Dan Olson, apparently he bought a lot of expensive equipment then told his patreons he was in a dire situation financially www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/18ay7cv/the_stop_hes_already_dead_rule/
It's hard for me to not empathize with the human who tried to harm themself because of the proportions this thing took. I cannot, however, agree with his desires to come back. This isn't "cancelling". Being a youtuber is a job, the audience are customers. He did shitty work and got fired from his job because his customers were wronged by his poor work ethic.
"I didn't hire him to be a scapegoat" Of course he didn't, but that doesn't change the fact that he was set up to be one because of the way he deflected any responsibility of making sure that there is no plagerism onto him.
I was *REALLY* hoping he would just leave. If you've taken the time to watch some of the videos surrounding James, you know this video has several lies. Maybe after his third apology we'll get some accountability, but when you lie and steal this much, you would have to be a fool to give this man money.
it is HILARIOUS to me how he actually seemed to think he could come back from this. like he sits there tears in his eyes going “i- i wanna start making videos again…. i-if anyone still w-wants me i know i’m horrible and you probably hate me… but i.. i wanna be a good example :((“. like he thought that if he looked pathetic enough people would give him a second chance. geniunely astounding
I've been gaslit before. I didn't even know the context for what he was talking about at the time, but something in this video felt off, like it didn't feel like a "im sorry" more like a "I feel sad" update. just after watching Hbomberguys vid. This apology video is gaslighty as fuck, he litterally just makes his apology *about him* abiut how *he* feels about facing consequences for stealing and benefiting from other peoples work and lying about not stealing
thank you so much for the reupload--james filmed this, edited it, and uploaded it, and then deleted it less than a day afterwards. the excuses he makes in the video about the lies he told to scam money off people need to be preserved. the people he grifted money from deserve to see his response to being caught, especially with his decision to take it down.
I think some of the worst of it is that he didn’t bring up how he would fix the mistakes or misinformation in the videos and just said he wanted to re-upload them or pit in the correct sources. From what everyone is saying he did a lot of bad yes. But he never once mentioned how he would either correct the misinformation in the videos that could be salvaged (like for instance he could add post edits or post voice over corrections) or if it’s bad enough he could either redo the whole thing and thus have a better founded and informative thesis for the video or just straight up not upload it. Because the problems lye more than just sourcing it in the description. Other people have pointed out some hypocrisy in the video so I’ll leave it at this
>Starts with emotional plea >frames the problem as him being bad at crediting >throws writer under the bus >offers to put his videos back up as an answer >won’t even put in the work to send the revenue to the people he stole from, instead expects hbomb to do it Idk why he doesn’t just get a retail job or something? Like why even bother trynna salvage his career? Why is it even important to him? It’s not like he ever made anything himself
He needs the attention and adoration. that's what it was always about. it was never about the videos actually. this is the only way he can secure that attention that he pathologically craves. without the channel it all goes away and he can't bear that
I think he’s been lying to himself for so many years that he sincerely believes he’s done nothing wrong. So he’s repackaging the same excuses that worked in the past instead of just outright saying all his video essays were stolen. Because admitting to that means admitting the grift is over. And he can never accept that
Amazing save. I had the OG one open and was reading the comments and one said to make sure to save it cus he’s gonna delete it and when I went to check the replies they wouldn’t load cus he’d deleted it already
you can tell he didnt watch harry's video because he did all the same exact things he's done before when he's been caught, including, not limited to: oh actually the bad things, that wasnt me i didnt know it was bad/i didnt know how to give proper credit i actually really respect the people who's work i stole and took credit for i never meant to hurt anyone (no n, dont look at the smaller people i've sent my fans after when they realised i stole their work shh shh sh) also not for nothing but he never once says "plagiarism". he even describes plagiarism at 26.05 and then just calls it "not giving proper credit" and the problem being the copy pasting directly. like.
I am sure he watched the first part of the video, the part where other fraudsters showed exactly how to make a non-apology, passive voice excuse video.
@@pattheplanter thing is, if he saw that,surely he knows it wont work on the people who watched the video? at least youd hope so right? 😅truly such a mess
I honestly hate when youtubers make an apology and then bring their attempt into it. this is about how you hurt others, not how you hurt yourself. Obviously im glad it failed, It just seems so manipulative to me. Personally I believe that should stay offline. Edit: sorry, just had to fix some errors and reword things!
obvious in retrospect, but people took hbomb's video as a license to do their favorite thing: harass. I blame hbomb, I blame myself for not seeing this sooner. punishment is not a solution to anything. take your impulse to punish and put it gently up your anus Original comment: I think if you cornered James (or Filip, or Naughtii, or Historian), if you managed to push them to the point where they broke down and told the truth, some very ugly things would come out. There's deep, deep disdain that is hiding behind their reluctance to face the things they did. Ultimately, they don't really see their wrongs as wrongs, and they can't, like physically can't make a proper apology because for that they need to look at themselves, and that would be very painful.
"You think that's what an apology is? A spell you cast on another person to make them forgive you?" Community, 03x13 - Digital Exploration Of Interior Design
I mean, they might not even be capable of looking at themselves to be honest. Not just that they fundamentally want to avoid it at all costs, but they might just be psychologically incapable like a patient with prosopagnosia being unable to see faces.
@@GreekDudeYiannis I'd love to have a very long talk with them in an environment where they can be sure there would be no consequences. I imagine at a certain point they will go to anger, and of course there would be countless lies whether or not there are outside observers, but I don't think their defenses are impenetrable.
He keeps saying, without credit, without citation, blah blah, while never acknowledging that he didn't just not cite them, he stole from them without remorse. I disagree with him, he IS sorry he got caught. The truth will always come out.
Tommy Tallirico, the first American to work on a sonic game, is truly an inspiration for the LGBTQ+ and queer community. The work he’s put into making sounds for pride parades to design themselves around is huge and he’s even won the Guinness world record for highest male body count.
The "I dont hate [x]" people list conveniently excluding trans men despite an article about how he hurt trans men being on the first page of google, and that was the main phobia allegation against him
ok but it would have been really funny to upload this with a title card saying "based on the work of james somerton" followed by the video in its entirety
If he truly attempted to end his life, I am very sorry that he's going through this. No matter what, suicide is a serious matter. Of course that doesn't exempt him from guilt or diminish what he did. It is wild to me that he worked on RUclips doing video essays for so long and also grew quite successful with it but he never read up on how to actually make video essays, how to research, how to credit people, what plagiarism is. Even if you begin your career with lackluster attempts at video essays and you don't credit people at all - at some point there would have to come the curiosity of how other people do it, how you can be professional in your work, how you can grow to become a better researcher, etc. In a clip shown in Hbomber's video, Somerton keeps saying the plagiarism allegations aren't true, that Nick wrote most of the script and that Nick would never plagiarize because he comes from an academic background. So Somerton managed to (a) ignore the allegations without listening and looking into the matter to correct his mistakes and (b) didn't care to learn from Nick how to avoid plagiarism. Of course Nick said in their discord that he's pretty lazy and doesn't really read (ergo, also too lazy to do decent research) which contradicts Somerton's insinuation that Nick fulfills academic standards and would never dare not to. Somerton says in this video that he isn't sorry he got caught but he's sorry that he did this in the first place. If that is the case, why did he so vehemently ignore and shut down anyone telling him blatantly that he was indeed plagiarizing? Seems like he was not willing to change even though multiple people kept telling him what he was doing wrong. So it comes off as him actually apologizing because the wider internet has now caught on as well and therefore ruined his reputation and career. He had the time, resources and backing of fans to change before this timebomb exploded by correcting course and actually doing decent work. You'd think if he truly WANTED to create respectable content for RUclips with his essays, he would have informed himself about research and citation standards as anyone who wants to be professional about their research/essays does. Why does he still say his videos were "adapted" from his sources? He didn't adapt anything, he read it word for word. That's not how adaptations work and you'd think someone interested in making movies would know that just reading someone's book into a camera is not an adaptation. If Somerton even wants to begin to right his wrongs he would need to make amends and pay repairs to those he wronged - including all of his patrons that paid for his videos. It would be a long road but I personally would prefer for him to do that. We all know that likely won't happen though. Though his career seems over, I hope he actually learns how to do research and cite and do the work for all of this so he can gain a bigger understanding of what he stole from people and also have some serious and necessary growth. The Patreon thing: If anyone actually didn't on time manage to unsubscribe from Somerton, he should offer them a refund IMMEDIATELY. He is, after all, claiming he does not want to trick people into paying him and keeping the money. So he should have no problem making sure any further payments to him from his patrons are actually intended.
