#this is my hbomberguy moment

[starbuck]

was struggling to finish this week’s school work while so so SO sleepy and then, in the first discussion response I did wherein I had to critique someone else’s presentation, I caught the person plagiarizing, which made me so happy that i perked right up and easily finished everything. thank u Stephanie for your service, sorry about the 0% on this assignment and the academic repercussions to follow.

[scattered-winter]

it's not even that I think rwby is perfect because I KNOW there are a lot of flaws in the writing and how some things were handled (particularly the faunus racism plotline) but I will also be defending that show to my last breath because the only people who ever try and "critique" it are angry dudebros who can't STAND that the story revolves almost exclusively around women. and most of them haven't even watched past season 3.

[space-feminist]

TODD IN THE SHADOWS FOLLOWUP TO HBOMBERGUY PLAGIARISM VIDEO LET'S GOOOOO

[pigeons-with-jello]

why is my brain so all or nothing. i straight up cannot do any sort of school work after 3. however. i binge no joke one to two seasons of a podcast or tv show every day or two. im going insane. literally be the middle ground. anything i like i fucking love and anything i sort of dont like something i hate it. wtf brain be normal pretty please.

[gabsy]

One thing the description is missing is that he got the voice actor for Donkey Kong to come on the stream and say TRANS RIGHTS

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Friendly reminder to everyone to always fact check your work. Even when it seems like it's right.

Case in point: I'm making a short little post about Gambian pouched rats(!). Funnily enough, they're named not for pouches in which they carry their young, but for their cheek pouches. Apparently most other rats don't have cheek pouches like hamsters and gerbils do. Neat.

Anyway, some of the literature I was reading said that Gambian pouched rats can carry a lot of food in their mouths. Makes sense-- they're big rats. But how much food exactly? I started looking. More sources agreed that, yeah, Gambian pouched rats can carry a lot of food! Maybe even up to 3kg over the course of 2 hours! That seems like a lot, especially considering Gambian pouched rats only weigh 1.0-1.5 kg. So I do a little more digging. Every source agrees that they can carry a lot, and they all cite that very specific number of 3kg over 2 hours.

Finally, I track down an actual paper about Gambian pouched rat cheek morphology (yes I went down a wormhole. This is my HBomberGuy moment.) The paper cites 2 sources for that 3 kg/2 hr number! Great! I find those two papers, and read them. And.

Neither paper says that. In fact, they don't really talk about Gambian pouched rat feeding habits at all. One is just an observation on natural behaviors, with a brief section on their diet but no information on how much they carry. The second paper-- written by the same guy-- was about how Gambian pouched rat behaviour changes in captivity. There was a good-sized section on cannibalism, but nothing on transporting food. So that first paper, the one that cited those other two for that 3 kg/2 hr figure, just straight up lied.

Moral of the story: always do your homework kids, especially when it sounds too good to be true. Also, Gambian pouched rats can probably carry quite a lot of food in their mouths, but whether they really can carry up to 3 kg worth of food in 2 hours remains to be seen.

[mountainmoth]

I really want to stress here (as one duped):

It is not a moral failing on you if you didn't notice James Somerton Bad

His videos are well produced. His narration is convincing. He's a marketer, of course he knows how to make a video sell. His videos are impactful because the writing (stolen) is academic (and stolen) and emotionally moving (because they are stolen). The text is good, interesting text (as it is not his), of course he would be catapulted into high views. Of course people will be duped.

I for one feel very stupid at the moment because I was a long term fan of his. Being dyslexic a lot of sources were ones I had seen but couldn't really interact with, so when I heard James Somerton narrating them I didn't think anything of it. His woman bashing felt... Off, but surrounded by sensitive think pieces (from other people) on queer identity (that other people experience) I thought it was just one or two poorly phrased lines. His lie about Radclyffe Hall was one I spotted because I'm incredibly passionate about butch lesbian history. I assumed he misremembered. I'm saddened to see it compiled that it was not the case.

This sucks. It does. His video on deep cuts inspired me massively (and I'm thankful I now know who actually inspired me!): it got me into the Scream franchise, it got me into horror as a whole, it's collided me with some of my favourite media analyses (who I can now accurately name).

The most we can do from here is divert our attention now. Find the creators who were stolen from and spotlight their work. Watch the celluloid closet. Go through Hbomberguy's playlist on other gay creators (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRGz5EMig3r2ZDgeGzwUlSz-PzF-L1Xu1&si=f63gIa7OS0aoS5RQ)! We can, ultimately, turn this around I think.

