So much has happened since this: First he went ahead and released a “new” video essay under a rebrand of his channel (since closed down again). Then he put on a tweet alluding to the idea that he was about to ~unalive~ himself and appeared to vanish. People who've been collecting data on his nonsense knew almost immediately he was fine (something later confirmed by his former co-writer Nick) because he started tweeting on the multiple alt accounts he didn't think anybody knew about (admittedly some of them weren't known initially but are now), including defending himself with claims like "the stuff he stole was like 10 years old anyway." So we know he was actively using Twitter and would have been able to see people like Hbomberguy and others be harassed and called "murder" because of his fake stunt, and he did nothing to confirm he was ok. After a month he was publicly outed for his alt accounts, all of which promptly deactivated or were set to private. In conclusion: fuck this guy. I wish no physical harm of any kind on him, but no there is no future on the for this guy.

"I tried to be a voice for the entire queer community, except the boring gays who were the only ones to survive the AIDS crisis. And the women, especially the bisexual ones. And"

As Little Joel once said “NO JAMES DON’T SWEAR ON YOUR MOTHERS GRAVE JAMES”

“Misinformation found its way into the videos” how did it get there James? Did straight women put it there?

When Tommy Tallarico says "we", he just means Joey. When James Somerton says "we", he just means himself

James just...no. And a general note to anyone, apologizing online, stop bringing your dead family members into it! They don't want to be part of it either!

He never mentions how nasty he was to cis bisexual women.

The wildest part about James using "A Measured Response" is that it's a perfect microcosm of his issues with plagiarism and his original apology: he copies because he doesn't actually UNDERSTAND the original texts and can only regurgitate them, rather than actually being inspired by them. Hbomb's "measured response" titles are JOKES, lampshading the fact that said videos are long, ranty, passionate, and not at all "measured". James doesn't understand the joke, and so doesn't understand why it doesn't apply to his out-of-focus fauxpology Patreon advertisement video and thinks he's done something clever.

I remember thinking, “gosh, he didn’t even watch hbomb’s video,” after his first apology, but the fact he is still trying to say he had Sean Griffin’s permission prior to releasing Evil Queens shows he STILL hasn’t watched hbomb’s video. It’s the first instance of plagiarism detailed and the proof is undeniable!

Considering James stole from gay men talking about their experience as gay men and the way gay men are viewed in society, I absolutely call bullshit on his "I just stole from other queer people because I wanted to talk about experiences other than mine" claim.

When he blamed his ADHD for plagiarizing, my first thought was "Or you could have done what Vera does and pick a format that best accommodates your abilities!"

Gotta love the way he detaches himself from the lies he said: "misinformation MADE ITS WAY into OUR past videos" ???? who put them there james

James trying to be clever with the title of his apology video about plagiarism is like Colleen Ballinger trying to be clever with that ukulele. Just the wrong tone for an apology video.

It wouldn't be a Somerton apology without an ad for Telos 🙄

I commented this previously but James' defense is that he's the shrimp from Shark Tale. "OKAY yes I stole and was evil and terrible but the other thing is my sister had a baby. and I took it over because she passed away. and then the baby lost its legs and its arms. and now it's nothing but a stump."

If you wanted me to take your apology seriously, James, you shouldn't have turned on the "sad stock photo" blue filter on your apology video. 🥶

Saw Jesse's video this morning and I will say what i said there: He has earned no benefit of the doubt and his apology feels beyond hollow

"you don't have to go home but you can't stay here" sorta sums up how a lot seem to feel about him coming back.

What's that old saying? "I don't want for you to starve to death, but you can't have a seat at my table."

The fact that his apology specifically names and mentions situations in which creators with a relatively important presence were affected, but does not even dedicate a section to the small creators and just users/viewers, people he plagiarized, attacked and used, or even the backers that supported him monetarily (he doesn't even mention refunds, just that he intends to use their money), it seems totally dishonest to me. Especially when the video ends with a promotion for his channel and new Patreon. And some small creators already commented that he hasn't talked to them.

40:37 "misinformation made it into our past videos" is an incredible use of the passive voice.