it's really pissing me off the way he's talking about "somehow paying back the authors that were wronged" (notably NOT "victims"). james claims we're "way overestimating" the amount of money he's made, even though patreon earnings are publicly available and it's easy to calculate YT earnings based on views and sponsorships, so much so that he apparently doesn't have "really any kind of savings" and he's "moving home really soon". (after which he delicately wraps his cardigan more tightly around himself in a display of self-preserving body language) his proposed solution is to make all his videos public again (is he serious?) and then every month send ALL the adsense money directly to the victims, or to hbomberguy's team, or he could start a fund himself, and then every month say how much money he's made on the videos and show it, "and send it to the writers and stuff, and i don't know what the system for that would be..." does that sound disjointed and confusing? that's because it is. he proposes three amorphous solutions, all of which involve him getting to keep all the content on his channel. he didn't come with a clear plan because he was hoping people would feel so bad for him that he wouldn't have to send any of his money away. he wants us to do the work for him. he's already suggested just donating to hbomberguy's fund. (and how convenient for james that that exists! at least he can say they're getting repaid somehow!) god, this is just narcissism 101.
Not to mention what pennies the adsense would even be at this point when he lost the trust of his viewers. He already made his buck, now the victims can get scraps.
Just a heads up, try to avoid "body language analysis". It is a pseudo science and very easily used to villainize innocent people, especially neurodivergent people. Overall good take, though 👍
I don't have any reason to care for Somerton or his situation because I've only seen of him what was said in the Plagiarism video. But I highly regard the uploader for the sake that the preservation of information is such a significant part of online culture. So thank you so much for reuploading this.
Hbomb literally picked apart how he responds to plagiarism accusations and James didn’t think to switch it up? This is virtually the same as the livestreams or other videos with explanations. Just with tears and sniffling. the same passive language, the same deflections, even bringing up Nick! It’s amazing how he was too lazy to even think of another way to approach this. Maybe cause he didn’t have an existing apology to plagiarize
lol good job, I literally went to bed thinking "I should probably save this video because I'm sure it will be deleted soon" but then I didn't. Glad it's still available so ppl can see the attempted lies.
I did the same thing. I saw it and then I was like, "Oh, I'll watch it in the morning!" Then I went to bed, woke up it was gone. So glad this wonderful soul had the foresight to save the video for us.
James if you read this; You might remember me or not but I want to tell you few things: -I'm glad I never drew that shark pic for you, Id feel bad now afterwars. So I'm happy all in all you never responded -You were HUGE inspiration for me in terms of monetisation of your content; now I see it was all lie ;/ -I'm happy you are alive, I don't hate you; I feel devastated you did what you did but all in all I wish you luck in other career than YT. I hope you will find your place and won't plagiarise/hurt anyone elsewhere. This was a big lesson for you.
I feel he is really hurt; but also his victims are. It's hard to watch anyone suffering. I just want him to become better person elsewhere. James you can do it! @@belagrolaub8746
I wrote a reply comment to it before he deleted it. Every comment I saw was NOT buying what he was selling. It was a complete dodge of responsibility on his part: a mealy-mouthed pseudo-apology that was all about him and not about the people he victimized. He's not sorry for anything but being caught.
“I tried to put acknowledgements in the opening credits” …no you didn’t. “That it was based on so-and-so’s work.” That’s a weird way to say word-for-word the same… “But I know now that wasn’t enough.” BUT YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO THAT!
“Could’ve been so easy to do the research myself” what research? It was word-for-word, this isn’t even a crediting sources thing anymore. If I rob you and take your money then buy a car, what good does it do anyone if I then say “I credit this car to the guy I robbed”?
People always say that what you post on the Internet is forever, whether you want it to be or not, but this only works if people actively engage in the preservation of information. Kudos for having the forethought to hang on to this piece of grifter propaganda so that we might learn from it.
I feel for H.Bomb - he didn't want to cause anyone else pain (there's an excellent interview he gave to Vulture about all this) and was just trying to right a wrong in the universe with his video. Genuine or not, James' pain and pleading here would be very difficult to see for the man who made the video, but I hope - wherever he is - Harris knows what he did was ultimately the right thing to do. He's a good person, his video is resulting in a net positive, and James (while he hopefully never makes more videos) will recover from this and find some other, easy business venture to cash in on that doesn't take advantage of a marginalised community. 👍🏻
The narcissists prayer: It didn’t happen And if it did it wasn’t that bad And if it was it wasn’t a big deal And if it was it wasn’t my fault And if it was I didn’t mean it
Dude isn't crying because he feels bad, he's crying because he feels sorry for himself. Talks about all these things he aspires to do because it's much easier than actually doing anything. Refusing to actually own up to what he did. What a narcissist.
"There were times when stuff got put in and there was no attempt at crediting anybody." -- stuff got put in, by somebody. There was not attempt at crediting, not I didn't credit writers. I took their words and didn't credit them. No *I* statements at all. Like his fairy godmother did it.
Thanks for sharing this. I don't think it's fair for someone to plagiarize all their videos, upload an apology, and then demand we all delete it. It's really frustrating to see him lead off the video with a bunch of fake crying and nonsensical unverifiable sob stories that "isn't a sob story." By the time he apologizes, I'm thinking "that's not an apology." What a weird performance and awkward recitation of an apology. I'd have deleted it too...
Essentially, this is a guy who just likes hearing himself talk. Even when he doesn't know what he's talking about, his voice is just so intoxicating to himself.
"A lot of people would prefer that I just disappeared" Thing is, with the sheer volume of plagiarism detected (and who knows how much slipped under the radar), we don't know that James ever "appeared" at all, much of his content is simply others' words. What has been put into doubt is more serious than his capacity to credit his sources, personally I now doubt his capacity to have an original idea; to carry a video through without the aid of misinformation and outright stealing.
I think his pain is genuine, he probably feels really bad about it, but the fact is he did wrong and he needs to take responsibility. Not straight away he should take time to get himself into a better head space, but he needs to take responsibility and do something to make up for what he did that doesn't obviously benefit him.
I think his pain is real too, but I think he got into such a habit of stealing that he forgot what he was doing was bad and doesn’t want to admit it even to himself In this video he’s still clinging to the lies he’s been telling himself (it’s his writers fault, he didn’t intend to steal, crediting is enough) and using the techniques that worked in the past (my life is in danger due to being criticised) and the longer he does this, the longer he’s gonna be in pain. If he wants to move past this, he should just come to terms with what he did and apologise properly to the people he stole from
I think the pain is real but the cause isn't. He probably even thinks that he's sorry for the plagiarism, but if that was the case he would have felt bad and changed things when people brought it up before. He's sorry about it now that it got enough attention to ruin his career. If only 1000 people watched Hbomb's video he would have dismissed it and moved on as he had done other times
He ashamed and embarrassed and afraid. He still doesn’t understand why what he did was wrong. He took this moment to state multiple times that he wants to keep making videos. It’s insane.
I dunno, seeing so many apologies like this before to the point that his seems like a copy n paste of it, it just seems like hes doing all the things he can do to make it as easy as possible to sympathize with him
To all the people jumping to get their knives in, remember that the punishment has well and truly been handed out to James. The matter does not call for a high volume of caustic attacks and vitriol. When someone says or implies that they are (or were recently) on the brink of ending their own life, we should take that seriously and not engage in activity that would push them any further.
I think you're very right. However, people are also right in their feelings that he's only talking about it to get sympathy points. Otherwise he wouldn't have reactivated his patreon and actually apologized. He makes it very obvious that he has no intention of giving back to the people he harmed, be it his supporters or the people he stole from. And making an "apology video" like this.... Well can I see why people are skeptical
@@brook_angel Here's how I think about this: Scenario 1: he is milking it, looking for sympathy and not being genuine. Worst case outcome... Scenario 2: he is really hurting and in a vulnerable place. Worst case outcome... Balance of harms falls strongly in favour of everyone taking the high road and not going too far. I think scenario 2 is much more likely.
