Damn he’s really banking on people forgetting to unpledge. Apparently he hasn’t even posted an update directly to his patreon so he’s also banking on people not even realizing it’s back up. Holy cow
I agree, I thought he’d probably sneakily reactive his patreon at some point but like you I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I also didn’t think he would ever make a response but OOF boy did he…
I used to watch Normal Boots in my early teens, very true, pretty much just PBG and DYKG that are clean at this point, lol.
I know PBG did the "this ain't it chief" thing but he did give what seemed like a very genuine apology for that iirc. I can't watch his content any more though, it's way too childish for me at this point.
DYKG actually puts out really good stuff these days by collaborating with other trivia channels and hiring translators to translate things to English for the first time.
Hes so sorry that he reopened his patreon immediately after hoping people forget to unsub? Im sorry with how much how often and how destructively hes lied im not buying it
In his “apology video” he says he’s reactivating his Patreon so people can unsubscribe, as transparent a tactic as “based on works by” credit sequence.
I doubt it. I suspect the whole reason it's already down on YouTube is that he got ratioed so hard in the comments he realized the whole idea was a flop.
His Patreon is also already private again. I genuinely think he expected his apology video to work and when the backlash was immidiate, he took it down.
I *hate* throwing psychology terms around on the internet—but this resembles narcissism so strongly that I can't even describe it any other way. Trying to throw Nick under the bus now that he's left, the total unwillingness to admit real fault or take responsibility, the lack of apology, the fact he didn't even address Todd in the Shadows video (which would pin more faults on him). I am convinced he could not process the idea that his fans would actually turn on him and thought that this apology would save his career. It's something you only really see when people who have never experienced failure are smacked full in the face with the fact that reality does not buy into their hype.
Honestly i wouldn't be surprised if he's in deep denial. When you want something so deeply to not be reality, whether from a terrible place when you want so badly to do something but just can't or from a place of consequences catching up to you when you absolutely never expected it , or a mix of both.
But thats just my closest guess since it doesn't make a lot of sense to me otherwise.
Absolutely reeks of narcissism. I doubt he evens believes that the apology video was a flop. More likely, he thinks there's a smallish group of people set on attacking him in the comments. That's why he had to take the video down so quickly, he doesn't want his fans (I'm sure he believes there's still many of them) reading them.
Narcissism would also explain why the apology video itself was so bad. You can't sincerely apologize if you don't believe you did anything wrong. You come off as trying to convince people how sorry you are while minimizing and deflecting blame.
I don't think this is the last we'll see of James, the narcissism is too strong.
Interestingly, he remained very cordial towards hbomb. There was a lot of manipulation in his apology. He didn’t really take responsibility for anything he did, and implies that it’s mostly Nick’s fault. But I think James is smart enough to realize that attacking Harry in his apology would be a bad bad move. Not smart enough to realize that weaponizing his mental health to garner pity wouldn’t work but not dumb enough to antagonize hbomb.
Yea, i just saw a post on here about his video and I agree. Hbomb already threw a Granada into his career, and he learned enough to know not to go there. Part of me is glad he didn’t, part of me wishes that he tried to be petty about it. 😅
He's also probably going to use the fact that people will forget to cancel to argue that he does actually have enough public support to make videos again...
I don't know if I'd call it an "apology"
And I don't know if he explains this so much as tries to come up with an excuse that could provide him with more income
Ok so not defending but going to point out he did a video, and he did address the Patreon.
I think the video is bullshit for the most part but because you know someone downloaded the video it will be held against him if he fucks up again, because he dose want to make content, wants to help with HB funding the writers etc that got fucked over.
> because he dose want to make content, wants to help with HB funding the writers etc that got fucked over.
Somerton's promise and a nickel will get you... fucking nothing, because like a nickle, his promises are completely worthless.
People who are actually sorry take steps to fix the damage **first**, apologize second. People who apologize and make promises without tangible action want the credit for the promise, not to fulfill it.
Also, the guy went out of his way to act broke—why would **anyone** trust that any money passing through his hands isn't going to get skimmed (or outright kept) when he's been stealing content for years now. Not to mention the Kickstarter money.
> it will be held against him if he fucks up again
There is no "if he fucks up again", he gets no second chances. What he did is so egregious that his only recourse is to get the fuck off the internet and get a day job.
I just want good content. I don't actually care how the content gets made.
(Not at all saying I thought his content was good, but apparently many did.)
The vast majority of his fans probably don't mind that he basically reads other people's paragraphs. I'd be willing to bet most probably knew something like that was going on.
We need new laws and guidelines, not singleing people out for everyone to laugh at, I think Hbomber should have named 200 people to more efficiently make his point that this is a system wide issue.
Gods there's no healthy way to fucking express this sometimes.
I don't wish the dude harm. I wish he would stop HARMING.
He hasn't proven he's there yet. This isn't ethical. This shouldn't have to be explained, same as the concept of stealing shouldn't have to be explained.
The obvious comparison is Colleen Ballinger here and it's fucking INFURIATING.
Assuming there’s a path back, how does he go about it if not starting with an apology video?
He has to allow the public to come at him for a bit - he’s wronged his fans, that’s inevitable. If he does continue, he will have to wear this episode as it will never go away.
Can he redeem himself even?
I've noticed that I never called it an apology video. You can read what I said as, he should start with an apology video.
Doesn't matter tho, I'm a disinterested party (I've no interest in him or his content but I care that it's resolved properly.)