James being so bad at not plagarising that he stole hbomberguy's video tagline.

I'm glad you acknowledged him ignoring Todd's video AGAIN. It really bothers me that he refuses to address it when it's definitely a part of the reason all of this shit is happening to him right now.

No. He should pick a different line of work and never, ever come back.

“How to dig your own grave and keep digging” a la Somerton

Straight up throwing Nick under the bus. In so many ways.

James’ Killing Stalking video did irreparable damage to my psyche when he first released it. I gravitated towards it as a victim of abuse (and a friendship eerily similar to Sangwoo’s and Yoonbum’s- without the murder). And I found it interesting and cathartic. I didn’t engage in it as a ‘yaoi’. But because I was a ‘straight’ (at the time) women, I was enemy number 1. I made a comment explaining my side in the comments and got tons of hate.

I don't think he's ever address the issue that quotations (and they don't have to be very long) -- not done in a context where it is obvious that they are quotations, are plagiarism, whether or not the works is referenced. And even so, an "essay" that is 90% quotes probably deserves an F.

Although, given the Ace Couple's video about their experiences dealing with James in his Telos guise... I'm not sure I would trust him with fiction. Or at least not trust him with crediting the people he's meant to be crediting in his works.

James also "forgot" to address the misogyny allegations. 😒 He's not sorry in a meaningful way; he's sorry that people don't like him or don't trust him. If he wanted to make amends he'd put in the work and he'd go through his old stuff and find every single instance of copying ever and show it with proper credit. But he wants to move on and not expose more of his plagiarism than has already been exposed. He dosen't want to properly credit the people he stole from. He wants to make new things and be forgiven.

My biggest problems with his apology are that he clearly saw some criticisms that people had of the first, without internalizing them, so it comes across like he’s trying to say all the right things in order for us to forgive him and let him come back. Like he heard people say that he was trying to excuse his behavior and just scam people again and so he put in “there’s no excuse” after giving 30 minutes of excuses; and he claimed that he made a new Patreon so people on the old one wouldn’t get charged, and how Telos isn’t a scam and he will produce a movie. But the reason I still don’t believe that he fully means his apologies or understands the harm he’s done because he’s still using a lot of passive voice around different things he’s been accused of. Yes he finally admitted to plagiarism and said the word, but he skirts around the fact that he actively lied and tried to cover it up and harassed people who called him out off the internet. He still said things like “misinformation got put into the video,” instead of I put misinformation in the video and he excused it by saying that he was just repeating what others told him or Nick did it, or we did do research, but somehow harmful misinformation happened to end up in the video. His apology to the asexual community was still essentially I’m sorry you felt like I hurt your feelings and I’m sorry you felt excluded because we only talked about Nick’s experience, when the actual harm he did to the ace community was repeatedly erasing the experiences of ace people, by saying asexuals don’t experience discrimination like gay people or that we don’t experience conversation therapy, then doubling down when criticized and corrected. He was more snarky and upset when he was defending his abandoned movie claiming it wasn’t plagiarized, not realizing that even if it wasn’t, his utter lack of trust with people sets him up to not be believed that any work he puts out is his.

The thing that always stuck out to me whenever he talked about any upcoming videos was how much he’d emphasize how Fun and Exciting it’s going to be with theatrical filming elaborate costumes. And the common throughline I’m seeing from that and his “apologies” is a desire to have a creative final product without putting in any of the actual creative WORK. I think Dan Olson’s diagnosis of the problem being Gear Acquisition Syndrome (i.e. collecting expensive filmmaking equipment while expecting movies to just make themselves) was a really key insight. When Somerton says he “wants to make videos” or “wants to make films,” he just means he wants to parade around in front of a camera in pretty costumes and get applauded for it, the same way that ai dudebros want people to believe that they’re “artists” just because they ended up with a collection of pixels that happen to look pretty at a glance.

