#hmbomberguy

[what-kinda-fuckeri]

There is no way James Somerton didn’t know what he was doing with that title (or maybe he didn’t and I’m giving him too much credit but i realllllyy don’t think so) it’s just another way to keep people talking about him. All press is good press babey

[very-uncorrect]

About 1/4 of the way through the new hbomberguy video, really REALLY invested

[dullahandyke]

This close to blacklisting the name of every internet microceleb so I never have to hear about them again. Idolatry is fine unless you're the internet in which case you'll invariably be annoying as hell abt it

[ink-the-artist]

fhsdjfhsd is the 'his mother is very proud' a nod to an hmbomberguy vid or am i being silly lmao

Yes djsjsbdh

[weaselbeaselpants]

Lindsay Ellis plagiarized a ndn author

This post isn't a callout and it's only my own post because the OP source I just learned it from, @neechees, doesn't allow rbgs at a certain point on that post.

After Hmbomberguy's expose on Illuminaughtii and James Somerton some people are giving a well deserved eye back to the leftube sphere that was kind of schism-d and held under scrutiny in what I feel was, a lot of the time, misinformed hate campaigns in response to genuine criticism; especially towards Lindsay Ellis who up left after she was canceled and hasn't returned to continuous video making publicly even after people have mostly agreed the hatedom directed for her Raya and the Last Dragon takes was stupid and was erasing actual SEA people's discussions of the culture. To hear and see a decent breakdown of that film's representation problems BEYOND the Ellis-parts because it's worth your wild regardless of if you've seen the movie, please watch the three part video series hosted by Xiran Jay Zhao.

To tl;dr the 2021 drama: people have held an ire towards Ellis for a long time feeling like her and her white-woman base talk over, steal, or just straight up don't apologize for their own racism towards women and ppl of color, and after Lindsay did a problematic by pointing out that Raya and the Last Dragon was like ATLA, people jumped on her.

Being both a longtime fan of Ellis and white as fucc, I personally feel like Lindsay kind of forgave herself and threw out the actual criticisms held against her every bit as much as people just kind of treated her like a punching bag. Or, to paraphrase @padawan-historian's old takes from then, they treated Lindsay like she was trying to be the ENTIRE conversation, not the start of one, and like every possible outcome that could happen over her videos was her fault personally. Some of Lindsay's loudest and nastiest 'critics' were, in fact, other white people or just people who have no good faith in addressing her fuck ups, like Lily Orchard, fe.

One 'Lindsay did a racism'point tho that I felt wasn't truly addressed in full though were claims by indigenous people that she was anti-native, especially in her videos about Twilight and Pocahontas, which yeah at the time I was very passive of you can 100% find post abt that. But then Neechees linked me to an article I, and I think a lot of other video essay-fans had never seen before. This article accused Lindsay of stealing half of her talking points on Disney's Pocahontas from theirs.

When people on the breadtube spectrum talk of Lindsay, even people who criticized her at the time. all kind of agree that the intensity of the backlash was uncalled for and, while not everyone agrees if her public silence is a 'canceling' or not, agree with her need to just take care of herself these days. For those curious, this is the article making this claim:

I am not saying you need to all unfollow and hate everything Lindsay ever touched, mkay? But I also genuinely hope that Lindsay addresses this+comes clean because holy fuck. Unlike Somerton, all I can tell you is I don't just 'believe Windsey wouldn't hurt nobody uwu~'. I am pretty certain that Lindsay care about the topics she covers, for whatever that's worth to say as another whiteperson. It's just that, like Contrapoints, I ALSO think she has a tendency to deflect criticism within that sphere and lump all her negative bagage together. This really sucks cuz not all of us are Lily Orchards or Vaush clones.

Most of us are/were casual watchers of Lindsay like we are Hbomber, Contra, Lady Emily, Folding Ideas, and ToddintheShadows (does he count as leftube idk?) and we really, genuinely don't want to believe that Lindsay stole from + refuses to listen to women of color when they call her out.

Where I like almost everyone in the leftoob analyst sphere that's ever growing and hopefully now weeding out Illumanaughtii-s and Sommerton-s of the world, there ARE controversies within the space that I don't agree with creators on. Some are dumb things like the exact takes Lindsay has about movies n shows that I just up and disagree with her on, Princess Weekes' proshipping apologia that I have LOTS of thoughts on. However, some matters are clearly personal and about maters that just don't involve me. Earlier this year, Folding Ideas and Lady Emily ctrl+alt+deleted some replies they made to Quinton Reviews, making clear that they very much still dislike him based on something that happened between Quinton, Lindsay and I think SarahZ. And by "dislike", I mean also still believeing his former editor over him on who was boundary pushing about who in their relationship. On the offchance any of those creators or their stans somehow see this, know that I'm not going to tell any of you guys how to feel about whatever Quinton did in private I'm not aware of; it's just that I also happen to believe Quinton on this issue and I don't like the guiltybyassociation mantra.