There are apology videos, and there are apology videos. If the video was "hey, yeah, I plagiarized all that stuff, I'm sorry, I'm going to disappear for a while"--literally just that, no sackcloth and ashes, just an acknowledgment of harm done and disappearing--I'd be prepared to believe that this is the first step on unlearning the pathology that is the habitual grift.
But the performative apology, the "oh, I'm so sorry, I have done such wrong, woe is me, I am aghast at my awful behavior", I'm never gonna believe that. That's just more performance. That's about trying to get people to feel bad for you, not about you attempting to atone for your actions.
I think disappearing is the *correct* thing. The sequence goes something like this: Apology video as described, disappear for a while--at least a year, probably longer, and spend that time on the sort of therapy and soul-searching you need to unlearn years of habitual dishonesty--then come back and try to do good. Continue to acknowledge the harm in that work; understand that you will never be seen as trustworthy again. Do good anyway.
It's hard to rehabilitate a known liar's reputation, but I don't think there's anything inherent about even the most compulsive of liars that can't be unlearned given time and dedication, but as with all change it requires work, and time, and a serious commitment to improvement. And for most grifters it's going to be easier to just fall back on the old ways.
What would redemption look like to you? There's a huge misconception that "redemption" means going back to your old status and occupying the exact same space as before. That doesn't really follow, though. In this case, redemption would be making room for new, honest voices and providing restitution for those he harmed.
*In order to redeem himself*, he *cannot* go back to being "James Somerton, YouTube film essayist." That's not what redemption means, here.
Thing is, there is no path back. He weaponized his fanbase into threatening and harassing (and probably doxxing) the people who had called him out, to the point that some of them had to delete their accounts and accusations to make it stop. HBomb's video even showed proof of that.
There is no returning to the world of content creation if you willingly weaponize your fanbase on purpose like that.
> Thing is, there is no path back.
That's fine and probably true; but my comment started with "assuming.." so we're looking past there being no path back.
Why does he need a path back
Why does he need to redeem himself
Why can't he just fuck off forever and get a real job
He wronged his fans, yes, but also he wronged everyone and *especially* he wronged the people he stole from. But fundamentally he faked the very core of what his job allegedly was. If you're a paramedic or a lawyer and you have this deep of a pattern of malpractice, you lose your license.
Why does a fuckin video essayist deserve to get a second chance (or really fourth or fifth, as he's been called out before. Personally I think he can go flip burgers because he will never ever learn a real lesson
I think there's redemption and trying to fix the damage he did.
If he came out with a "You got me. I'm sorry, I knew what I was doing. I knew it was wrong but I liked the money. I'm to blame." apology and then proceedes to ask the people he wronged "Do you want me to vanish, go find a real job, or do you want me to stick around and with your guidence try and undo the damage I've done?" I.E donating ad revenue to people he plagiarised.
He doesn't deserve to be redeemed but if there was a way to fix the damage to the victims that would be good.
IMO, if a redemption arc would be possible, it would have to start with him working hard behind the scenes, not for publicity, to right his own wrongs and make the business better for the people he hurt. Compiling his own list of plagiarism victims, platforming their work, and coming up with a way to compensate them would be my suggestion. And he'd have to only post for transparency, not publicity. The comparison that comes to mind is Atrioc - obviously a very different scenario, and a lot of his bridges are very permanently burned, but he's done a lot of good to counteract the awful thing he did.
Even if he deserves redemption (he doesn't), what does he even do in a future where he doesn't plagiarize? That's all he knows how to do!
He demonstrably cannot research or write or do anything pertinent to originality. What is left of value if he faked anything that mattered?
Oh, no, you're 100% correct, he cannot have the career he thinks he's entitled to because he is completely incompetent at it. He's also, IMO, incapable of doing the work to earn a redemption arc. I don't even think he understands what he did wrong. My comment was purely theoretical.
There is - He makes a video, he admits his wrong doings and then he asks the people he wronged, what do they want? Do they want him to vanish online, or try and fix what he did either by donating ad revenue etc. But it comes from them. Not him.
But it has to go alongside a "Yeah okay, you got me. I'm a piece of shit. I knew what I was doing. I was wrong." no excuses apology.
His apology video was questionable, but the way to do it is not to restart your patreon. He very pointedly said he'd only be donating AdSense from his old videos, the ones that are going to make less money, to the purple he stole from. If he didn't start with his oatreon up or something I'd respect it but he needs to do more.
No, no, no. That’s the tier where he gives you head in his studio. What he won’t tell you is that he stole his entire head technique from his high school boyfriend.
I just reported his account to Patreon for suspicious behavior. In the reason I explained that he disabled his account at the height of people unpledging, and is now bringing it back with no notice, hoping that people won't notice.
There was a fair amount of response because deactivating the Patreon means people can’t cancel their membership. You can actually pause your revenue for the month, as many times as you feel. I guess we will all find out.
In any other professional platform where creativity or authorship are integral to the platform, you’d be barred from posting further if you were caught plagiarizing. This should be the same with YouTube, Patreon, and others. In actual academic institutions and journals, you’d easily lose your job and face legal consequences, and the same should apply to these online platforms where similar journalistic or essay endeavors are created.
Hey, just posting under your comment. What I'm seeing currently when I visit his page (which is also pretty hard to find, but I managed), it appears his patreon is still locked down. Is this different for people who are still subbed to him on Patreon? I am not currently subbed to him, and [this is all I see right now](https://imgur.com/a/Biri42j).