My first thought about him giving money to Hbomberguy was “he can’t even be bothered to do THAT himself?” Like what’s stopping him from distributing the money himself? Why is he making it Hbomberguy’s responsibility?

having your title be "A Measured Response" when that's the title of not one but two hbomberguy videos is one hell of a choice, not gonna lie

From the land of Ophafuxekagan, James Somerton is INCAPABLE of apologizing with any sort of reason

I have pretty severe memory issues, im literally known at work to take detailed notes about everything. If anyone wants verification they come to me. Thats a horrible excuse.

If some of the plagiarism was done because of "memory issues," or not remembering which sections were copy/pasted, how does he know the videos he put back up don't have any plagiarism in them..?

how you and Jessie and the others watched that entire video, i will never have the strength to do that because jesus christ

"I'm sorry yall are mad at me for some reason" ~every James Somerton apology

he didn't even mention his misogyny

He put a trigger warning at the very start of the video with a time code. But then gave no indication or warning when he got to that part of the video, and he goes fairly straight into it. If people are engaged with your video then they aren't tracking the seconds on the time bar. He really should have done something to remind people who need/want to to skip this bit.

His apology has the same rhetoric as my mom's excuses for her abusive behavior: bad shit happened to me so I wasn't thinking clearly when I hurt you, other unnamed people agree with me so it's ok now, it's my fault but I'll tell you how much you being mad at me fur hurting you hurts me to the point I harmed myself, so you should stop being mad at me because I could harm myself again. It's just so manipulative.

I don't wish James ill, but there's just no reason to watch his future videos. He's shown no real talent at making them & plenty of queer creator doing much better similar work where I don't have to second-guess everything they say.

Something I picked up: In a much older video essay he said his mum's insurance was denied due to an undisclosed prior diagnosis of depression. In this video he says the it was due to an undisclosed family history of diabetes. Now I know there was a Telos Indiegogo update (31 May 2022) where he says it was undisclosed prior depression diagnosis AND undisclosed family history of diabetes AND undisclosed family history of heart disease. His reporting of this has been inconsistent. This is his "measured response", that he has taken time to do right and he seems to be missing information, so in some way misrepresenting the insurance company (who by the sounds of it were just doing their jobs - these policies come with contracts where you agree 50 times that you have disclosed everything, and family history is one thing but at least disclosing your own medical history is a big part of the process - I'm not on the insurance company's side per se, but they were just doing their jobs based on what JAMES has said, don't hate the player hate the game it's a systemic problem not a RBC problem). And if he got it correct this time then he previously used a fake diagnosis of his other to get sympathy and create empathy in an audience. I remember the mention of depression because I related tto what he was saying in that part of that video.

What I wanna know is why he thought he could get away with plagiarizing non-fictional work, but that he gets teary eyed and annoyed when people accuse him plagiarizing fictional work? Like I'm a creative writer, I love fiction and prefer it over non-fiction. I panicked for a whole day because I wrote an single identical sentence in my paper. I just used academic language, and like that was the only way I could state what I needed to state lol.

Watched Jessie’s video earlier in the day and now yours. While Jessie was very kind, I’m really glad you gave a little more tough love. James has a LOT to answer for, and you’re right, he needs to pursue other avenues because he should not be welcomed back.

You know its so weird James publicly apologizes to Jessie but completely glosses over the ace couples experiences with him. Jessie definitely deserved an apology but so did they. Especially since the ace couple lost a significant amount of money due to his actions.

Didn't Somerton claim he had contacted HBomberguy to contribute to the recovery fund for the plagiarism victims in his first apology? A claim that was proven to be false? 🤨

As Super Eyepatch Wolf said: "No. No, you're fuckin' done. You aren't welcome in this space ever again." But I imagine that won't stop him.

Love how he’s seemingly never going to address his sexism

I would call this an Anti-Drama video... it's easy to luxuriate in the pathos of douchebags, but taking time to dissect the methods and machinations of con-artists is noble work.