[comicaurora]

I've started making my way through the playlist hbomberguy made of actually good video essays by queer creators and spotted a comment of yours on the one about the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, which was fun xD red in the wild!

Anyways, just wanted to appreciate how both you and Blue and you are very good at showing your sources! It's always nice to know that the people you've watched for years have good habits after an event like this, and I hope you guys are among the people that get some new fans after this whole debacle, because your channel definitely qualifies for "good educational videos made by queer people"

I'm glad! Blue's much better about listing his sources and follow-up reading than I am.

To be honest, I loved the video, but my imposter syndrome always flares like crazy when I watch an essay like that. It might be the ADHD or it might just be who I am as a person, but I feel like I've lived my whole life striving to make everything I do the best it can be, and still managing to fuck up and get criticised for things I could've done better if only I never missed anything. It's an actual gut-drop when it turns out a source I used wasn't trustworthy, or when in older videos I only went wiki-deep for some claims and didn't check every source to be 100% sure I wasn't being goat-fish'd. And this being the internet, I can get criticized at any time for things I've gotten wrong years ago, since it's evergreen online and to the new-viewing critic it's as fresh as yesterday. It makes it hard for me to stay proud of my work past the first moment of "oh I would've done that different now". There's a cocktail of complicated, scary feelings around this space, no matter how little I actually have in common with the bad guys of this scenario - it's less about the reality and more about who my imposter syndrome tells me I am. I saw several people saying that the video actually made them feel much better about their own work because it made it clear that accidental plagiarism on that scale is impossible, but if my anxieties listened to reason I would've successfully machete'd them out of my skull years ago. I just hope I never fuck up badly enough to deserve an hbombing of my own.

But my own stress aside, the hbomb essay exposed a level of laxness, laziness and entitlement on the part of these plagiarists that I think is almost incomprehensible to people who actually create for a living or even just the joy of it. How hollow do you have to be to take in someone else's writing and not consider it, digest it, let it reshape your views and then formulate your own interpretation on it, but instead to file off the serial numbers and pretend it's yours, trusting that the person whose thoughts and words you valued enough to steal will never be powerful enough to call you out on it? I go down research rabbit holes because I love the frustration and thrill of putting something together! How joyless it must be to skim the surface and borrow someone else's conclusions!

I've sometimes had people email asking for sources on parts of my interpretation of various myths, possibly in the interest of source-citing for school papers (a nightmare concept in and of itself) and with very few exceptions I usually have to tell them "the only sources were the english translations I used of the primary source where the myth was originally written, like I said in the video, and the part where I said I was conspiracy-boarding has no source other than my own analysis of the given source, which is why I called it conspiracy-boarding" and I was always a little baffled by those emails - half the videos are introduced like "this is The Prose Edda" or "this is in Ovid's Metamorphoses" or "this bit is Hesiod" so what else could they want - but seeing the hbomb of the week made me realize that truly original analysis might not be what most people are expecting from a "thing summarized." They might be expecting a compilation of other people's summaries instead.

[mandlien]

This is especially useful if you were a casual James watcher and may have absorbed some wrong info. If you have the time, start with the hbomberguy video and end with this one.

WHATS THIS?? TODD IN THE SHADOWS WITH…? WITH THE STEEL CHAIR CHAIR??? (2 hour long essay detailing the many times James somerton just made stuff up in his videos)

[thetownwecallhome]

Call Out Post

((OOC: Sorry tender lumplings for the impromptu callout. I genuinely don't like doing this at all but it's this person's fault for talking to me. Well @everythingjackskellington, here's your feature. Also delete your blog.

PLEASE don't buy from @everythingjackskellington. They are THEFT, an AI junkie and a SCAMMER.

They just recently dropped a promo ask in my box and I immediately recognized their art as being both AI and stolen in their collection on ViralStyle.

The moment I saw the "Ragdoll Coffee" insignia I recognized it as being that of Ellador's art from Redbubble. Buy her actual design here.

Given that I am A) a redbubble artist myself, and we have to sift through LOTS of art theft, including our own art being stolen, and B) have a sister who's been ripped off herself, I will not tolerate this. You are exploiting other artists and TNBC fans who don't know any better.

Please, everyone reading, do NOT buy TNBC fan merch that does not clearly have the artist's name attached. We get our work stolen enough for AI. Also I don't care if the above artwork you linked me with isn't AI. You stole it. You didn't make it.

Thief.