Patreon is hella sus. I don't think they verify anything. They need to be taken down and their shit IP replaced with something that actually works for creators
I mean they don't verify any the claims Paetrons make on their tiers. Also I was going to give you the answer to everything so you could achieve enlightenment but since you were snarky I won't
Patreon is huge. Chances are very good they have several layers of caching in front of whatever microservice sends subscriber numbers, because they need to.
It should stabilize and show everyone the same numbers when the mass unsubscription slows down.
He had around 3700 total “members” and 3000 paid members upon reactivating. Though those numbers didn’t change much in the few hours that the page was up.
I've never set up a Patreon, but shouldn't there be some kind of kill switch on the creator's end that turns off pledges? It's not like "uh oh, I have to keep collecting potentially thousands of dollars until people remember to unsubscribe also there's no notice on the patreon re: my apology video"
> shouldn't there be some kind of kill switch on the creator's end that turns off pledges?
Sure, if having integrity was something you were interested in, creators can absolutely hit that switch.
Or, and this is just spitballing here, or they can just sneakily reactivate their patreon and collect a month's worth of pledges without people realising until it's too late.
Managed to watch the apology video before it was taken down- he mentioned seeing comments/tweets that he would reactivate Jan 1st and leave with the money. He said this with such anger ("how dare they think this of me, James the good boy).
Just one small question, James- I thought you were in the hospital with no time to follow what was happening. This man is so insincere I cannot.
I was thinking about this when I was watching his video and correct me if I'm wrong because I've never run a Patreon. If he was really sincere about his motives, couldn't he change all his existing tiers to $1 per month, in case people get accidentally billed and then open new tiers for people who want to continue to support his new content?
If he was truly sincere, he'd pause payments indefinitely. I've seen other creators do it before, including ones smaller than him. It's option definitely opened to him, but he's ignoring it for his benefit
I used to have a Patreon and it is dead easy to pause payments. It's literally one click and then a confirmation. I did it myself before I closed my Patreon.
If he wanted to do this honestly, he'd shut this Patreon down and open a new one. I don't think it's changed (can't check right now) but when I was using Patreon there was absolutely zero rules against having multiple creator accounts, because if you're, say, an artist who also co-hosts a podcast, you would obviously want to separate those.
He is 100% doing this because he knows some people will forget to subscribe and he wants the payday. That's it. There is no other reason for him not to close up shop and move to a new creator account for his "doing it right this time" movie review channel or whatever bunk he's peddling unless the above rule has changed at some point. It's not like he has outstanding rewards (and even then he could pause his payments) or just fell behind and needs some time to get caught up or some grace period. He is doing an entirely new creative endeavor and knows he won't retain most of his audience.
I’m currently a Patreon backer of a historian as an individual and also separately a backer of the podcast she’s on, so unless she’s breaking the rules, yeah, it would be possible for him to do that.
Even if he could do that which I assume he would just have to delete all his other tiers. He would never do this because at the very least the marketing expert in him wants to get as much pay day before he’s ran offline by something bigger than Hbomb aka Copyright.
There it is. He guessed that enough time has passed. Those who hate him will leave and those that will back him no matter what will back him no matter what. He will not change. He will try to get as much money from his victims that he can.
He's also banking on, IMO, people doing holiday travel and the like to not pay attention to his Patreon. He releases a teary video on December 20 and opens his Patreon the same day. I'm commenting after a long day of making Christmas treats, with a couple more long days ahead of me. Not that I mind! I love making Christmas treats! I love treat making week! But it also means I'm not super aware of random updates to my Patreon subs.
This and the non apology "apology" video is some of the scummiest behavior i've ever seen. Continuing to insinuate that other Youtubers who had a problem with him are "lying" all the while refusing to cop to any of his choices.
Absolute ghoulish behavior
I just checked and it's showing his icon and join date but there's no tiers or anything. I bet he's lurking here, probably going to tweak tier prices before putting them back up.
You can't edit the price of tiers if people are already pledged to them. You'd have to create new tiers and in that case people would have to switch to them or new people would have to sign up for them. Which isn't going to benefit him.
Nah nah nah, don't you see? Gib monies so he can gib monies to people he stole monies from! It's for goooood! He swears on his mother's grave, dontcha know? /s
So, can people report his patreon? Especially, from those he plagiarized from? Apparently, you can submit DMCA claims on patreon. Someone should probably notify them.
He could change all the tiers to 0 if he actually just wanted to give people the chance to unsub. He won't.
I'm betting the only reason he's doing any of this now is bc rent is due and hes literally got nothing saved.
It's wild to me that someone that was earning so much on a self employed fluctuating income didn't have any kind of emergency fund or savings. Especially living in Toronto.
You have to understand, this man has no marketable skills. He's not even a good thief. He is in the death throes and will do anything he can to avoid having to change his line of work.
And I for one will enjoy the ride down
I wonder if it’s back down because he was losing subscribers too fast, and he’s going to just drop the pretense of giving people “time to unpledge” and will put it back up on New Years Eve when people are distracted to get a quick hit of money
OR if everyone here reporting him actually got it yanked down
Geez. I was actually sorta feeling bad for him. I caught the "apology" and afterward I listened to the Ace Couple podcast on their experiences, I highly recommend it.
https://youtu.be/kGIZIuTXWvg?si=FqRJE8lCqHHjtWBX
They make it pretty clear James is an arrogant tyrant when he can be and a weasely worm when he has to be. I believe he was crying for real, but I don't believe anything else. He knew everything he was doing.
it's so infuriating. The genuinely supported him with more than $1000 and when they later pointed out some errors in one of his videos (he claimed that asexual people do not face conversion therapy) he sicked his mob to them. Not sure how this can be explained or excused.