The part that really shows how insincere he is (of many actually, but this gets me the most), is when James practically says “If Hbomberguy and his team won’t accept the revenue from this video to contribute to the people I stole from, I’ll just have to donate it to Wikipedia and other charities.” You know another option, if he was actually sorry? … doing the work to track down everyone you stole from, give them proper credit, and send the money yourself… Hbomberguy already spent hours upon hours doing this kind of sleuth work… proving that somebody who wants to do it can. James’ “I’m gonna work my ass off” and “I’m really sorry” just doesn’t cut it when he isn’t willing to put in the smallest amount of work to right the wrongs he has done… only wants to “prove himself”… it’s clear where his true feelings are at.

"Misinformation made its way into" Buddy. Step one is to use the active voice. "I put misinformation in my videos" or even, "I take responsibility for misinformation making its way into the video," even though that's still passive. This guy isn't ready.

I'm currently at work listening and the section where James mentioned his atrocious first attempt at saying 'sowwy', I had to do a double take. Like...December is when this shit went down originally. It's fucking February. Jesus Christ, this year feel real long. Also, I feel like 3 months of cooling off isn't enough for James. He could have waited a bit longer, maybe got in touch WITH EVERYONE he stole from, made the attempt at amends, did a quiet apology tour BEFORE having the brass balls to try and ask people to believe and trust him again. Just...big oof. Guess he's run out of cash.... If anyone within the queer community is interested in pissing away a sizable amount of money by subscribing to James again, feel free to not do that and give me your money, as your Ace Auntie needs a new bed and mattressess are fucking expensive. :D

Well, between this and Jessie's video, I guess I know what I'm going to do the next 2 hours. Also I love how the intro is just "Damnit I have thoughts about this >:("

Since I also have ADHD, his comments really came off to me as disingenuous and ironically reliant on ADHD tropes to justify his plagiarism. Obviously everyone's different in their exact symptoms, but I feel no compulsion to give him the benefit of the doubt that he even HAS seen a doctor for this condition, much less was actually diagnosed with it. I think he cynically just used it the same way people who enjoy aligning their pencils say "I'm so OCD" and he's just abelistically utilizing a misunderstood condition to justify his shit behaviour. I have ADHD and I write, again not everyone experiences it the same way, but there's not a chance in hell that while writing (a hyperfixation of mine) I would EVER confuse something I wrote with something I stole or "placeholded" in my work. (I wouldn't even place-hold with other text anyway, just shorthand notes at BEST, but that's another discussion) I would remember literally everything I was doing at the time I wrote a piece of text into writing work. I can look at many projects and remember exactly what show I was watching in the background when I wrote it. He's treating plagiarism like it's putting down your keys and walking away and then oopsie I forgot where I put them. That's not an excuse for plagiarism. You don't forget that type of thing. And if you did, you'd know you forgot something and suspect it was putting in text that wasn't yours and the thing you do THEN is you look through your work carefully and check and take out anything you ripped off. You don't just let it float out of your mind and never think about it again unless you're just lying.

49:11 so, like, a lot of Somerton’s videos that hbomb discussed opened with “Written and Directed by James Somerton,” but he just said that a lot of the videos were “mainly written by Nick,” so like, I don’t particularly trust him to actually credit people in his fiction endeavors. I disagree with Vera here, I don’t think fiction is his future. I don’t wish harm to befall him, nor do I wish poverty upon him, but his actions bring all future creative endeavors into question.

"You don't have the right to be pissy." Best line ever! Thanks for the commentary.

That speech at the end directly to James was breathtaking. Unfortunately I dont think hed ever have the gall to face this video to be graced by it.

I saw the title "a measured response" and literally thought "uh oh, he's doubling down" cuz that absolutely came off as him trying to shade H bomber guy

"There is always a path forward." *-lays some arrows on the ground leading into a storm drain-* "There you go buddy."

I have no idea who James Somerton is, but I'm hitting the like button for the Electric Boogaloo reference. Cheers.

You are very kind, not certain he deserves the "olive branch," but it says a lot about you to give it.

I don't understand the new wave of comment bots, they're obviously bots yet they don't obviously link to external sites?

Its been a really rough week. I need you to know that to understand what a big deal it is that the opening made me have a burst of laughter. I needed that bit of humor and all the good things that come from laughing. Thank you for putting that extra effort in.