@@Tantacrulhim hurting doesn't change the fact that nothing he is doing are actions that are expected of him. He isn't even owning up to his mistakes, talking around them and looking for excuses. Of course we shouldn't harass him, but that doesn't equate to taking any more of his shit. And an apology where he tries to justify plagerism by arguments like I didn't know I was living in an expensive area And I was lazy (well this one is a least believable) All he had to do was either shut up and admit defeat silently. Or admit to malpractice without giving cheap excuses to try and justify it. But he doesn't. Which makes it feel disingenuous.
i mean, when a person has a HISTORY of lying and manipulating to get themselves out of a bad situation, we can't help but doubt his words. he has lied countless times when he was caught before - he doesn't show any signs of changing that behavior, so why should we believe him?
While yeah, people should keep vitriol to a minimum, this is a person who has shown themselves to be a consistent liar, and even in the rest of his apology he dances around the truth and downplays everything he did, and outright lies (when he claims he didn't realise he was hurting anyone, despite numerous confrontations in the past). If the apology is full of falsehood then benefit of the doubt on his opening statement is hard to swallow. If he had been honest in the rest of the apology, sure. I just think this is a pathological liar breaking out the nuclear option in order to make people feel guilty about further criticism of him. Frankly I am certain, 100% certain that if he has received any counselling in the wake of this reported attempt, they would have advised him not to return to the platform that drove him to this until he was 100% ready. Canada being a civilised country I'm sure such counselling would be mandatory.
He used his platform and sexuality to bully and intimidate. He used “homophobia” as a sword and shield and wielded them with abandon. All while knowingly building his privileged existence using the work of others. Made worse that many of the people he harmed where those who aligned with his beliefs. He took from those who wanted their voices heard and used them as his own. The bullying other people if the icing on the cakes for me.
my god at this point, what's there left to say? he clearly doesnt feel sorry - he's sorry he got caught. i dunno, i think the best answer is to deplatform him. don't give him views, subscriptions, and certainly dont give him money. because i have no doubt that, if he doesn't feel any real regret over his actions (only regrets at being caught, or being so bad at covering his tracks) or even his misogynistic and racist views that he embedded into his plagiarized essays... then he will simply do it again.
![[DOKKAN BATTLE] Worldwide Campaign Announcement Video Part 2!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JpT5Voak6WA/mqdefault.jpg)
When you realize his apology is so bad because he couldn't find one on the internet about his specific situation to steal
Holy shit, underrated comment.
Funniest shit ever. I'm gonna share this with proper crediting :)
Im gonna steal this comment and pretend it was mine
@@lonesome3958 I'm gonna steal this reply and pretend it was mine.
I'm gonna steal this reply and not ping you whilst pretending it was mine. along with transforming tense.
going from "i lost my best friend" to "all the plagiarism was nicks fault i just didnt do my due diligence" is crazy lmao
Wtf? I read this while still at the "i lost my best friend" part of the video lmao
Not at all. Exactly the kind of thing you'd expect from a malicious psychopath.
Even funnier is that HBomberguy predicted he would try to do exactly this. So did Somerton just not watch the video detailing the evidence against him predicting he would try to use Nick as a scapegoat, or did he watch it and just try to do it anyway even knowing people would expect it?
@@EmpiricalPierce This guy clearly isn't the bright bulb in the box..
@@EmpiricalPierceDude goes from, "I lost my best friend" to "This is all his fault."
Gee, I wonder why he doesnt want to be friends with you anymore. You plagiarized a bunch of stuff and are now trying to blame him for it. That's not very cash money of you.
16:56 "I promise you I did not write that stuff" Yeah WE KNOW. That's why we're here, James.
Only problem is, the weird hateful shit seems to be the only thing he did actually write
And he keeps throwing nick under the bus wtf is wrong with him
@@rotary1742 That doesn't sound like what he said at all. He repeats more than once that they were 50/50 in term of their contribution to the material.
@@madpoetsociety2917 it’s the implication of it though. You can see in videos where he’s accused of plagiarism James says Nick writes them. You can see this in hbomber’s example too. James knows that he’s stealing videos and then says Nick writes em when he’s accused of plagiarism
He said he never wrote those bigoted stuff, then who wrote them? Only other person doing the writing is Nick.
It's not lies, it's misinformation.
And if was lies, then I didn't write it.
And if I wrote it, I didn't mean it.
And if I meant it, you probably deserved it.
And if you didn't deserve it, it was Nick's writing.
But like, don't blame Nick or anything.
spot fuckin on
Simultaneously the hero-victim. so brave, so put upon.
Slings and arrows!
How could this happen to someone so wonderful? Truly everyone else must be wrong.
I read your comments before watching the video, and I thought you were quoting lyrics. Like, The KiIIers would sing what you posted.
Beautiful.
Also:
I am a very empathetic person, but not towards the people whose work i have stolen.
BAJSHD
Its the overuse of passive language for me. he didnt plagiarize, plagiarism somehow managed to sneak into his downloads folder, upload itself to his premiere pro media library, drag itself into the subclip editor, and insert itself on the timeline quite sneakily without him noticing.
Sometimes plagiarism is like a virus! You download a video for research and it infects all of your videos without notice!
the bigot rants in his scripts weren’t his own opinions, they just snuck into the keyboard and typed those in 💀💀💀
Plagiarism tied me to a chair, took my laptop, & threatened my dog if certain words were not read on camera. Truly I regret that 😔
This gives him too much credit cause he did not use the word plagiarise once. It was simply improper source citing.
No responsibility taken. "The authors that were wronged." Who wronged them, buddy?!
Literally what Hbomber said in the video, how in these apologies they never say "the people I've wronged", it's just "the people who've been wronged". The jokes literally write themselves
James "Passive Voice" Somerton
Also, I feel like it would mean a lot if he apologized to at least some of then by name
Congrats, you're a hero
@@pderham26 ???
"I hurt a lot of people I really respect"
And about 10x as many people you didnt respect.
Oh there's nobody in this world he respects.
Which is why he hurt them in the first place!
@@mhm77887 " too far buddy."
What's too far? He's a grifter who acts as if he's smarter than everyone around him, he refused to build community and just drained and abused everyone around him.
He sent his twitter followers/discord to harass his critics, he lied to everyone repeatedly to steal money for a fake movie company, I gave him some money for a short time after his first "youtube censoring me" claim until I got creepy vibes and unsubbed.
It's not "too far" to observe that a guy who hurts people AND falls back on the pity-me game thinks everyone around him is a stupid mark.
"I never meant to hurt anyone" He lied about a targeted harassment campaign in order to bully a critic into silence :/
Didn't he also call local police on them as a threat?
@@spiralswithinspiralsthat he did!
Not "a" critic - he did it multiple times
Gaslight, Gatekeep, Gayboss.
@@BerzerkerTank _Gayboss_ 💀
“People are way overestimating how much money I made”
Does he know everyone could see his patreon?
JSYK, because I didn't either, that number you see on Patreon is everyone that is following him- including people that are following but not donating, which is the large majority of followers. I didn't know this either and thought everyone on Patreon was BALLING
@@Uhohlisa huh - it used to be that you could see how many people are subscribing to each tier.
@@Uhohlisa but wasn't it giving exact amounts of how much money he was making?
@@bloodprince9779 true but if you have a patreon you can figure it out enough for a reasonable estimate. Some folks really can't budget well or want to live within their means.
@@Uhohlisa To me Patreon shows "paid" members, of which there were almost 3k.
Remember it's a choice to leave in the crying so hard he can't speak. And leading off with "I've been in the hospital" immediately into "I'm not trying to turn this into a sob story". What a clown.
"I'm not trying to make this a sob story" he says as he is telling a sob story. If you dont want it to be a sob story than edit it out
@@NinBendo1 " I don’t get why people think crying in them will ever make us feel guilt or empathy."
Leaning into the parasocial, the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Remember it’s a choice to pretend you’re crying.