Do not buy this. If you have some time to kill while you're on vacay and/or wrapping xmas presents, see Hbomberguy's latest video on creator theft and plagiarism. It is worth you time and is a great example as to why I have no tolerance for this kind of thing.

The only silver lining, to spare you all from looking yourself and giving them anymore traction, was laughing at some of the clearly unthought out automated stuff they slapped Jack and Sally on. It'd be funny if you actually had any thought behind it, but again I know you didn't:

To the antiJallys/Sally-going-her-own-way-crowd, these would be funny if they weren't baseless generative crap. In fact, make your OWN gay sally designs outta this. I believe in you~

Well, you got the Blink182 lyrics right but wow you missed out on the one opportunity to spam Jack's face on something and needlessly swear. Good one, but I don't know why the Monster High logo is there.

Also yes this person swears like a sailor and does just what I said. If you want Jack on a bunch of stuff that has nothing do with him...you should still flag this store and not buy from them. But here they are, regardless.

Oh, and nice Autism Speaks propaganda there.

[aysathenotsogreat]

hbomberguy posted a video and i have opinions about it

i never made the active choice to stop watching James Somerton's content but when i stopped having a job that'd let me listen to videos for hours straight, I slowly became interested in other creators. i remember finding a couple of his videos contradictory in their analysis and do remember being annoyed by the "white women/teenager girls" comments a lot. oh yeah and that TELOS PICTURES ALWAYS REEKED OF A SCAM. Hearing James describe himself as a business major first in the pitch video weirded me the hell out. I feel like not enough people are talking about this particular part of the story but the man crowdfunded $60k USD and has produced nothing but stock image posters in return after years.

this man saw his community as nothing but to steal from and profit off of and clearly sees himself above those voices he robs. the point in the video that broke me was right in the beginning in the james half was the Mulan section. the tactic of erasing Jes Tom's words and passing it off as a personal observation of the community instantly reminded me of all the times James has confidently talked on the experiences of trans, nb and all queer people of color throughout his career and the fucking similarity of the language. that moment made me pause and scream. it instantly put into scale that this wasn't just one of the first video essays he'd ever made, it was EVERYTHING.

I want to pretend the queer media I see is made from a place of genuine care of the community, all of us do. but we as a collective need to stop catering to the consumption of content sludge. we need to be more critical and more aware. any time james mispronounced a character or place's name, i would always brush it off as a bad voice take kept in because of the videos' length that wasn't fixed in production. no, that was because james didn't care enough to learn the principle facts of the topics he was covering. (him spelling "shonan" in that AoT script made lose it). he wanted our ad revenue and your patreon money and by stealing the work of actually talented queer people, he basically won.

hbomberguy, lovely chaos bisexual, did a service to our community by making sure millenial and zoomer queers will never let this mf try to grift his way into the entertainment industry again. i have more to say about this video, especially illuminaughii bc she's an especially abusive and toxic person who i also watched a fuck ton at my old job. i certainly need be a bit better about where i get my info from, especially if i'm going to be repeating it to someone else. in the age of tiktok and the speed of misinfo there being insane, i just beg us young queers to think a bit more critically before we post.

[ironwoman359]

Hey so like I’ve been following ur blog since my sanders sides days but like genuinely wondering, what fandoms r u in now?

oh gosh, well hi! Thanks for sticking around so long ^.^

It's kinda hard to answer what fandoms I'm *in* per say, because I don't really participate in any particular communities as heavily as I did in the sanders sides community back in the late teens and early twenties, but this is the stuff I'm into/writing right now!

I've started reading books again! I've become one of those "reads 100 books a year" people with a storygraph and a big spreadsheet and an aesthetic book journal and everything, it's really fun. If anyone wants book recs please encourage me I will dump a whole list on you.

The fan community I'm actually participating in a bit right now is the cosmere fandom (fantasy books by brandon sanderson), as I'm in a fandom discord server for that with @mug-of-beans. Currently reading Words of Radiance and losing my mind (affectionate).

I'm writing a Skyrim fanfiction that is my pride and joy, and I recently went into a fugue state and wrote a Battinson oneshot? Batfam is one of those fandoms that I exist in tertiarily (other such fandoms include dp x dc, gravity falls, and good omens), because I follow people who reblog it a lot and I'm in some discord servers that have a lot of those fans as well.

Speaking of Discord servers, I still feel at least a little part of the Sanders Sides fandom (even though I haven't actually consumed any new official content since WTIT), mostly because of my friends who still are active in the fandom, namely @tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors whose fanfiction I am almost more a fan of than the original work at this point, and I'm in a couple different servers with la and several other of my sanders sides mutuals (some are, like me, less active in tss stuff these days but we all met because of sanders sides and so sometimes when we hang out it still feels like a fanclub for it, in a good way).