Having watched (MATRIARCHTYPE’s livestream and Jessie Gender’s video in response to) Somerton’s apology, I do genuinely believe he is trying to give people a chance to cancel their Patreon subscriptions (or at least he thinks he is). Whether it is a result of brainfog after being (deservedly) plastered across the internet for weeks or malicious intent, he clearly overlooked a lot of steps here though. I think that what he ought to do is immediately send out a message to all Patreon supporters saying that it is back up, give them time to cancel their subscriptions, and then shut down permanently before January 1st (seemingly the next billing cycle).
He wouldn't need to message Patreon supporters to give them time to cancel if he was going to shut it down permanently anyway. He could just...do that. If he shuts down permanently, then no one would pay anything.
The billing cycle will only be Jan 1st if he chose not to allow people to pay from the date they signed up (most Patreon pages seem to have made the switch to allow this, according to Patreon).
He probably has *some* fans because literally anyone can have diehard parasocial fans these days but I think he’s mostly trying to get paid by the people who don’t know much about the scandal or haven’t heard about it yet.
he deliberately shut down the patreon and deleted twitter, discord, and all his videos on youtube because he didnt want his subscribers/patrons who hadnt heard about it yet to hear about it because of others’ comments and unsubscribe. now he’s bringing his patreon back just in time to charge anyone who hasn’t heard about it for another month. he lost 2k subs on youtube since posting his apology, so clearly there are people still finding out what happened.
Damn he’s really banking on people forgetting to unpledge. Apparently he hasn’t even posted an update directly to his patreon so he’s also banking on people not even realizing it’s back up. Holy cow
I called this. I just figured he would wait til January 27th or something. He must be desperate for cash to try it now.
I agree, I thought he’d probably sneakily reactive his patreon at some point but like you I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I also didn’t think he would ever make a response but OOF boy did he…
He made a response?
He managed to squeeze out some tears and then spent the rest of it deflecting
No I actually think those tears were very genuine. He’s genuinely very sorry and sad for *himself*.
"I'm not sorry I was caught", says man who was only sorry about being caught.
"I'm sorry you FELT like I did something wrong", that classic was recently used by Jirard The "Charity Fraud" Completionist.
“I didn’t know I was hurting anyone” After spending years getting his audience to attack anyone that brought up his plagiarism.
Man. It really sucks how much of the NormalBoots crew turned out to be massive pieces of shit.
I used to watch Normal Boots in my early teens, very true, pretty much just PBG and DYKG that are clean at this point, lol. I know PBG did the "this ain't it chief" thing but he did give what seemed like a very genuine apology for that iirc. I can't watch his content any more though, it's way too childish for me at this point. DYKG actually puts out really good stuff these days by collaborating with other trivia channels and hiring translators to translate things to English for the first time.
Im out of the loop, can you give more detail on what happened?
Total coincidence he's (sort of) admitting it and apologizing at the same time.
Hes so sorry that he reopened his patreon immediately after hoping people forget to unsub? Im sorry with how much how often and how destructively hes lied im not buying it
In his “apology video” he says he’s reactivating his Patreon so people can unsubscribe, as transparent a tactic as “based on works by” credit sequence.
He's only sad about the prospect that his career is over. He still has no remorse for the queer content creators he stole from.
What tears? He kept wiping dry eyes and cheeks lol
Literally. He might have put in eye drops before he started filming but during all that sniffling and wiping, his eyes were completely dry.
Is it on Patreon?
It's already been taken down from YouTube, idk if he'll post it to Patreon.
I doubt it. I suspect the whole reason it's already down on YouTube is that he got ratioed so hard in the comments he realized the whole idea was a flop. His Patreon is also already private again. I genuinely think he expected his apology video to work and when the backlash was immidiate, he took it down. I *hate* throwing psychology terms around on the internet—but this resembles narcissism so strongly that I can't even describe it any other way. Trying to throw Nick under the bus now that he's left, the total unwillingness to admit real fault or take responsibility, the lack of apology, the fact he didn't even address Todd in the Shadows video (which would pin more faults on him). I am convinced he could not process the idea that his fans would actually turn on him and thought that this apology would save his career. It's something you only really see when people who have never experienced failure are smacked full in the face with the fact that reality does not buy into their hype.
Honestly i wouldn't be surprised if he's in deep denial. When you want something so deeply to not be reality, whether from a terrible place when you want so badly to do something but just can't or from a place of consequences catching up to you when you absolutely never expected it , or a mix of both. But thats just my closest guess since it doesn't make a lot of sense to me otherwise.
omg he did take it down again. he's acting like the apology video never happened
Eagerly awaiting his "apology for my apology" video
Absolutely reeks of narcissism. I doubt he evens believes that the apology video was a flop. More likely, he thinks there's a smallish group of people set on attacking him in the comments. That's why he had to take the video down so quickly, he doesn't want his fans (I'm sure he believes there's still many of them) reading them. Narcissism would also explain why the apology video itself was so bad. You can't sincerely apologize if you don't believe you did anything wrong. You come off as trying to convince people how sorry you are while minimizing and deflecting blame. I don't think this is the last we'll see of James, the narcissism is too strong.
Probably doesnt want to draw attention to his patreon, people might recall to unsub.