Thank you so much for doing this video and making this digestible. After being a fan of his content for many years I did not have the stomach to watch this.

41:23: I agree that failing to check your assumptions is unjustifiable for someone like James Somerton. I double-check my assumptions in petty fandom debates on Tumblr; it's not that hard! It's usually harder to fact-check real-life facts, but the stakes are a _lot_ higher, _especially_ if you're writing something that will be seen by potentially millions of people and not a couple dozen people.

No, james. We can't believe you.

Telos is just a scam. I don’t want him to try with that, it’ll be a case of him collecting a crowdfunding cheque and then never working on any sort of film. You know, like he did before.

hbomb has confirmed on twitter that he and his team were not talked to about jame's videos payments

I saw this coming when he was once more active on Instagram and posted a Killing Stalking image on Valentine's Day. Felt as if he was ridiculing everyone who'd ever followed him and trying to see if he could get them to follow him all over again.

Relevant point no one seems to be making: why is his channel still eligible for monetization? This has annoyed me recently with some high profile cases like James Charles where they've only been temporarily demonetized and then got it back after what seems like an arbitrary amount of time, as if that's an actual corrective measure when clearly it isn't. Its not as if this is a small case, the Hbomberguy video is huge, everyone knows about this. KZfaq seriously need a better system of manual review in place for reviewing monetization when a channel's crossed a line, cause it seems to be a case where if the channel is big enough we can wave it past.

My favorite part of this latest James debacle is that the phrase 'A Measured Response' is basically the subtitle, or like a categorization tool, for several of Hbomberguy's videos. Most famously his climate change one where the quote, "Sell them to who, Ben? Fucking Aquaman?!" comes from. Maybe my second favorite part is the possible(?) Freudian slip where he says "Telos was-- _and still is_ -- my dream." We're watching you, James. 🧐

James missed a golden opportunity to just plagiarize his own apology video, I would've loved to see him bust out the ukulele and sing about how he has made a severe and continuous lapse in his judgement

I have no problem calling James a liar. I'll bet he is lying about his supposed memory issues. The claim is he copy/pasted a bunch of stuff and then just forgot it was taken from other places. If that's the case, why were these things also heavily altered and strung together like a middle schooler cheating on their book report if this was just supposed to be a "springboard"? No, it's vague, it's nonsensical, and it's a lie.

I saw comments on other videos that pointed out that Somerton still haven't taking responsibility for how he attack people who called out his plagiarism before HBomberguy video released.

I work in academia, I have hashimoto which leads to brain fog and memory issues if not managed perfectly, and since bodies are not perfect I struggle with those things. Not once have I forgotten to credit a source.

James's Patreon is up, rebranded as "James of Telos" with a total of 9 paying members. Hopefully it stays there and he disappears into the ether of obscure, shamed KZfaqrs.

Playing ukulele couldn't make this apology any worse. The “measured response” in the thumbnail alone made me so angry. Did he counted on his mother to die so he could use the insurance money for his movie? Did I get that right?

I love how Dan Olson has become the unofficial reaction source for this whole debacle. Always brings a smile to my face.

Also on the Final Girl story, the pitch he described sounded like the beginning of Scream 4.

I find it interesting that the only time he shows a receipt Is to try and make excuses for how he had permission to plagiarise some poeple And the dm in quesrion just literally shows he never asked permission at all and the person was just okay with it after the fact Which he thinks means he had permission all along Meanwhile he shows no other recipt for any message, claim or thing he pushes.