>>>>side note: I hate that every time someone says "I believe so and so after hearing their side now" ppl jump on the "you were just a stan from the beginning and never actually able to listen"-bs. Yeah, being more familiar with one creator over the other means there's bias, sure, but I kinda hate that that once held bias means you can't be held as any kind of source or form your own opinions. <<<

Big introvert vibes ahead: the thing about any big social circle of better-spoken people than you is they ALL seem like a scary meangirl's table from outside looking in. The kind that'll send goons after you with passive-aggressive "this is slander against me and I have the right to be upset abt it sorry if the stans eat you alive". They can also be made out by their fans to be harmless internet nobody's who YOU are at fault for getting mad and staying mad at cuz it's not like it matters on the internet and are clearly just out for drama and 'twofaced' yourself. I think the reality is the same thing that drives every community forward as well as drives them apart: these people are legitimate friends. They stick up for each other the same way we stick up for our personal internet friends whenever there's shit coming their way. The breadtube circle, whoever that is at this point, clearly know some shit we don't about themselves as much as they don't know shit about us and our true intentions. One of them has a platform and responsibility, where the other has power in masses and following them or not. We gotta all make the choices best for us.

Anyway. I guess, if any of the stuff about Lindsay ripping off that writer IS true, I really hope that she admits and apologizes for it. That's not cool to do to her indigenous audience, or even me, one of her white fans who expects actually allyship.

[sapphia]

funny how james somerton has kinda collected up dozens of the most egregious queer history and media myths and then quite accidentally dispelled them in one easy swoop during his blind plagiarism of everyone else’s work.

because he just copied whatever crap he found in exaggerated articles without doing any research to see whether it was true or not. by chasing the most sensationalist stories for clicks he not only actively sought out the worst queer myth offenders but then doubled down on his deception in a way that stirred the waters of much bigger creators bound to take exception to the obvious lies he was spreading and look in on him. he never could have got away with this forever, but his own effective censorship of criticism made bigger and bigger waves that were attracting huge sharks bound to swallow him alive even without a specific creator like hmbomberguy or todd in the shadows stepping in.

and in doing so, he created a scandal large and delicious enough that people will finally actually learn all these tiny bullshit facts they’ve picked up from unreliable sources all across the net are untrue.

basically somerton painted a big red sign on his back that said “please debunk me” and then yelled stupid things at uninformed people as loudly as he could while within earshot of people who definitely knew he was wrong. i hope if nothing else we can now stop seeing so many shallow media takes spreading easily through queer spaces that clearly underline a total ignorance of actual queer history

[trashworldblog]

What is hmbomberguy (I can’t spell) ur reblogs are making me so curious but I cannot handle getting into more content/ content drama rn.

hi! yes. so hbomberguy is one of those 2hr long video- twice a year or less youtubers. who make content exploring a topic (like plagerism on youtube, vaccines and autism, etc).

his new video talks about video essay type youtubers who steal all their writing from documentries, books, articles, etc. and makes thousands of dollars off of other peoples work.

james sommerton is the main focus of the video, but he also shows how iiluminaughtii stole from documentries (and even listed the piriting site she watched it from as a source? lol) and internet historian stole an entire article, format, visuals, and all, and got 10 million views for it (and stole so much his video got taken down) and theres this other video game guy that got hired at ign and the got fired from ign for piriting and is a homophobic right wing guy?? (details are fuzzy, this is a 4 hour video i watched once, forgive me).

um. but, the james sommerton stuff just gets crazier and crazier the way this guy just makes a ton of money by lying to his community. he ends up accidently stealing work from one of his patreon members (he stole on purpose, i assume he didnt know who he was stealing from was a patron). he asked and got thousands of dollars to mame a fake (?) film studio that has made no films, and only says theyre in preproduction for a new film every 10 months. he also, yknow, steals from queer voices, basically harming his own community for profit. and when he's called out for stealing, he either shouts homophobia or shifts the blame to his co writer, who probably knows nothing about the plagerism.

anyways. its a bit of a drama thing. but honestly its a lot about how and why we should care about the art and media we consume online, and just how many people who look like they have their life together and are making lots and lots of content, seemingly on their own or close, actually are just stealing from talented people. it heals a bit of that imposter syndrome for people that do make genuine content online, and shows the consumers what making too much too quick actually means for the content they enjoy. the get the equivalent of meat grinded facts mixed with misinformation, subtly changed quotes, and 0 sources, or a laundry list of unorganized and unlabled sources if they want to learn more.

also i like this tweet. summarizes it well for me.

um. but thats my thoughts on it. i liked it because it reminds me that people who are churning out content one-man-show style aren't making the greatest stuff. i struggle with feeling like my work takes too long. but this was a great reminder that im actually making something good (i hope!), or at least, something that is truely coming from me. so its gonna take time to do it. but it'll be worth it because it'll be coming from me. (and also good. hopefully)

also the money hbomberguy is making off this video is going to the people james stole from. so thats really nice.