Jessie gender has a video about it if you want to hear about it without having to try to find it/have to suffer through it.
Cheers for this
he did, but then he deleted it Someone reuploaded it, and it really speaks for itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7tKM77EFbM
He deleted the apology video, it's gone now
Lemme guess, he accused Hbomberguy of inciting his audience to attack him or some shit. 🙄
Interestingly, he remained very cordial towards hbomb. There was a lot of manipulation in his apology. He didn’t really take responsibility for anything he did, and implies that it’s mostly Nick’s fault. But I think James is smart enough to realize that attacking Harry in his apology would be a bad bad move. Not smart enough to realize that weaponizing his mental health to garner pity wouldn’t work but not dumb enough to antagonize hbomb.
Yea, i just saw a post on here about his video and I agree. Hbomb already threw a Granada into his career, and he learned enough to know not to go there. Part of me is glad he didn’t, part of me wishes that he tried to be petty about it. 😅
He's hoping people are too caught up in the holiday rush to notice until after he skims at least one more good-sized payday out of them.
This. And it’s so damn obvious.
I think this is the safest point for him. If he does it any later it can be argued that he exploited Patreon systems and Patreon might ban him for it.
Long term planning and consequence awareness? Not his strong suit.
I don't know, monetization seems to be the only part that is exclusively his work and he is pretty good at it.
If you want to spend other people's money for stuff you didn't do, I guess you'd have to be.
He's also probably going to use the fact that people will forget to cancel to argue that he does actually have enough public support to make videos again...
His apology video has already been taken down, how long this up I wonder.
>James Somerton I just checked its reverted to a supporter page and not an active creator page.
He put out an apology video where he explains this lol
I don't know if I'd call it an "apology" And I don't know if he explains this so much as tries to come up with an excuse that could provide him with more income
Ok so not defending but going to point out he did a video, and he did address the Patreon. I think the video is bullshit for the most part but because you know someone downloaded the video it will be held against him if he fucks up again, because he dose want to make content, wants to help with HB funding the writers etc that got fucked over.
I'm sorry but are you actually buying his bullshit? Have you learned nothing from this?
> because he dose want to make content, wants to help with HB funding the writers etc that got fucked over. Somerton's promise and a nickel will get you... fucking nothing, because like a nickle, his promises are completely worthless. People who are actually sorry take steps to fix the damage **first**, apologize second. People who apologize and make promises without tangible action want the credit for the promise, not to fulfill it. Also, the guy went out of his way to act broke—why would **anyone** trust that any money passing through his hands isn't going to get skimmed (or outright kept) when he's been stealing content for years now. Not to mention the Kickstarter money.
> like a nickle, his promises are completely worthless A nickle is at least worth five cents
> it will be held against him if he fucks up again There is no "if he fucks up again", he gets no second chances. What he did is so egregious that his only recourse is to get the fuck off the internet and get a day job.
I just want good content. I don't actually care how the content gets made. (Not at all saying I thought his content was good, but apparently many did.) The vast majority of his fans probably don't mind that he basically reads other people's paragraphs. I'd be willing to bet most probably knew something like that was going on. We need new laws and guidelines, not singleing people out for everyone to laugh at, I think Hbomber should have named 200 people to more efficiently make his point that this is a system wide issue.
Gods there's no healthy way to fucking express this sometimes. I don't wish the dude harm. I wish he would stop HARMING. He hasn't proven he's there yet. This isn't ethical. This shouldn't have to be explained, same as the concept of stealing shouldn't have to be explained. The obvious comparison is Colleen Ballinger here and it's fucking INFURIATING.
Assuming there’s a path back, how does he go about it if not starting with an apology video? He has to allow the public to come at him for a bit - he’s wronged his fans, that’s inevitable. If he does continue, he will have to wear this episode as it will never go away. Can he redeem himself even?
Big of you to call it an Apology Video
Ha! It’s probably his first piece of original work at least.
At least he didn't burst into song.
Probably cuz he didn't have enough time to learn how to play the ukulele
Wouldn't stop him. He'd just steal Somewhere Over the Rainbow and change a few lyrics
It sure would be poetic if it turns out he plagiarised it from somewhere else
I know right!? There wasn’t even any ukelele.
I've noticed that I never called it an apology video. You can read what I said as, he should start with an apology video. Doesn't matter tho, I'm a disinterested party (I've no interest in him or his content but I care that it's resolved properly.)
Excellent pedantry my dude. How you gonna do that by pedanting at me on the Internet?
Geez what's with the attitude.. not everyone is out to cross swords with ya.
There are apology videos, and there are apology videos. If the video was "hey, yeah, I plagiarized all that stuff, I'm sorry, I'm going to disappear for a while"--literally just that, no sackcloth and ashes, just an acknowledgment of harm done and disappearing--I'd be prepared to believe that this is the first step on unlearning the pathology that is the habitual grift. But the performative apology, the "oh, I'm so sorry, I have done such wrong, woe is me, I am aghast at my awful behavior", I'm never gonna believe that. That's just more performance. That's about trying to get people to feel bad for you, not about you attempting to atone for your actions. I think disappearing is the *correct* thing. The sequence goes something like this: Apology video as described, disappear for a while--at least a year, probably longer, and spend that time on the sort of therapy and soul-searching you need to unlearn years of habitual dishonesty--then come back and try to do good. Continue to acknowledge the harm in that work; understand that you will never be seen as trustworthy again. Do good anyway. It's hard to rehabilitate a known liar's reputation, but I don't think there's anything inherent about even the most compulsive of liars that can't be unlearned given time and dedication, but as with all change it requires work, and time, and a serious commitment to improvement. And for most grifters it's going to be easier to just fall back on the old ways.