Also even implying he tried to kill himself is just wrong and guilt trippy.
He's literally incapable of not making anything about himself. The minute I saw him crying & talking about the hospital, I just rolled my eyes because I knew this was going to be a shit apology from there. lol
"I really love making videos"
This is like someone shoplifting clothes and reselling them for twice as much and saying "I really love running a store"
It's like going around disappearing parents, and then saying "I really love supporting orphanages."
As if youtube isn't made out of hundreds of thousands of people who don't feel the need to steal to make videos. What a tool.
That's just Depop, actually 😅
"I loved stealing!"
Not a great analogy because that is basically what stores do.
But still… what a clown
Isn't it just gorgeous that he's throwing Nick under the bus so pathetically - and at the same time, insisting he's not! Good grief.
I love the smell of gaslighting in the morning
My favourite part is how he whines about losing Nick, then 2 minutes later implies he wrote most of the videos and it's his fault.
✨MARKETING✨EXPERT✨
very obvious he brought nick in to do this exact thing when he finally was caught
Even funnier is that HBomberguy predicted he would try to do exactly this. So did Somerton just not watch the video detailing the evidence against him predicting he would try to use Nick as a scapegoat, or did he watch it and just try to do it anyway even knowing people would expect it?
*Comment i left on the original video*
As a former fan who participated in your friday livestreams, as H.Bomb said, if you harrass James Somerton, you are worse than him
That being said, no, don't come back. What is there to bring back ? It's all stolen. Not inspired, stolen, literally word for word. *copy pasted*
If you do put the videos back up, don't start a fund yourself. Nobody trusts you anymore, everyone will call you out on that. Give it to H.bomb
I think one moment is very revealing at 26:25 :
"Instead of *putting it into my words and citing them properly* and giving them credit, that's where the laziness came in"
James, you aren't making 5th grade essays. Proper citation is not "taking their research, putting it into my words and say they wrote it". *That's not citation, that's plagiarism with rewording instead of copy pasting**
@@ayahner90 Yeah, that moment for me just made me realise i don't think he *really* understands what was wrong with what he did, or maybe i'm just reading too much into a clearly improvised, stressed out apology because i'm trying to make sense of this thing that happened to everyone involved
At this point, i'm just really really disappointed in him. I feel betrayed because i really trusted him that those eloquent words he spoke were his. I even participated in his friday livestreams on a few occasions :(
I can totally understand that. It's really upsetting when someone you look up to lets you down in such a way. Especially when they say or do something that's harmful/hurtful to others or you if you fall into that target demographic. It becomes hard to reconcile all the time you spent watching/consuming their content.
I also am not sure he understands completely what he did wrong. I think there is a lot of plagiarism on the platform in general. Additionally, I think many people confuse it with "Fair Use." Citing sources or the impact of plagiarism isn't really taught outside of specific classes in high school or college. Hbomberguy's video was really important and impactful because it showed how much of it was being done by some really influential creators. I think it was a necessary thing.
**TW** Below
Also, I really struggle with the part that he mentions his **TW** attempt to unalive himself at the start of the video. While I sympathize with him and do not want him to be suffering in this way and am glad he is okay, it feels disingenuous and emotionally manipulative to be making an apology video to the people you have hurt by first mentioning this. It may not be intentional, but to me it is almost like he is saying "Look what this has done to me," and is trying to manipulate viewers and victims into feeling sympathy and forgiving him so he can come back to create content.
I could be wrong on that, but as someone who has struggled with that issue in the past, it feels a bit icky.
Sorry for the long replies by the way, I just have a lot of thoughts haha 🙂
@@ayahner90Wow, i have the same feelings and you managed to put them to word really well !
Thank you! It definitely took me a minute to get all my thoughts on it put together lol.
By the way, thanks for saving the video! I wouldn't have been able to see it at all if you hadn't and I'm glad I was able to talk all this out! 😊
"Nick hasn't talked to me since"
Throws Nick under the bus in this video. I honestly wonder why he hasn't.
It is so fucking manipulating that he starts off this "apology" by crying into the camera talking about himself. I dont know if what he's done is true or not (though considering his endless string of lies I have my doubts), but even if it is true, it is so fucking manipulative to do this. It pains him as the tragic victim of this, when this apology should be made with the focus on his victims and all those he's harmed, scammed and plagerized. This feels so much like something made to manipulate his young queer audience into once again jumping to his defence because everyone is calling out this "innocent homosexual gay man".
Because it’s not an apology. Like you said it’s a manipulation by him to try and win as many people back over to his side as he can by acting like he’s somehow the victim in all of this.
I enjoy watching police arrest videos quite regularly and 95% of the time you’ll have someone acting cocky and smug while committing a crime, disrespecting police or both and when the police finally have enough and arrest them you always see them start crying and putting on the fake water works to try and gain sympathy even though they’re the ones in the wrong.
It’s the same thing here. James knows he has absolutely no defence or justification for stealing peoples work and so he’s trying to get around that by making his views pity him and sympathise with him. And the fact he took the video down is frankly all the proof we need that that’s what he was indeed trying to do and upon realising it wasn’t working he took it down.
He isn’t sorry for stealing content.
He’s sorry he got caught
yuuuuup
This guy reminds me of my partner's friend who has been desperately trying to leave their manipulative boyfriend. Boyfriend would threaten to kill themselves to force their partner home from work, always depressed and refusing help for it, never would accept that people did care (and showed it by showing up every time for him, but NooOOOoO that meant nothing), and when friend finally made plans to leave - immediately bought a gun and threatened to kill themselves again AS WELL AS SHOOT THEIR EX PARTNER. This Somerton guy has been exposed as a serial liar, and now he's doing what every manipulative liar does.
We need to walk away and ignore him. Folks like that don't learn to grow up and change if they think they can still skate on how they've been.
Yeah, when he makes his harming of self the thesis of the video the detail is irrelevant.
It doesn't matter whether he "intended" it to be the means to the end at the time, but he has absolutely presented it as a "look at what you made me do" to people who don't want this, but it's how he's gotten his way successfully in the past.
All the reflexive language, “ended up being in the video”, “got put in the script”, “weren’t cited properly” like he had nothing to do with it. PLUS, he clearly thinks the problem was that he didn’t cite enough and/or didn’t reword other people’s work enough - no James, you can’t just give credit for reading out entire pages of copyrighted work you didn’t pay for. If you don’t want to be committing plagiarism or constantly paying for “adaptation” rights, you have to make your own arguments!
Thanks for the re-upload, I totally see why he took it down.
Yeah, exactly my thoughts. It's astounding how he's trying to protect his sense of self by refusing to acknowledge this isn't about not giving credit.
And using the word "adapted" really cracked me up.
Using the Illuminaughty defense. He couldn't think it up himself.
I think he only understands like 10% of what he did wrong
I think he understands 100% of what he did wrong, and he only cares about 10% of it (the part where he got caught doing it).
Much like he only writes like 10% of what's in his videos, heyyo!
@@canislupus3655 said 10% is misogyny (and transphobia in the cases where he misgenders trans people so he can pull out the misogyny).
For real. Still making this out to be a failure of proper citation & shit. Like, no, you very deliberately stole people’s content. There’s not even a debate to be had about it.
@@olivialund455 I'm not super informed on the situation, but is that all he did? He stole content? I mean the backflash he's getting made me think that he did something predatory, or something else along those lines.
"I don't think those things about ace, bi, lesbian, straight people, ect..." You read the script. You said it out loud, recorded it, edited it, and posted it. There were so many chances for you to reevaluate and rewrite things that make you come off as a bigoted assh*le but you didn't. This was your "work" (I use that term loosely based on the situation). Even if Nick wrote most of the scripts (questionable), it's still your face and your voice. You had a responsibility to be original and as factual as possible, and you didn't do either.
Yeah, i thought the same thing when i saw it. Like, you read those words. Why didn't you stop while reading them ??
The part that rings most hollow to me is "I'm not sorry I got caught, I'm sorry I did it." Except he was specifically called out before and instead of owning up he tried discrediting the people who called him on his BS. He had a chance for redemption long before Hbomberguys video came out. By the time that video came out, the time for redemption was LONG past. If someone straight or with half the audience Harry has made that video, he'd have just called them homophobic or ignored it. It's the fact it's someone he couldn't just play the gay card on (I'm a lesbian, I'm not saying queer people do that, I'm saying HE'D do that) or ignore that made him go into hiding and make a disingenuous "apology". Sorry, this made my blood boil.