I don't watch Thomas as much anymore but I still watch a lot of youtube! I started watching Smosh for the first time about...twoish years ago? Just in time to get used to the current cast and its dynamics and in jokes and then be body slammed along with everyone else with the one-two punch of "anthony is back" and "shortney Real Actually." I cycle through different gaming channels depending on my hyperfixations (i go on and off with markiplier, rtgame, jacksepticeye, dougdoug, current big one is game grumps), I like 2nd Try and Mythical and I love video essays. Hbomberguy, Supereyepatchwolf, Dan Olson, Sarah Z, Mandalore Gaming, FD Signifier, Noodle, MothersBasement, probably several I'm forgetting. Oh, and @mug-of-beans and I own Terminal Montage's Blessed Kirbo plush because we needed the Holiest Boy in our house.

I'm also in one of those moods lately where I write a lot for my whump sideblog, so if you enjoy watching OCs in pain then you can come join me on @ironwhumper359, I just started an interactive story where the readers vote on certain outcomes!

I'm a little bit all over the place at the moment, haha, but overall I'm really enjoying the things I'm reading, writing, watching, and the people I'm hanging out with! Thanks for your ask, I'm honored that you and so many others are still following this blog after all this time!

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 4

Joan Watson

How were BBC Sherlock shippers so rancid about a WOMAN who wasnt even in the SAME SHOW?????

Martin Freeman of BBC Sherlock insulted Elementary and specifically Lucy Liu in the press. He straight up called Lucy Liu a "dog" in an interview APPARENTLY as a joke, because calling female actors ugly is hilarious. Benedict Cumberbatch was more measured about it, but he still said he was cynical about Elementary because it would lose the "male friendship" dynamic, which of course Johnlock shippers used against Joan Watson fans. Even the lead BBC Sherlock actors got in on the yaoi victimization of Joan Watson... 😔

she wasn't even in the same SHOW as the yaoi I've been convinced she deserves to win the entire poll. I was a Johnlocker but I did watch the first season of Elementary and it was fine????? It was totally okay????? Especially in hindsight given how hard Sherlock season four flopped. Also Lucy Liu is a queen and deserved zero vitriol for *checks notes* playing a character???? A fucking fictional character???????? Oh my god we were all SO mean to this show and we (or at least I) thought it was like The Good Fight™️, like we were defending BBC Sherlock against copyright infringement and straightwashing and Jonny Lee Miller's bizarre scarf, (it wasn't a good scarf I do stand by that) but then Elementary didn't make Holmes and Watson a couple either???? And also it didn't insult its audience constantly etc etc we've all seen the Hbomberguy Sherlock is Garbage video. This is really long sorry hashtag justice for Joan Watson.

Misa Amane

she gets treated in-canon the way fandoms treat female characters that Threaten an m/m ship. it's like, "oh why don't you go sit in the corner and be pretty, misa, while the Men have intelligent conversation and pretend they aren't ten seconds from fucking each other, doesn't that sound nice?" it's infuriating. and MAYBE it's better now but i remember her getting treated the same way in fanfiction too, like we all need to do just as badly by our female secondary characters as fucking tsugumi ohba, but with the added insult of making her be alternately oblivious of the relationship between light and L or actively trying to sabotage it—incompetently, of course, because god forbid misa be allowed dignity or moments of cleverness.

she's one of the first characters I think of when I consider old school fandom misogyny. The annoying bitch and clingy crazy gf allegations were AFTER HER ASS. She's also a lot more intelligent than people gave her credit for, but most seem inclined to take the Very Biased word of our unreliable, narcissistic narrator and his homoerotic arch nemesis and claim that just because she's bubbly and into romance that she's also a complete moron. Which is blatantly untrue. Everyone was afraid of Misa girlbossing too hard. Killing people and devoting yourself to the deranged twink of your dreams even though you know he'll never love you back??? Having a hardcore goth aesthetic and being so Hot even literal Death Gods are into you?? God forbid women do ANYTHING!

Not only is she the victim of yaoi culture, she is the victim of early 2000s misogyny by an author that wanted to introduce a girl character because he knew his male rivals were getting too homoerotic. She is a goth bimbo icon who portrays what I think is one of the few callouts for stan culture and what parasocial relationships can do to both the stan and the idol. The fact that she is a toxic fan of Kira and also hot, funny, sociable is tragic in its own way, which I think the author did try to touch on but was too misogynistic too really get through. Of course, she was reduced to villain status by the fandom and anime alike because she got in the way of the supposed romance in their psychological horror anime.

