PicoBlog

People are talking about James Somerton. Sometimes talking about someone whether good or bad is just publicity and ends up working out to help them in the end no matter what the controversy. This isn’t one of those times. On December 2nd, 2023, YouTube video essayist hbomberguy, known for his well-researched and relatively rare videos, dropped what amounts to a…well an H-Bomb onto James Somerton’s career. Somerton, a creator (can we use that word for him anymore?) of LGBT-focused queer media analysis on YouTube has been revealed in hbomberguy’s video entitled “Plagiarism and You(Tube)” to have stolen content for over twenty of his videos—and those are only the ones that are confirmed.

Somerton has been consistently hounded by allegations of plagiarism, something that is quite foreign to a lot of creators but was apparently commonplace for Somerton. So commonplace in fact that hbomberguy’s video essay had quite a few clips of his defensive reactions to having been accused of it. For those of us who dread accidental plagiarism (this is a thing but generally it’s very small and not…you know…a whole fucking video essay), this seems like a nightmare and a half, but Somerton handles all of this with a very convenient little turn-around: That he’s being targeted for being queer and writing about unpopular subjects. His clear and apparent misogyny (and thank you, thank you, thank you to hbomberguy for mentioning it) aids with his defensive reactions as he has utilized the specter of the “straight white woman” in nearly all of his defensive accusations against those who’ve spoken out on his plagiarism or have criticized him in general.

The Hannibal Fandom is well-aware of James Somerton. Often accused of being comprised primarily of straight white women (could be, who knows?), Fannibals became aware of Somerton’s defensive tactics in late September of 2021 when they confronted him about his use of Hannibal fan artists’ work without their permissions. Even those who had been incredibly fair, polite, and well-reasoned were blocked and ignored and the entire event was characterized as the “hell scape” of Twitter going to town on him for something he tried to pass off as normal in the marketing industry. He invokes the ever-present phantom “death threat” and by stating that he blocked “all the users” it’s implied that everyone he blocked was either a threat-sender or an associate thereof. He acknowledged that utilizing an artist’s work comes with “HIGH” licensing fees, but for some reason it was totally fine to use that person’s work in mock-ups that he released to his audience on Twitter? Though he would not have been making revenue directly from zephyrianboom’s art, he certainly would have been creating traffic on the back of it—something Fannibals found very distasteful.

Somerton has done some particularly abhorrent things including overt and continued plagiarism, claiming that the people who survived the AIDS epidemic were the “boring” assimilationist gays, and even just making up random “facts” that have never ever been posited by historians (here’s looking at the statement that Hitler killed Ernst Rohm because he was fat as was pointed out by YouTuber ToddintheShadows in his December 3rd [yes, two videos on the same guy, imagine that!] exposé called “I Fact-Checked The Worst Video Essayist On YouTube”), but this article really isn’t about any of that. This article is just to remind the Fannibals that we remember: that the fandom historians haven’t forgotten and that we as well are having our own Schadenfreude in regards to the comeuppance of one of the most disingenuous creators in our orbit. For any Fannibal who was dismissed, blocked, or patronized by Somerton or his fan club and called “straight white women” as a means of erasing your queer or BIPOC identity in order to get a leg up on you in arguments: we see you. We were there. In fact, I got blocked by that fuckstick myself back in 2021 for telling him off in a tweet response.

The difference between this event and most of Somerton’s other malicious plagiarist acts is mostly that what he did in the Hannibal fandom could have been a “whoopsie.” His response left much to be desired…after all, when you know you’ve been plagiarizing the majority of all your other work, it must be difficult to recognize when a small incident like this actually could have been passed off as a mistake. Still, this art theft in the Hannibal fandom was not an isolated incident and though he may have been able to pass it off as a matter of not knowing the source of the art at the time, Somerton actually had displayed a fairly popular un-credited artwork from artist Irinatatarniko2 on his profile’s banner and even more damningly, at one point he had even utilized the work of insanely popular Hannibal fan artist Columbo (username ThisUserIsAngry with at current 416.2k followers), someone he clearly would have known as the source for his reposted art.

At the time, he was certainly called out though the amount of death threats sent his way still seems fairly dubious. Though death threats do happen on the internet, it would be fairly shocking to discover that he had received any large number from a simple reposting of art on Twitter. After all, even when a whole bunch of people thought I was a straight up Nazi sympathizer, I still only got about 4-5 very disturbing messages across multiple platforms and only probably 2 could have been considered “death threats” though they weren’t direct in any “I will come to your house and [insert horrible thing here]” kind of fashion and to be frank, I don’t think Somerton’s were any kind like that either. But don’t quote me on that, that’s just an assumption based on my own limited experience with being sent ridiculous crap from ridiculous people on the internet (cue Taylor Swift’s “You Need To Calm Down”). Even FAIA’s “Exterminate White Women” campaign (how James Somerton of them) that was specifically targeted toward me whenever I said something they vaguely didn’t like on Twitter couldn’t really be considered a threat in any credible sense and I didn’t and don’t consider it one.

It’s fairly clear at this point that Somerton’s career has been absolutely tanked and it’s hard to imagine that there could ever be any kind of redemption for a man who plagiarized a huge amount of his body of work and alienated whole swathes of people who once respected him. Reposting art, making up random bullshit “facts” he pulled out of nowhere, plagiarizing whole books, documentaries, and articles, Somerton is one messy bitch and this little post here is simply to remind the Fannibals that they knew the whole time. This man did not pass the vibe check. The phantom “straight white woman” of the Hannibal fandom may rise from her well to chastise those who did not listen to her but in the end it took a bisexual man with an unwavering and unlimited amount of dedication to cut through the hearts and minds of those who have convinced themselves that women (especially “straight white women”) can’t be trusted. “Women” have often been thrown in the well and with them the truth.

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Note: The phantom of the “Straight White Woman” is simply that. A phantom. At no point has it ever been proven that straight white women have been personally responsible for any of the things of which they have been accused by Somerton. Though Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys by researcher Lucy Neville does delve into the phenomenon of straight, bisexual, and lesbian women who enjoy gay erotica and pornography, there has been no indication that fandoms are ruined or otherwise harmed by women who enjoy queer content centering gay men. In fact much of the interest in these medias are considered to be part of a journey of self-discovery in women as they have an easier time consuming content just shy of their own tender and raw personal experiences, preferring to enjoy a dynamic in which the social baggage of the two romantic leads is on a more equal base starting point. Though I have characterized truth as a “woman” here, many queer nonbinary and trans men find themselves lumped in with women and the specter that is constructed by Somerton and those like him who seem defensive against all AFAB individuals. Even if one is not at all “woman,” they might find themselves at the bottom of the well anyway. You are our brothers and siblings in arms and we love you for who you are, for we are all down here together.

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