"I'm not sorry I got caught, I'm sorry I got caught *_yet again."_*
this is word-for-word the same as the apology video i uploaded in 2017 for plagiarizing dozens and dozens of video essays for money
So... he plagiarized you?
@@quinntessentialskill7414 It's a joke.
He plagiarised me as well!
@@micjimster4845 me too!
I knew it. J'ACCUSE
“I want to thank hbomberguy for setting up a fund to provide money to the people who were wronged.”
You want to thank him for giving his own money to the people you wronged so that you don’t have to? How about you say “I want to tell hbomberguy, please tell me how much money I owe to reimburse you for the money you’re giving away on my behalf”
the passive language too! "for the authors that WERE WRONGED". oh, don't you mean, the authors YOU WRONGED? aaaaargh!
Wronged by WHOM, JAMES, FUCKING AQUAMAN?!?!?
"I want to help in some way."
Like all of that money in your savings might be a good start, James.
…. Then he continued to talk about starting a fund from the Adsense and figuring out a payment creators could agree on. Granted, not the same thing as giving them money already made, but your comment does misrepresent the quote as if he didn’t offer any money at all.
There’s a lot to criticize anyway, so it seems silly to phrase something a little dishonestly.
@@slaphappybulletReading between the lines of that "Adsense" reactivation really just makes it sound like he wants to make his videos public again so he can continue to get views. And does he really expect us to trust that he'll honestly give all of his Adsense money away? Or any of it? And the way he repeats the "I want to thank HBomberguy for setting this up" as much as he does sounds... forced and a bit rehearsed even. Like he's making sure to say that enough times to "prove" how "sorry" he is.
"at some point I'd like to make videos again"
Please don't. Don't make your videos public again. Disappear and go work in a completely different field. There is nothing to salvage here
I think he should make them public again. It's a great archive of this moment in history. The comments will make it clear to future watchers and maybe the writers can get some money back.
@@ry8539Homberguy has done much more for the recognition of this moment and for reimbursing the authors than I think Somerton’s videos can ever do. I wouldn’t trust people’s ability to interpret context from critical comments on a video to not fall for his tricks. A library of everyone he’s stolen from would be far more valuable, and it would even leave out all the misogyny.
Poor fella has to get a real job like the rest of the plebs
Everyone deserves forgiveness.
@@tentrilliconlp7748 when a person openly admits to guilt, sure, forgive. When they make a thinly veiled attempt to salvage their career, which was entirely built on as POSING as a critical essayist off the back of other people’s work, and then uses a sob story and passive language as though this ‘happened’ to him, as though his clearly naive co-writer was actually stealing vast tracts of articles, documentaries, criticism and essays, when it was claerly his own doing, sorry mate, NO. This guy needs to go and break rocks for a few decades. I mean to call what he did, ‘adaptations’ when it was just the wholesale plagiarism of the so called ‘adapted’ work is total bullshit. This guy is NOT a video essayist, he is a grifter and a liar. He says here, “I promise you I didn’t write that stuff” and a minute later “I’m not trying to throw Nick under the bus”, which is pretty much exactly what he does, sorry this isn’t contrition, it’s self serving bollocks. He still insists he was WRITING stuff, for God’s sake, when the entire issue is that virtually his entire output wasn’t written by him, he was copy pasting other articles and essays and taking money from a community he pretended to be advocating for. It’s disgusting, like thoroughly morally repugnant, on every level!
Just a reminder that you can never ever use your own suicide as weaponry against other people. Cool
"I didn't realize i was hurting people" genuine laugh out loud moment
I think after the first draft he had to replace "care" with "realize"
The preceding line where he says he's sorry he did it and not sorry he got caught is equally funny
i literally had to put this on 2x speed and it still feels like torture to watch
I put it on 2x speed and still gave up.
I immediately made this switch after reading this comment- and the pauses somehow seem LONGER now
Thanks for reminding me I can do that!
Ditto
He had a severe and continuous lapse in judgment
For the last 30 years
scream
“People are saying that I’m trying to throw Nick under the bus and it’s not true….
This whole thing Nick and I were 50/50 partners.”
Just wow.
I wonder if the 50/50 partnership went all the way to how they got paid
My favourite part was "I'm sorry for all the lies... Well I didn't write most of them but being the face of it I guess I should have catched them..."
@Kate-ms2mn he explicitly says they split it 50/50
8:35
@@shenanigans2877 There's no way that's true, right? Has Nick responded?
I won't make fun of the beginning, because whether or not it's true I believe having your career blown up so quickly and thoroughly could put a person in that mindspace. And nobody deserves to be made fun of for that.
As far as the rest, he doesn't seem to understand that citing sources and "putting it into his own words" still isn't how you make an essay. An essay isn't just regurgitating information, you have to have a point that you yourself are making. Sources just support and supplement the point you're making.
when you make an essay, it should add something new to the conversation. research and quotes is how you can build on top of the existing conversation. I hope he can improve from this, but even in this video it doesn't sound like he addressed that.
i'm absolutely with you about not making fun of his implied self harm, but he never had a "career". His "work" was a giant fraud that was finally uncovered. And now he's trying to manipulate people into thinking he's done some woopsie mistake.
Nobody's going to cheer him on in the beginning (regardless of the veracity) but it centers the video in emotional manipulation. It's the James show, there is no community, only him. He is the only person truly hurt in all of this, by everyone and the fans need to bail him out YET AGAIN.
Maybe he forgot that he just tried this by claiming that Nebula and RUclips were "homophobic" and again forgetting that nobody could see that his views, likes, etc didn't actually change like how he did.
Also that he ignored Nebula entirely when they tried an outreach before he decided to clout-farm with their rep as bait.
It should be made fun of for being absolute bullshit and emotional manipulation. I honestly have no sympathy even if he was telling the truth. It's too pathetic.
@@mortified0 While I agree that he is faking for sympathy, I have to take major issue with the last part. Just so I have this straight, you would be okay if he was actually suicidal because he committed plagiarism?
Has the audacity to be outed as a plagiarist, and then makes an apology video using LITERALLY the tricks Hbomb describes in that same video.
I wish I had balls that big.
The fact that he took the video down before the patron really shows what his priorities are
His Patreon seems to be down as well. AGAIN.
Took the Patreon down after the numbers crashed, my guess will re-open it around next Patreon billing cycle in hopes that people have forgotten about it (just as he thinks his fans are that stupid this time around.)
“I promise you I did not write that stuff”
Yeah buddy that’s the whole point
One true statement in this pile of bullshit.
I can't believe he opened his apology with "I just tried to top myself" like jesus christ fella
the manipulation move of all time
It's so insulting to everyone who is actively or passively s-sidal or who has lost loved ones to s-side. Like, obviously I don't wish that on him, but way to hurt yet another community.
100th like
while i'm not saying it didn't happen... we certainly didn't have to know about it in this video. feels very emotionally manipulative :/
top?
Jesus, 16 minutes in and he's still not apologised for stealing people's work.
He keeps skipping around the point. All he should have done is directly look into the camera and say 'I am sorry I directly and intentionally plagiarised other people's work'.
This video could have been less than 5 minutes. Admit you're in the wrong, say sorry then delete all the videos and never work in media again.
He never will, either. He hasn't acknowledged plagiarism, don't think he's spoken the word?
Maybe his mother stole something from a garden while pregnant and he's suffered a foul curse, who can say?
He couldn't find an apology for this situation to steal so he doesn't know what he's saying
“I’m not trying to make this a sob story” **starts the video sobbing**
Thank you for having the foresight to save this
Damn, he should have just plagiarised an apology because this was terrible.