[dreary-robot]

the most upsetting part about all of this is the fact that, because i don't follow too close to a creator and their social media outside of youtube, i had no idea that james somerton was ever in any kind of discourse. i watched his videos, then i logged off. if not for hbomberguy's video, i never would have known somerton was doing this.

i was so excited when talos films came out and shared it to my friends because i wanted to show them that queer people making their own films is profitable, and above that doable. i was ecstatic that he'd finally covered neil gaiman's works, something i'd been hoping he would cover, and i had the video in my watch later literally up until the moment james somerton's youtube got purged because i hadn't removed it from there yet. i was not necessarily a fanboy, but i was a fan that enjoyed his "analysis" of queer topics and films or TV i enjoy and care about. this feels like such a stab in the gut, and i'm just some random fan of his, not even one of the many queer authors and writers being plagiarized by him.

it's so clear this guy doesn't care about his craft or his fans or anything, he just cares about turning queer thought marketable; specifically for him.

[capsizedskeleton]

epic the musical live review over a few days ft. getting high during storm saga

TROY SAGA thunder bringer was one of the first songs i heard so going to the horse and the infant and hearing don't make me do this please don't make me do this!!! i didn't know that was a callback reminds me of pathologic is great and here's why, where hbomberguy points out child murder is such a taboo and it's that game's opener (depending on the character) here it's the musical's opener fffuck okay ruthlessness was also one of the first songs i heard so "600 men under my command" after i know it will become at least 43 then 0 is hghhhhh. esp when they're similar melodies, the first time the number is mentioned in full speed ahead

CYCLOPS SAGA so i watched a few animatics of these as well before troy saga just bc mmm animatics and oh recontextualized w the last two songs of the saga thats. hm. IIIIII AM YOUR DARKEST MOMENT all the uses of die with the last sound stretched out emphasizing the eye sound oough remember them. remember us. remember me OOHHH ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT THAT. ARE YOU SURE

STORM got up to the first few animatics i ended up watching. by now i might be able to categorize the animators? gigi as Action, Cinema, wolfy as a few lines seeming delicate and shape so solidly, nealillustrator as the GOAT (ok im biased they've only got thunder bringer but it's really good and i know them from bnha animatics ok), ximena as line. color. solid expression fav things from various ruthlessness animatics: poseidon being a shadow horse with front-facing eyes, a spiky merman but tentacles on bottom, literally water that could form into different things, only his hair being water, a horse, a guy, the stageplay version, everyone having different amounts of frames and different styles, like every!! time i watch an animatic i spot a new good take, beauty in everryy style, all the goregous water animation, capturing odysseus, submerging him, putting him in a whirlpool. that man is now a truly soggy cat am i insane or is there wind blowing in the last verse of that. after what have you done. maybe ive just had shit earbuds before. brutal

i got caught up in listening to done for even though that was skipping ahead. i am going to eat gigi's animatic whole. the corresponding basslines for each character how ody's replaces circe's?? now watching there are other ways. the two together as a beautiful story in 6 minutes is amazing

CIRCE normal now i like done for and there are other ways a lot more than puppeteer. this seems to be a pattern in which songs i like in each saga eury's bit leading up to "a woman" reallyyyyy sounds like hamilton wouldn't you like beat drop??? done for and there are other ways are fucking brilliant they're a whole story like i said before. ill say it again. absolutely entrancing. love the take that circe's about to kill ody before he rejects her and starts going on about his wife. also the transition after "that prophet is dead" bungggg and then the backing track hghh i am going to eat the melodic motifs i am going to swallow the chords whole AAAAGHHH

underworld again. weaker start, but oooh full speed ahead a bit of a reprise moment there and ody's mom i did not expect that. left for too long wandered too far gods REPRISE OF I SEE A SONG OF PAST ROMANCE HELLOOOO halfway into no longer you and OOOOOHHHH FUCK this shit HITS despite everything it's NOT you

NO MONSTER THE SLIP INTO CORRUPTION gigi i would die for you and this sequence. you know the one