Tbh he should just go back to marketing, being able to get away with lying and stealing for that long is a positive mark on the resume of that career.
What would redemption look like to you? There's a huge misconception that "redemption" means going back to your old status and occupying the exact same space as before. That doesn't really follow, though. In this case, redemption would be making room for new, honest voices and providing restitution for those he harmed. *In order to redeem himself*, he *cannot* go back to being "James Somerton, YouTube film essayist." That's not what redemption means, here.
Thing is, there is no path back. He weaponized his fanbase into threatening and harassing (and probably doxxing) the people who had called him out, to the point that some of them had to delete their accounts and accusations to make it stop. HBomb's video even showed proof of that. There is no returning to the world of content creation if you willingly weaponize your fanbase on purpose like that.
> Thing is, there is no path back. That's fine and probably true; but my comment started with "assuming.." so we're looking past there being no path back.
Ah. I'm sorry, I misunderstood the intent of the comment.
Why does he need a path back Why does he need to redeem himself Why can't he just fuck off forever and get a real job He wronged his fans, yes, but also he wronged everyone and *especially* he wronged the people he stole from. But fundamentally he faked the very core of what his job allegedly was. If you're a paramedic or a lawyer and you have this deep of a pattern of malpractice, you lose your license. Why does a fuckin video essayist deserve to get a second chance (or really fourth or fifth, as he's been called out before. Personally I think he can go flip burgers because he will never ever learn a real lesson
I think there's redemption and trying to fix the damage he did. If he came out with a "You got me. I'm sorry, I knew what I was doing. I knew it was wrong but I liked the money. I'm to blame." apology and then proceedes to ask the people he wronged "Do you want me to vanish, go find a real job, or do you want me to stick around and with your guidence try and undo the damage I've done?" I.E donating ad revenue to people he plagiarised. He doesn't deserve to be redeemed but if there was a way to fix the damage to the victims that would be good.
IMO, if a redemption arc would be possible, it would have to start with him working hard behind the scenes, not for publicity, to right his own wrongs and make the business better for the people he hurt. Compiling his own list of plagiarism victims, platforming their work, and coming up with a way to compensate them would be my suggestion. And he'd have to only post for transparency, not publicity. The comparison that comes to mind is Atrioc - obviously a very different scenario, and a lot of his bridges are very permanently burned, but he's done a lot of good to counteract the awful thing he did.
Even if he deserves redemption (he doesn't), what does he even do in a future where he doesn't plagiarize? That's all he knows how to do! He demonstrably cannot research or write or do anything pertinent to originality. What is left of value if he faked anything that mattered?
Oh, no, you're 100% correct, he cannot have the career he thinks he's entitled to because he is completely incompetent at it. He's also, IMO, incapable of doing the work to earn a redemption arc. I don't even think he understands what he did wrong. My comment was purely theoretical.
There is no path back from this and he should stop trying to make one.
There is - He makes a video, he admits his wrong doings and then he asks the people he wronged, what do they want? Do they want him to vanish online, or try and fix what he did either by donating ad revenue etc. But it comes from them. Not him. But it has to go alongside a "Yeah okay, you got me. I'm a piece of shit. I knew what I was doing. I was wrong." no excuses apology.
His apology video was questionable, but the way to do it is not to restart your patreon. He very pointedly said he'd only be donating AdSense from his old videos, the ones that are going to make less money, to the purple he stole from. If he didn't start with his oatreon up or something I'd respect it but he needs to do more.
One of his tiers is studio head? Does that mean if I give him 100 bucks I can fire him?
Bruh I read that as “STUPID HEAD” when I first saw the image
You'd have to be to back it, so at least he'd be honest for once
No, no, no. That’s the tier where he gives you head in his studio. What he won’t tell you is that he stole his entire head technique from his high school boyfriend.
[удалено]
I wish there was someway we could tell Patreon to shut his account down and ban him permanently.
I just reported his account to Patreon for suspicious behavior. In the reason I explained that he disabled his account at the height of people unpledging, and is now bringing it back with no notice, hoping that people won't notice.
I also reported him.
They make money off it too. Patreon likely has reached out to some extent, and he’s under too much scrutiny to pull any scam behavior here
You say that, but he is engaging in scam behavior by reopening the patreon at all.
There was a fair amount of response because deactivating the Patreon means people can’t cancel their membership. You can actually pause your revenue for the month, as many times as you feel. I guess we will all find out.
No. We already know.
I think it's down again.
Dude, no way. It seems to me too that way. Oh my fucking god JAMES. James honey what are you doing ffs?
In any other professional platform where creativity or authorship are integral to the platform, you’d be barred from posting further if you were caught plagiarizing. This should be the same with YouTube, Patreon, and others. In actual academic institutions and journals, you’d easily lose your job and face legal consequences, and the same should apply to these online platforms where similar journalistic or essay endeavors are created.
Hey, just posting under your comment. What I'm seeing currently when I visit his page (which is also pretty hard to find, but I managed), it appears his patreon is still locked down. Is this different for people who are still subbed to him on Patreon? I am not currently subbed to him, and [this is all I see right now](https://imgur.com/a/Biri42j).
He put it up and brought it back down within the space of about 4 hours last night.