😂😂
... WHICH ONE?! Almost all apology videos are terrible... like MY SIBLING IN THE GODS, just say 'hi, im sorry that I [insert crime], i f*cked up, i ll continue to work hard, and make up for what i did wrong"
A ukulele apology and call it suicidal recital
He didn’t cry a single tear the entire time lol
Also looks like a fish who eats well
@@skyrimse8068this comment made me gasp thank you
@@skyrimse8068 I see it😂
Balding androgynous fish
"I didn't realize that I was hurting people" is the most insane thing I've ever heard in my time on this planet. They TOLD him he was hurting them. He denied plagiarizing because he KNEW he was hurting people.
Interesting how the HBomberguy video literally taught us how to recognize the passive language that he's using to shift blame away. Like... on the one hand I feel for the guy, but on the other hand this is totally insincere and he brought it on himself...
can't believe you uploaded this video, it's like word for word the same as James Somerton's apology video!
Thumb this up, Scotty.
Took a minute to find but I knew someone would comment this
"I swear on my mother's grave that there will be no copy and pasting" jesus christ
"I'm not trying to throw Nick under the bus, even though just a minute earlier I claim that he wrote all of the misinformation"
The fact that he ADMITS that sponsors requested for videos they were associated with to be taken down… omfg
The one honest bit here is “I should’ve waited longer to do this.” It’s horrible that he considered offing himself, and like Hbomberguy said, harassing this guy won’t solve anything. But if he’s in that much pain, he absolutely should have given himself more time heal. See a therapist, connect with loved ones, take a refresher course on academic ethics at a community college. THEN he can come back with a straight-faced apology that focuses on his wrongdoings and ACTUALLY APOLOGIZES TO THE PEOPLE HE HURT. As it stands, it looks like he’s desperate for pity, rather than actually interested in fixing his mess.
Probably because he is desparate for pity not actually remorseful. Remember, this is someone who made false allegations to get hate mobs to target people for recognizing what he was doing. This is someone who hates women on principle. Someone who is very open to the idea of being a terrible person. Don't trust anything they say.
"Toronto area is expensive, so there's not really any kind of savings."
Ohhhhhhhhh, I guess that makes stealing content okay then!
when tf did he use that as a justification for plagiarism?????
@@Zaylic Why bring it up at all if not as an incredibly weak excuse? What's the relevance?
@@Zaylicwhy on Earth would you mention how expensive the area you live in is during an apology if you’re not trying to indirectly say “I did this because where I live is expensive and stealing the work and content of other people was easier than trying to make my own original content”
An apology should be just that…AN APOLOGY.
Not filming yourself crying on camera like you’re somehow the victim in all of this.
You don’t get to steal from other people and then try to play the “oh please have sympathy for me” card when you’re finally caught out and exposed.
This is just a desperate attempt to save face and the fact he took it down shows you that he KNOWS he’s faking the emotion and the tears.
@@Zaylic Literally in this exact video. It's at 8:20.
It doesn't matter how much money he did or didn't make. Even one dollar made on the back of someone else is wrong.
This video was made in reference to the plagiarism. Any excuse he makes here is to try and weasel out of it.
You should read this twitter thread by Dan Olson, apparently he bought a lot of expensive equipment then told his patreons he was in a dire situation financially
www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/18ay7cv/the_stop_hes_already_dead_rule/
So, things aren't going as well as you thought they would.
Thanks for saving this, btw.
It's hard for me to not empathize with the human who tried to harm themself because of the proportions this thing took. I cannot, however, agree with his desires to come back. This isn't "cancelling". Being a youtuber is a job, the audience are customers. He did shitty work and got fired from his job because his customers were wronged by his poor work ethic.
"I didn't hire him to be a scapegoat"
Of course he didn't, but that doesn't change the fact that he was set up to be one because of the way he deflected any responsibility of making sure that there is no plagerism onto him.
"I didn't hire him, I just paid him to do work" ???
I was *REALLY* hoping he would just leave. If you've taken the time to watch some of the videos surrounding James, you know this video has several lies. Maybe after his third apology we'll get some accountability, but when you lie and steal this much, you would have to be a fool to give this man money.
it is HILARIOUS to me how he actually seemed to think he could come back from this. like he sits there tears in his eyes going “i- i wanna start making videos again…. i-if anyone still w-wants me i know i’m horrible and you probably hate me… but i.. i wanna be a good example :((“. like he thought that if he looked pathetic enough people would give him a second chance. geniunely astounding
I've been gaslit before. I didn't even know the context for what he was talking about at the time, but something in this video felt off, like it didn't feel like a "im sorry" more like a "I feel sad" update.
just after watching Hbomberguys vid.
This apology video is gaslighty as fuck, he litterally just makes his apology *about him* abiut how *he* feels about facing consequences for stealing and benefiting from other peoples work and lying about not stealing
thank you so much for the reupload--james filmed this, edited it, and uploaded it, and then deleted it less than a day afterwards. the excuses he makes in the video about the lies he told to scam money off people need to be preserved. the people he grifted money from deserve to see his response to being caught, especially with his decision to take it down.
I think some of the worst of it is that he didn’t bring up how he would fix the mistakes or misinformation in the videos and just said he wanted to re-upload them or pit in the correct sources. From what everyone is saying he did a lot of bad yes. But he never once mentioned how he would either correct the misinformation in the videos that could be salvaged (like for instance he could add post edits or post voice over corrections) or if it’s bad enough he could either redo the whole thing and thus have a better founded and informative thesis for the video or just straight up not upload it. Because the problems lye more than just sourcing it in the description. Other people have pointed out some hypocrisy in the video so I’ll leave it at this
>Starts with emotional plea
>frames the problem as him being bad at crediting
>throws writer under the bus
>offers to put his videos back up as an answer
>won’t even put in the work to send the revenue to the people he stole from, instead expects hbomb to do it
Idk why he doesn’t just get a retail job or something? Like why even bother trynna salvage his career? Why is it even important to him? It’s not like he ever made anything himself
He needs the attention and adoration. that's what it was always about. it was never about the videos actually. this is the only way he can secure that attention that he pathologically craves. without the channel it all goes away and he can't bear that
I think he’s been lying to himself for so many years that he sincerely believes he’s done nothing wrong. So he’s repackaging the same excuses that worked in the past instead of just outright saying all his video essays were stolen. Because admitting to that means admitting the grift is over. And he can never accept that
Feels like he is just spitballing ideas and all of them are just suck he should stick to his niche and plagiarize his apology also.
He's used to the easy money. It's hard going back after being addicted to that
He's upset that he can't make money off of other people's work and now he has to get a real job
If you made a bingo card based upon hbomberguy's description of flakey plagiarism apologies, this would hit every single box.
Here after finding out he faked his death after this.😐
"i promise you i did not write that stuff" oh we know!
Amazing save. I had the OG one open and was reading the comments and one said to make sure to save it cus he’s gonna delete it and when I went to check the replies they wouldn’t load cus he’d deleted it already
haha same! I knew it was only a matter of time before he deleted it
I love how Hbomberguy CALLED IT that Somerton would throw Nick under the bus, and it was true!
you can tell he didnt watch harry's video because he did all the same exact things he's done before when he's been caught, including, not limited to:
oh actually the bad things, that wasnt me
i didnt know it was bad/i didnt know how to give proper credit
i actually really respect the people who's work i stole and took credit for
i never meant to hurt anyone (no n, dont look at the smaller people i've sent my fans after when they realised i stole their work shh shh sh)
also not for nothing but he never once says "plagiarism". he even describes plagiarism at 26.05 and then just calls it "not giving proper credit" and the problem being the copy pasting directly. like.
I am sure he watched the first part of the video, the part where other fraudsters showed exactly how to make a non-apology, passive voice excuse video.
@@pattheplanter thing is, if he saw that,surely he knows it wont work on the people who watched the video? at least youd hope so right? 😅truly such a mess
you missed throwing co-writer under the bus
@@Cheffamily HA! god, you're so right though 💀
I honestly hate when youtubers make an apology and then bring their attempt into it. this is about how you hurt others, not how you hurt yourself. Obviously im glad it failed, It just seems so manipulative to me. Personally I believe that should stay offline.
Edit: sorry, just had to fix some errors and reword things!
Yeah, his point is to manipulate people into feeling bad. That's why he started this out crying and mentioned the attempt.