THUNDER suffering is so good (normal sentence) i love the back and forth the you know im too shy the tone change at the lair of scylla listened to different beast on the train (first time listening to a song w/o animatic at first) and oooh the switch up!!!! we're in it now! DIFFERENT BEAST NOW HE'S A DIFFERENT BEAAST NOWWWWWW scylla.... oho the harmony. mutiny ok the opening i fw but why tf is eurylochus upset about the six men sacrifice when he was the one who suggested with circe that they just leave the men behind. also luck runs out callback i love my reprises why is helios lowk brushed over like i wouldve expected odysseus or eurylochus to talk about heyyy dont anger the gods like we did before thunder bringer slay. we already know. the bumping beat from the horse and the infant we knowwww. it's a little funny mutiny is RIGHT before thunder bringer like. hey crew you just stabbed him you should be a little less surprised he chooses to sacrifice yall. not even chosen. not even zeus was surprised by odysseus' immediate reaction

MISC. THOUGHTS

talked to a few friends while making this, wrote the sentence "i can feel the old greek mythology elementary/middle school neurons firing up again" because i CAN feel them god and it's also like watching musical animatics after school except im not 13 and deeply lonely this time. decided to write a fic of what happens between each saga and in a bit of wondering for that decided to look up the actual story of the odyssey (shmoop is not perfect but it is decent) and wow that's a lot of changes made from the original that contribute to a well-characterized musical! god it's such a good time. is this what dracula daily people felt like, reliving an old (relative to present) story and relishing in the Themes?

FAV SONG(S) FROM EACH SAGA

the horse and the infant

survive, remember them

ruthlessness

done for

no longer you (the OPPOSITE of that undertale quote)

different beast, thunder bringer

TLDR

excited for wisdom saga !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ellestra]

Farming content James Somerton style

Edited: I cleaned up sentences, removed typos and added some links

You've probably seen the latest hbomberguy video that highlights plagiarism problem on youtube. He gives several examples many I never heard about but I've been recommended iilluminaughtii before and watched some of her stuff before getting tired of seemingly endless volume (now I know why). But then he gets to the real subject of the video and I did watch a lot of James Somerton videos. And I liked many of them. I liked them a lot.

I didn't give him any money and, as much as it came as relief, I kept thinking how this must feel so much worse for people who did. I thought about supporting him for a moment when he posted (in April this year!) how his videos are getting less views because youtube algorithm and demonetisation of gay creators (it's a real thing so it was easy to believe) and he will be forced to stop creating if people don't sign up to his patreon. But I was casual viewer and he seemed big enough so I didn't. It must feel like such a betrayal to those who created a real community around him. Just like his film production company it's clear now it was another of his scams. It's infuriating how well it worked.

Somerton deleted his patreon now (along with his twitter and discord server) so there is probably no recourse for those affected. The only good thing is that someone big enough highlighted what he did (and brought receipts) so he had to stop. When smaller creators called him out it either went unnoticed or he managed to make himself a victim (and send his fans after them). He actually did what Anita Sarkeesian was accused of and gaslighted his followers about it. His misogyny just adds an extra bitter taste to this.

At the end hbomberguy talks about how if Somerton was open about what he was doing this could've been his niche. He said it just as I was thinking basically the same thing. I'm sure there is a market for field review type of videos. Not review like movie or book review but in academic sense when you take other people articles on the subject and compare to show the state of research on the subject on at the moment.

This kind of reviews doesn't need any original research. The value is in giving people overview of where the field is at and pointing them to the actual research so they can read more in depth about the results. If you already did the search for all the sources this is a perfect format to use them. Most people don't have time or resources to comb through all the resources themselves but they like to learn about it and this is why videos like that are popular. That's why iilluminaughtii, Somerton and al. were able to cash in on it.

But of course this kind of things have to properly cited. And they cannot be just all quotes. You have to make coherent points not just make stuff up for the transitions (lies that actually made Todd in the Shadows make a video not about music). I suppose that's too much work. Too much effort when you need to crank out content to satisfy all the sponsors.

I was glad to find out I already watch most of the queer creators recommended in the hbomberguy's video (and put on this watch list) as an alternative (I would add Caelan Conrad to it - funnily enough I found them through their video about antivax movement). I trained my youtube recommendations well in which way it skews but it's easier to kick out all the obviously awful when you know what talking points to avoid. It's much harder to spot grift when it pretends to care about the same things you care about. Somerton was saying all the right things. It just wasn't his words.

Did he even believe any of it? I bet he'll insist on yes but the laziness says otherwise. It seems like it was all just for the money and fans this angle gave him. That he enjoyed being cool to the audience he built and the stuff it bought him. Be gay do crime for real. Only he didn't write that one either.