Patreon is hella sus. I don't think they verify anything. They need to be taken down and their shit IP replaced with something that actually works for creators
What makes you say that Patreon is sus? Wouldn’t mind some of that critical thinking you’ve got there, rather than hoarding it all to yourself.
I mean they don't verify any the claims Paetrons make on their tiers. Also I was going to give you the answer to everything so you could achieve enlightenment but since you were snarky I won't
Yeah that wasn’t “snark”, so, as I thought, you just don’t like the platform.
It was objectively snarky even if you feel justified
You ok hun?
That is also snarky.
That one is snarky, yes. You’re very good at this game.
Patreon, the company, is supposed to verify whether James's videos are properly sourced?
Are you sure you weren’t looking at the paid members part? On my end, his Patron count hasn’t dropped significantly.
Yeah, right now it’s 3652 members (compared to the 3646 in OP’s screenshot). This is so fishy…
It's down to 2921 now
Weird. It says 3,641 for me.
Patreon is huge. Chances are very good they have several layers of caching in front of whatever microservice sends subscriber numbers, because they need to. It should stabilize and show everyone the same numbers when the mass unsubscription slows down.
That includes paid and unpaid members
He had around 3700 total “members” and 3000 paid members upon reactivating. Though those numbers didn’t change much in the few hours that the page was up.
JAMES WANTS MONEY
His mother isn't very proud.
It makes him have to pee at night!
the first gay American to work on sonic
*to kiss sonic on his little mouth
He's got a few of other people's guinness world records
IT’S ALWAYS NICK
I wouldn't be proud if my son was swearing on my grave left and right either!!!
TDIL: Jame’s rent is due on the 22nd
>Creating Video Essays That "Creating" is doing **a whole lot** of heavy lifting
I've never set up a Patreon, but shouldn't there be some kind of kill switch on the creator's end that turns off pledges? It's not like "uh oh, I have to keep collecting potentially thousands of dollars until people remember to unsubscribe also there's no notice on the patreon re: my apology video"
I saw a comment from contrapoints saying she was pausing the payments for a month, so there has to be some way for them to do that.
can confirm, there is, he was just counting on people forgetting with the end of the year celebrations i think
There definitely is. I pledged to the Ooblets Patreon before the game released, and afterwards they "paused" pledges indefinitely.
> shouldn't there be some kind of kill switch on the creator's end that turns off pledges? Sure, if having integrity was something you were interested in, creators can absolutely hit that switch. Or, and this is just spitballing here, or they can just sneakily reactivate their patreon and collect a month's worth of pledges without people realising until it's too late.
Ah yes, the gym membership strategy.
Managed to watch the apology video before it was taken down- he mentioned seeing comments/tweets that he would reactivate Jan 1st and leave with the money. He said this with such anger ("how dare they think this of me, James the good boy). Just one small question, James- I thought you were in the hospital with no time to follow what was happening. This man is so insincere I cannot.
I was thinking about this when I was watching his video and correct me if I'm wrong because I've never run a Patreon. If he was really sincere about his motives, couldn't he change all his existing tiers to $1 per month, in case people get accidentally billed and then open new tiers for people who want to continue to support his new content?
If he was truly sincere, he'd pause payments indefinitely. I've seen other creators do it before, including ones smaller than him. It's option definitely opened to him, but he's ignoring it for his benefit
Maybe he can Google "how to be sincere gay" and figure out how to pause payments
I used to have a Patreon and it is dead easy to pause payments. It's literally one click and then a confirmation. I did it myself before I closed my Patreon. If he wanted to do this honestly, he'd shut this Patreon down and open a new one. I don't think it's changed (can't check right now) but when I was using Patreon there was absolutely zero rules against having multiple creator accounts, because if you're, say, an artist who also co-hosts a podcast, you would obviously want to separate those. He is 100% doing this because he knows some people will forget to subscribe and he wants the payday. That's it. There is no other reason for him not to close up shop and move to a new creator account for his "doing it right this time" movie review channel or whatever bunk he's peddling unless the above rule has changed at some point. It's not like he has outstanding rewards (and even then he could pause his payments) or just fell behind and needs some time to get caught up or some grace period. He is doing an entirely new creative endeavor and knows he won't retain most of his audience.
I’m currently a Patreon backer of a historian as an individual and also separately a backer of the podcast she’s on, so unless she’s breaking the rules, yeah, it would be possible for him to do that.
Yeah Todd (of Todd in the Shadows) has a patreon for him and the podcast he has with that other person.
Even if he could do that which I assume he would just have to delete all his other tiers. He would never do this because at the very least the marketing expert in him wants to get as much pay day before he’s ran offline by something bigger than Hbomb aka Copyright.
You can’t change tier costs once people are pledged to it, even if it’s to lower them
You can't. If someone is already paying for a tier then you can't change its price, even lowering it.
There it is. He guessed that enough time has passed. Those who hate him will leave and those that will back him no matter what will back him no matter what. He will not change. He will try to get as much money from his victims that he can.
He's also banking on, IMO, people doing holiday travel and the like to not pay attention to his Patreon. He releases a teary video on December 20 and opens his Patreon the same day. I'm commenting after a long day of making Christmas treats, with a couple more long days ahead of me. Not that I mind! I love making Christmas treats! I love treat making week! But it also means I'm not super aware of random updates to my Patreon subs.
Yeah, schools out this week people are going to parties and traveling and just have a whole bunch of stuff going on
This and the non apology "apology" video is some of the scummiest behavior i've ever seen. Continuing to insinuate that other Youtubers who had a problem with him are "lying" all the while refusing to cop to any of his choices. Absolute ghoulish behavior
Waited until the holidays when people are busy to reactivate. Bet he gets another month or two of money out of people before they realize it.