My man really just said he missed nick and tried to throw him under the bus like 10 times straight
obvious in retrospect, but people took hbomb's video as a license to do their favorite thing: harass. I blame hbomb, I blame myself for not seeing this sooner. punishment is not a solution to anything. take your impulse to punish and put it gently up your anus
Original comment: I think if you cornered James (or Filip, or Naughtii, or Historian), if you managed to push them to the point where they broke down and told the truth, some very ugly things would come out. There's deep, deep disdain that is hiding behind their reluctance to face the things they did. Ultimately, they don't really see their wrongs as wrongs, and they can't, like physically can't make a proper apology because for that they need to look at themselves, and that would be very painful.
"You think that's what an apology is? A spell you cast on another person to make them forgive you?"
Community, 03x13 - Digital Exploration Of Interior Design
I mean, they might not even be capable of looking at themselves to be honest. Not just that they fundamentally want to avoid it at all costs, but they might just be psychologically incapable like a patient with prosopagnosia being unable to see faces.
@@GreekDudeYiannis I'd love to have a very long talk with them in an environment where they can be sure there would be no consequences. I imagine at a certain point they will go to anger, and of course there would be countless lies whether or not there are outside observers, but I don't think their defenses are impenetrable.
Spot on! 💯
@@GreekDudeYiannisMore like vampires who can't see their own mirror reflection, and survive off the energy (attention//blood) of the innocent/naïve.
He keeps saying, without credit, without citation, blah blah, while never acknowledging that he didn't just not cite them, he stole from them without remorse. I disagree with him, he IS sorry he got caught. The truth will always come out.
Honestly, I have to give him credit. Tommy made a brilliant apology here, and we all, especially his mother, can be extremely proud of him for it.
Tommy Tallirico, the first American to work on a sonic game, is truly an inspiration for the LGBTQ+ and queer community. The work he’s put into making sounds for pride parades to design themselves around is huge and he’s even won the Guinness world record for highest male body count.
The "I dont hate [x]" people list conveniently excluding trans men despite an article about how he hurt trans men being on the first page of google, and that was the main phobia allegation against him
ok but it would have been really funny to upload this with a title card saying "based on the work of james somerton" followed by the video in its entirety
dare i say... a transformative work
If he truly attempted to end his life, I am very sorry that he's going through this. No matter what, suicide is a serious matter. Of course that doesn't exempt him from guilt or diminish what he did. It is wild to me that he worked on RUclips doing video essays for so long and also grew quite successful with it but he never read up on how to actually make video essays, how to research, how to credit people, what plagiarism is. Even if you begin your career with lackluster attempts at video essays and you don't credit people at all - at some point there would have to come the curiosity of how other people do it, how you can be professional in your work, how you can grow to become a better researcher, etc.
In a clip shown in Hbomber's video, Somerton keeps saying the plagiarism allegations aren't true, that Nick wrote most of the script and that Nick would never plagiarize because he comes from an academic background. So Somerton managed to (a) ignore the allegations without listening and looking into the matter to correct his mistakes and (b) didn't care to learn from Nick how to avoid plagiarism. Of course Nick said in their discord that he's pretty lazy and doesn't really read (ergo, also too lazy to do decent research) which contradicts Somerton's insinuation that Nick fulfills academic standards and would never dare not to.
Somerton says in this video that he isn't sorry he got caught but he's sorry that he did this in the first place. If that is the case, why did he so vehemently ignore and shut down anyone telling him blatantly that he was indeed plagiarizing? Seems like he was not willing to change even though multiple people kept telling him what he was doing wrong. So it comes off as him actually apologizing because the wider internet has now caught on as well and therefore ruined his reputation and career.
He had the time, resources and backing of fans to change before this timebomb exploded by correcting course and actually doing decent work. You'd think if he truly WANTED to create respectable content for RUclips with his essays, he would have informed himself about research and citation standards as anyone who wants to be professional about their research/essays does.
Why does he still say his videos were "adapted" from his sources? He didn't adapt anything, he read it word for word. That's not how adaptations work and you'd think someone interested in making movies would know that just reading someone's book into a camera is not an adaptation.
If Somerton even wants to begin to right his wrongs he would need to make amends and pay repairs to those he wronged - including all of his patrons that paid for his videos. It would be a long road but I personally would prefer for him to do that. We all know that likely won't happen though. Though his career seems over, I hope he actually learns how to do research and cite and do the work for all of this so he can gain a bigger understanding of what he stole from people and also have some serious and necessary growth.
The Patreon thing: If anyone actually didn't on time manage to unsubscribe from Somerton, he should offer them a refund IMMEDIATELY. He is, after all, claiming he does not want to trick people into paying him and keeping the money. So he should have no problem making sure any further payments to him from his patrons are actually intended.
Thank you for saving this video, I am so annoyed he deleted it before I had a chance to watch it.
it's really pissing me off the way he's talking about "somehow paying back the authors that were wronged" (notably NOT "victims").
james claims we're "way overestimating" the amount of money he's made, even though patreon earnings are publicly available and it's easy to calculate YT earnings based on views and sponsorships, so much so that he apparently doesn't have "really any kind of savings" and he's "moving home really soon". (after which he delicately wraps his cardigan more tightly around himself in a display of self-preserving body language)
his proposed solution is to make all his videos public again (is he serious?) and then every month send ALL the adsense money directly to the victims, or to hbomberguy's team, or he could start a fund himself, and then every month say how much money he's made on the videos and show it, "and send it to the writers and stuff, and i don't know what the system for that would be..."
does that sound disjointed and confusing? that's because it is. he proposes three amorphous solutions, all of which involve him getting to keep all the content on his channel. he didn't come with a clear plan because he was hoping people would feel so bad for him that he wouldn't have to send any of his money away. he wants us to do the work for him. he's already suggested just donating to hbomberguy's fund. (and how convenient for james that that exists! at least he can say they're getting repaid somehow!)
god, this is just narcissism 101.
Not to mention what pennies the adsense would even be at this point when he lost the trust of his viewers. He already made his buck, now the victims can get scraps.
Just a heads up, try to avoid "body language analysis". It is a pseudo science and very easily used to villainize innocent people, especially neurodivergent people. Overall good take, though 👍
I don't have any reason to care for Somerton or his situation because I've only seen of him what was said in the Plagiarism video. But I highly regard the uploader for the sake that the preservation of information is such a significant part of online culture. So thank you so much for reuploading this.
"I'm not trying to turn this into a sob story" proceeds to talk about completely unrelated past roommate who cut contact
His roommate Nick is related to this whole thing. He was James's "cowriter."
Hbomb literally picked apart how he responds to plagiarism accusations and James didn’t think to switch it up? This is virtually the same as the livestreams or other videos with explanations. Just with tears and sniffling. the same passive language, the same deflections, even bringing up Nick! It’s amazing how he was too lazy to even think of another way to approach this. Maybe cause he didn’t have an existing apology to plagiarize
lol good job, I literally went to bed thinking "I should probably save this video because I'm sure it will be deleted soon" but then I didn't. Glad it's still available so ppl can see the attempted lies.
I did the same thing. I saw it and then I was like, "Oh, I'll watch it in the morning!" Then I went to bed, woke up it was gone.
So glad this wonderful soul had the foresight to save the video for us.
@@ayahner90 Thank youu
James if you read this; You might remember me or not but I want to tell you few things:
-I'm glad I never drew that shark pic for you, Id feel bad now afterwars. So I'm happy all in all you never responded
-You were HUGE inspiration for me in terms of monetisation of your content; now I see it was all lie ;/
-I'm happy you are alive, I don't hate you; I feel devastated you did what you did but all in all I wish you luck in other career than YT. I hope you will find your place and won't plagiarise/hurt anyone elsewhere. This was a big lesson for you.
He really doesn't deserve your kind words but you're a great person for writing them anyway. have a wonderful day
I feel he is really hurt; but also his victims are. It's hard to watch anyone suffering. I just want him to become better person elsewhere. James you can do it! @@belagrolaub8746
I wrote a reply comment to it before he deleted it. Every comment I saw was NOT buying what he was selling. It was a complete dodge of responsibility on his part: a mealy-mouthed pseudo-apology that was all about him and not about the people he victimized. He's not sorry for anything but being caught.
He should have sung this while playing the ukulele. Might as well plagiarize his apology too.