[bonesfool]

kinda pissed off that people who I've never seen talk about rap before are making memes about the kendrick v drake beef (especially all the people comparing it to the fucking Hmbomberguy James Somerton video like tell me you don't know shit about black culture without telling me Jesus Christ), but I'm glad its become a catalyst for the conversation that so many white people on here just do not engage in black art forms

a lot of people have been boiling it down to if you claim to universally not enjoy rap, a genre that is almost universally populated by black artists, producers and record labels you're racist. this is certainly true, especially if you don't treat other genres as monoliths you can write off. (cough cough we all saw those tags on that one post)

But as someone who has a special interest in protest music (usually American protest music specifically) I think that even if you genuinely do not enjoy the sound of rap, if you consider yourself to be an American leftist, and have not made any effort to at least learn the history of rap you're not only racist, you're also uneducated and I would go as far to say not a real leftist. Why? because rap is inherently political: both in the sense that all music is political because all art is political, but also in the sense that rap uniquely political as a black art form

I've seen a lot of people saying "not all rap is about drugs and violence" which is a true statement, but ignores the fact that a lot of rap *is* about drugs and violence. and for a fucking good reason, both of them dominated the urban black experience in the 80s and 90s, and therefore have a disproportionate appearance in black art. Rap was born in American urban centers in the 70s/80s, a time when Reagan and Nixon's policies had completely divested federal support from urban centers, deindustrialization had made growing wealth in black communities suddenly become unsustainable, and racist policing laws had been put in place to funnel black men into drugs and then into the prison industrial complex (read The New Jim Crow if you have not, this post is already too long and if you don't know about the war on drugs im not gonna whitesplain it to you more than I already have).

Point being, it has always sucked to be black in this country, and rap was birthed in a time where uniquely targeted racism was driving much of federal policymaking. It was a time where mainstream politics were directly reactionary to the progress made by civil rights activists in ending Jim Crow and other de jure racism. So much of rap (particularly gangsta rap) was born as a genre of protest music, and much of it continues to be to this day. If you don't have at least passing familiarity with the giants of the genre (I'm not saying you even have to like their music, you just have to know the artists' and songs' significance in American countercultural history) I simply do not trust your knowledge of American leftism or protest movements

All this to say, I want to wholeheartedly recommend the documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution. It's on Netflix and its 16 episodes covering the history of DJing, hip-hop, and rap. It has lots of interviews with prolific and influential producers and rappers, and you can also hear some of their music throughout the series, so its a great place to get a comprehensive view of the genre and maybe see if there are any subgenres to your taste

[susiephone]

is hmbomberguy's rwby video comprehensible to someone who's never seen rwby?

[fndmstrugglecomments]

What did Monty say about lgbt characters? And what are the screenshots of Hmbomberguy regarding Monty?

"iT hAS tO bE eArNeD" *follows that up with a decade of cishet nonsense*

And here are the screenshots

[bluevelvt]

hmbomberguy’s new video is like a cinematic event, feel like i should tag posts with spoilers for it

[bluesundaymorn]

hmbomberguy could get it I'm not even gonna lie

[stenka-razin]

Youtube constantly pushes hmbomberguy movies on me. I have never once watched these. Why is it so instant every single time he drops. I do not watch these. I do not subscribe. I'm sure he's a perfectly fine dude.

[louisinart]

Heartbreaking: everyone on my dash is talking about the hmbomberguy video and I do not have an unobstructed 4 hours of free time

[rcedge]

hmbomberguy or whoever he is should do sarah z next. i haven't forgiven her for the spn video

[machidielontheway]

me : ok let's try to get to sleep acceptably not-too-late today ! also me : learns at 10:30PM that there's a new hmbomberguy video

i'm actually safe cause it's FOUR HOURS LONG which is actually not at all surprising from hb, and i don't want to go into that quicksand. at least each episode of the 58 episodes series i'm watching right now stops after 45mn, so that's better, right ?