A YouTuber was accused of plagiarism. His apology highlighted a larger issue among creators.
A YouTuber was accused of plagiarism. His apology highlighted a larger issue among creators.
This whole thing is wild.
I honestly can’t fully feel good about HBomberGuy’s video. While it was important to point out a prominent plagiarist. While HBomberGuy always starts off his videos as “don’t attack this person.” Realistically his fans always seem to show up and bash on the person he’s exposing or attacking. He’s kind of being a bully. I mean, a bully with a decent reason, but still a bully.
Content Warning: Mental Health, Suicide.My biggest concern is that James Somerton doesn’t seem like the most stable person, admitting he just got out of the hospital. Taking that in good faith it could mean that this event drove him to do something to put himself in there. I question if Hbomber’s next video might cause someone to take their own life. Someone who can’t handle the influx of hate from a community much bigger than theirs. James Somerton only had 330 subs, a 4th of what Hbomerguy has. You are then dealing with an influx of people that is potentially as big as your community all angry at you. Many people have taken their own lives or attempted to because of these exact reasons. Maybe I don’t see it but it doesn’t feel like Hbomberguy is considering this as a factor in his videos.
Yeah, what is anyone supposed to do with Somerton besides calling him out? Ask him politely to please don’t plagiarise and scam people anymore?
Half of Hbomberguy’s video is about Somerton having been accused of plagiarism for a long time and Somerton just kept doing it. Beside the fact that the very first anecdote about Somerton in the video is about him sending his fans after someone who dared to point out plagiarism, accusing them of doxxing him and sending him threats without any hint of that ever happening.
Somerton had no qualms to resort to harassment if it suited him.
Dog knows social media is a toxic hellhole which thrives on malice and there will always be enough toxic people out there to harass people for whatever reason they can find (and often flimsy pretext), but to insist that the existence of these people precludes exposing wrong-doing, ultimately means that nobody can ever warn anybody else of scammers and grifters like James Somerton.