“I tried to put acknowledgements in the opening credits”
…no you didn’t.
“That it was based on so-and-so’s work.”
That’s a weird way to say word-for-word the same…
“But I know now that wasn’t enough.”
BUT YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO THAT!
Also he only did that for big authors, he never even mentioned the tons of small writers and content creators he stole from
“Could’ve been so easy to do the research myself” what research? It was word-for-word, this isn’t even a crediting sources thing anymore. If I rob you and take your money then buy a car, what good does it do anyone if I then say “I credit this car to the guy I robbed”?
People always say that what you post on the Internet is forever, whether you want it to be or not, but this only works if people actively engage in the preservation of information. Kudos for having the forethought to hang on to this piece of grifter propaganda so that we might learn from it.
I feel for H.Bomb - he didn't want to cause anyone else pain (there's an excellent interview he gave to Vulture about all this) and was just trying to right a wrong in the universe with his video.
Genuine or not, James' pain and pleading here would be very difficult to see for the man who made the video, but I hope - wherever he is - Harris knows what he did was ultimately the right thing to do. He's a good person, his video is resulting in a net positive, and James (while he hopefully never makes more videos) will recover from this and find some other, easy business venture to cash in on that doesn't take advantage of a marginalised community. 👍🏻
The narcissists prayer:
It didn’t happen
And if it did it wasn’t that bad
And if it was it wasn’t a big deal
And if it was it wasn’t my fault
And if it was I didn’t mean it
Dude isn't crying because he feels bad, he's crying because he feels sorry for himself. Talks about all these things he aspires to do because it's much easier than actually doing anything. Refusing to actually own up to what he did. What a narcissist.
"There were times when stuff got put in and there was no attempt at crediting anybody." -- stuff got put in, by somebody. There was not attempt at crediting, not I didn't credit writers. I took their words and didn't credit them. No *I* statements at all. Like his fairy godmother did it.
"how fast we were writing stuff"
They didn't write anything. How fast they hit ctrl+c and ctrl+v more like.
Thank you for your service in preserving this
Thanks for sharing this. I don't think it's fair for someone to plagiarize all their videos, upload an apology, and then demand we all delete it. It's really frustrating to see him lead off the video with a bunch of fake crying and nonsensical unverifiable sob stories that "isn't a sob story." By the time he apologizes, I'm thinking "that's not an apology." What a weird performance and awkward recitation of an apology. I'd have deleted it too...
Essentially, this is a guy who just likes hearing himself talk. Even when he doesn't know what he's talking about, his voice is just so intoxicating to himself.
Glad it was saved. Now we have proof its in the running for worst youtuber apology 2023 and it wasn't a fever dream.
Ehh, i think the ukulele one has 1st place for that award
Yeah, but did she swear on her dead mum's grave? I think there's at least room for two winner, blaire last.
@@JacobLlewellyn I am expecting an interview with his very surprised mum any day now. "Well, that explains why he never shows up for Christmas."
great job on saving it.
this is a beautiful apology video. The deep sighs, the teary eyes, the lack of accountability, the attempts to garner sympathy. *Chef’s kiss*
"A lot of people would prefer that I just disappeared"
Thing is, with the sheer volume of plagiarism detected (and who knows how much slipped under the radar), we don't know that James ever "appeared" at all, much of his content is simply others' words. What has been put into doubt is more serious than his capacity to credit his sources, personally I now doubt his capacity to have an original idea; to carry a video through without the aid of misinformation and outright stealing.
"Most cases, I didn't write it"
We know dude, we know
I think his pain is genuine, he probably feels really bad about it, but the fact is he did wrong and he needs to take responsibility. Not straight away he should take time to get himself into a better head space, but he needs to take responsibility and do something to make up for what he did that doesn't obviously benefit him.
I think his pain is real too, but I think he got into such a habit of stealing that he forgot what he was doing was bad and doesn’t want to admit it even to himself
In this video he’s still clinging to the lies he’s been telling himself (it’s his writers fault, he didn’t intend to steal, crediting is enough) and using the techniques that worked in the past (my life is in danger due to being criticised) and the longer he does this, the longer he’s gonna be in pain. If he wants to move past this, he should just come to terms with what he did and apologise properly to the people he stole from
I think the pain is real but the cause isn't. He probably even thinks that he's sorry for the plagiarism, but if that was the case he would have felt bad and changed things when people brought it up before. He's sorry about it now that it got enough attention to ruin his career. If only 1000 people watched Hbomb's video he would have dismissed it and moved on as he had done other times
He ashamed and embarrassed and afraid. He still doesn’t understand why what he did was wrong. He took this moment to state multiple times that he wants to keep making videos. It’s insane.
I dunno, seeing so many apologies like this before to the point that his seems like a copy n paste of it, it just seems like hes doing all the things he can do to make it as easy as possible to sympathize with him
The fact he refers to the plagiarism as “uncredited stuff” 😂
Wipe those tears, fella. Time to figure out how you’re gonna pay off all those people you ripped off
To all the people jumping to get their knives in, remember that the punishment has well and truly been handed out to James. The matter does not call for a high volume of caustic attacks and vitriol. When someone says or implies that they are (or were recently) on the brink of ending their own life, we should take that seriously and not engage in activity that would push them any further.
I think you're very right. However, people are also right in their feelings that he's only talking about it to get sympathy points. Otherwise he wouldn't have reactivated his patreon and actually apologized.
He makes it very obvious that he has no intention of giving back to the people he harmed, be it his supporters or the people he stole from.
And making an "apology video" like this.... Well can I see why people are skeptical
@@brook_angel Here's how I think about this:
Scenario 1: he is milking it, looking for sympathy and not being genuine. Worst case outcome...
Scenario 2: he is really hurting and in a vulnerable place. Worst case outcome...
Balance of harms falls strongly in favour of everyone taking the high road and not going too far. I think scenario 2 is much more likely.
@@Tantacrulhim hurting doesn't change the fact that nothing he is doing are actions that are expected of him. He isn't even owning up to his mistakes, talking around them and looking for excuses.
Of course we shouldn't harass him, but that doesn't equate to taking any more of his shit. And an apology where he tries to justify plagerism by arguments like
I didn't know
I was living in an expensive area
And I was lazy (well this one is a least believable)
All he had to do was either shut up and admit defeat silently.
Or admit to malpractice without giving cheap excuses to try and justify it.
But he doesn't. Which makes it feel disingenuous.
i mean, when a person has a HISTORY of lying and manipulating to get themselves out of a bad situation, we can't help but doubt his words. he has lied countless times when he was caught before - he doesn't show any signs of changing that behavior, so why should we believe him?
While yeah, people should keep vitriol to a minimum, this is a person who has shown themselves to be a consistent liar, and even in the rest of his apology he dances around the truth and downplays everything he did, and outright lies (when he claims he didn't realise he was hurting anyone, despite numerous confrontations in the past). If the apology is full of falsehood then benefit of the doubt on his opening statement is hard to swallow.
If he had been honest in the rest of the apology, sure. I just think this is a pathological liar breaking out the nuclear option in order to make people feel guilty about further criticism of him.
Frankly I am certain, 100% certain that if he has received any counselling in the wake of this reported attempt, they would have advised him not to return to the platform that drove him to this until he was 100% ready. Canada being a civilised country I'm sure such counselling would be mandatory.
It is crazy how a grown ass man can cry for 35 minutes long
He used his platform and sexuality to bully and intimidate. He used “homophobia” as a sword and shield and wielded them with abandon. All while knowingly building his privileged existence using the work of others. Made worse that many of the people he harmed where those who aligned with his beliefs. He took from those who wanted their voices heard and used them as his own. The bullying other people if the icing on the cakes for me.
my god at this point, what's there left to say? he clearly doesnt feel sorry - he's sorry he got caught. i dunno, i think the best answer is to deplatform him. don't give him views, subscriptions, and certainly dont give him money.
because i have no doubt that, if he doesn't feel any real regret over his actions (only regrets at being caught, or being so bad at covering his tracks) or even his misogynistic and racist views that he embedded into his plagiarized essays... then he will simply do it again.
Why does he have that haircut? He looks like a pineapple