#also again. hate branding. he made all that money off looking right. nice meritocracy we got there

[samaspic31]

It would have been nice if hbomberguy had named confirmation bias and the halo effect as factors that contributed to somerton’s success : he exploited « looking the part », sanatized analysis and queer history, and overall copied off (in the tiny original parts) mainstream takes that were popular in tumblr discourse (« we have more queer women than gay men in childrens animation » « oriental countries censor gay relationships so much more ») because his audience was primed to those ideas.

He exploited making content with similar stances to other queer youtubers but looking much more snobbish and performing the idea we have of a queer intellectual, farming youtube for people looking for familiarity that would also make them feel clever (all the while never questioning the need for gay people to justify their reading of media, we shouldn’t have to and it feels grovelling-adjacent to me but i digress). Real academic work is much more complex and requires intellectual friction and confronting theories to data, creating new ideas, testing frameworks and discarding them if they don't fit, (try to) see all angles of an issue. Which is why his videos often lacked nuance and were dumbing down the sources.

We need to be so much more careful about people mining fandoms for money. I cannot stress how much people intentionally exploit the starvation created by our culture being alternative for decades and still somewhat niche now. We will soon see the rise of fandom as a money machine (worse than now obviously it'salreadystarted and has seeped in the mainstream to a degree). People see it as a market to exploit in many areas, merch, engagement and promotion, basically using fans' voluntary labor to cut down costs, catering to us can make someone lots of money, and we should be somewhat careful who we uplift. I don’t remember what tipped me off, and it clearly wasn’t big if i don’t, but i had unfollowed james like a whole year before all this, and his shallowness in supporting demographics in the queer community he wasn’t a part of himself, nor his lack of range covering racial issues, were not hidden. Hbomberguy was not wrong pointing out he exploited a gap of knowledge in younger queer folks of both queer history, academic texts, and in proficiency to recognize misogynistic rhetoric.

Im not blaming anyone for missing those signs, but lets stay vigilant. Lots of bad shit goes on fandom, especially we turn off our brains cause we feel safe about someone who could have mastered how to signal support to queer people without actually internalized any of it.