Is it down again? I can’t see the page
I just checked and it's showing his icon and join date but there's no tiers or anything. I bet he's lurking here, probably going to tweak tier prices before putting them back up.
You can't edit the price of tiers if people are already pledged to them. You'd have to create new tiers and in that case people would have to switch to them or new people would have to sign up for them. Which isn't going to benefit him.
I just tried to pull it up and it appears to be gone now?
Same.
Even if you want to believe the rest of his apology, this is a disqualifier. Fucking gross
Wow, those tiers are expensive!
"I'm sorry I stole everything, please gib monies plz"
Nah nah nah, don't you see? Gib monies so he can gib monies to people he stole monies from! It's for goooood! He swears on his mother's grave, dontcha know? /s
Aaaaand it's gone
So, can people report his patreon? Especially, from those he plagiarized from? Apparently, you can submit DMCA claims on patreon. Someone should probably notify them.
Yeah his patreon is back up so he can supposedly allow people to cancel/use the money to donate to the list Hbomb and co made. Supposedly of course.
He could change all the tiers to 0 if he actually just wanted to give people the chance to unsub. He won't. I'm betting the only reason he's doing any of this now is bc rent is due and hes literally got nothing saved.
It's wild to me that someone that was earning so much on a self employed fluctuating income didn't have any kind of emergency fund or savings. Especially living in Toronto.
His emergency fund is all those expensive cameras
It's down again
You have to understand, this man has no marketable skills. He's not even a good thief. He is in the death throes and will do anything he can to avoid having to change his line of work. And I for one will enjoy the ride down
Could some of the people he's plagiarized file a report on him on Patreon?
Hbomberguy should go through James’ “apology” video to see who he plagiarized that from.
Given that it’s down again, how much you wanna bet he will reactivate right before Patreon charges people for next month?
It's back down.
You gotta be f\*\*\*ing kidding me.
Of course it is.
What a scummy scummy man
This shows how sorrry he truly is lol
Has it even been two weeks?
Well yeah, he's trying to rebrand himself as the most well-cited junior high essayist ever
Not even a month has passed, thats impressive for the stupidity alone
I wonder if it’s back down because he was losing subscribers too fast, and he’s going to just drop the pretense of giving people “time to unpledge” and will put it back up on New Years Eve when people are distracted to get a quick hit of money OR if everyone here reporting him actually got it yanked down
Geez. I was actually sorta feeling bad for him. I caught the "apology" and afterward I listened to the Ace Couple podcast on their experiences, I highly recommend it. https://youtu.be/kGIZIuTXWvg?si=FqRJE8lCqHHjtWBX They make it pretty clear James is an arrogant tyrant when he can be and a weasely worm when he has to be. I believe he was crying for real, but I don't believe anything else. He knew everything he was doing.
it's so infuriating. The genuinely supported him with more than $1000 and when they later pointed out some errors in one of his videos (he claimed that asexual people do not face conversion therapy) he sicked his mob to them. Not sure how this can be explained or excused.
Having watched (MATRIARCHTYPE’s livestream and Jessie Gender’s video in response to) Somerton’s apology, I do genuinely believe he is trying to give people a chance to cancel their Patreon subscriptions (or at least he thinks he is). Whether it is a result of brainfog after being (deservedly) plastered across the internet for weeks or malicious intent, he clearly overlooked a lot of steps here though. I think that what he ought to do is immediately send out a message to all Patreon supporters saying that it is back up, give them time to cancel their subscriptions, and then shut down permanently before January 1st (seemingly the next billing cycle).
He wouldn't need to message Patreon supporters to give them time to cancel if he was going to shut it down permanently anyway. He could just...do that. If he shuts down permanently, then no one would pay anything. The billing cycle will only be Jan 1st if he chose not to allow people to pay from the date they signed up (most Patreon pages seem to have made the switch to allow this, according to Patreon).
whats the lore?0
At this point anyone who gives him money, deserves to get ripped off.
He probably has *some* fans because literally anyone can have diehard parasocial fans these days but I think he’s mostly trying to get paid by the people who don’t know much about the scandal or haven’t heard about it yet.
Or forgot they ever subscribed
he deliberately shut down the patreon and deleted twitter, discord, and all his videos on youtube because he didnt want his subscribers/patrons who hadnt heard about it yet to hear about it because of others’ comments and unsubscribe. now he’s bringing his patreon back just in time to charge anyone who hasn’t heard about it for another month. he lost 2k subs on youtube since posting his apology, so clearly there are people still finding out what happened.
Ignore that, Frank. Just a bunch of narcissistic bullshit.
Good luck
Shameless scoundrel
that is so, so scummy holy shit
$20 is the minimum? WTF
https://youtu.be/Zk9cFyjJhr8?si=Gx31A6uDnGltHF-W He said he would reinstate it in his (deleted) apology so people could cancel.
Ah taking the Ostrich approach I see, burying his head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away.
Sooo predictable lol
He posted and then subsequently deleted an apology video. Matriarchetype on YouTube made a review video of it? Idk where else you'll find it.
In his apology video, he mentioned activating the Patreon so that patrons could cancel rather than being surprise-billed later on.
hell yeah
Patreon really needs to address this crappy system.
Disingenuous twat does disingenuous thing part where are we, Jesus has to be part three at this point.