He just can't stop lying And to me it's evident he still wants the narrative to be he did an oopsie and not "I stole and lied"

as a bisexual woman i've always been charitable with his misogyny thinking that, maybe, he had very bad experiences with womans. Like been treated like "that one gay friend" that is funny and cool until you have to support him to face homophobia. And, of course, I wasn't justifying his words, nor giving him a pass. Just trying to be kind because I cannot know someone else's traumas. Plus, I was grateful to him because beeing from a small town in italy his video essays, like those of all the other queer folks that I follow, give me a breath of frash air. I thought that he was giving me the chance to discover things that otherwise I will have lots of difficulties discovering on my own. Since of course english it's not even my first language, but here gender studys are not as developed as in other countrys. That's why the plagerism thing hit me so hard. Because someone I was trusting to give me ways to know more about my comunity was activly silencing voices I would like to hear without his filter. Or, at least, with his interference beeing enough clear, so that I and other people would be able to check on their own. I mean, right now I'm not even sure if his words about Helluvaboss were from him. How can I trust his apology? Even if there is still a part of me that wont to trust his words, because his work... but it's not even truly his work, so... has been a safe space for me in some difficult moments. I really don't know, it's fucked up really!

Insert GTA San Andreas "Here we go again" meme

He called it A Measured Response. I don't know why but that part bothers me more than anything. Like, the cunty-ness of just that is enough that I thought the video would be much, much worse. How does he have the spine to do that?!

The way James tries to justify his plagiarism by citing his financial issues also makes it sound like he's entitled to a career on KZfaq. I personally don't think anyone is entitled to a career in any specific industry. I believe that everyone is entitled to a liveable income but those aren't the same things. It's like a painter justifying breaking into an art gallery to steal and then sell a bunch of other people's paintings because they couldn't make enough money off of their own work. Just because it would be unfortunate that the painter couldn't make a living off of doing what they loved, that wouldn't make it okay to steal

James doesn't understand that if he were 100% serious about becoming a better person and doing better work, he couldn't prove it to us in an apology video. He would need to go dark for a while and actually work on himself, unpacking his issues in therapy. As of right now, he is showing us that the only thing he cares about is getting back on KZfaq. Not interested, James, you burned the bridge and now its ashes. WORK ON YOURSELF.

I don't have much hope for his fiction creations tbh. He didn't once mention the misogyny or misgendering or the other biases and instances of erasure that came through in his original work. If he isn't trying to actively account for his biases, they will probably show up in his fiction... I honestly think he could have a fantastic future as an audiobook narrator, though.

will we ever know peace, will he ever go away

I cant sit through a 43 minutes James Somerton video. Thank you for making it more digestible Vera 😊🙏🏻🇬🇧

Also.. what is this camera angle why am I seeing up your nose James

A month or two ago, I was thinking about the golden rule (because I am the life of the party). We're used to hearing it all the time, so much so that it sounds trite: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But when you stop and think about the amount of consideration and generosity and patience we'd _like_ to have from others, the golden rule rapidly becomes _terrifying,_ or exhausting to think about at the very least. I bring this up, because this is one of the few times -- on KZfaq or anywhere else -- where I feel like I've seen someone actually try and do unto another what (I imagine) she would have done unto her; and that's amazing. The magnanimity you showed, the insistence on hope even though you saw the likely outcome a mile away, the careful distinction between "that's a bad look" and "that's a _bad thing_ to do," I just ... well, "I'm impressed" sounds _weirdly_ condescending! But, whatever the right way to put it is -- probably _I admire you for making this._

His response is so PR coded I cant even take any of it seriously. There's nothing genuine about that guy. He's a liar, manipulator and lazy. He wants to come back because youtube was probably the easiest money he's ever made and he can't handle he lost that easy money and desperately tries to claw his way back anyway he can.

Hbomberguy got asked on twitter if james had reached out and hbomb said that he had not

Omg, the Hbomberguy foreshadowing jumpscare. 😂 Honestly, that man is a treasure. As far as James is concerned, he needs years of therapy to dismantle and reassemble his psyche. A three month break is not nearly enough to make that kind of change. I'd rather see him just leave and do his soul searching offline. I'm not so cruel and so pessimistic to say that he should never come back to the documentary scene, because I think some of the high level concepts of some of his videos are genuinely interesting. That being said, I can't in good faith back him with any kind of support until he goes away and does some hard work on himself. Looking at yourself is terrifying, but necessary. So what I will lend my support to at any point with him, it would be that.

How many times is he going to throw Nick under the bus? Leave the poor guy alone!

Shattered Glass was about someone that was making things up and passing them off as fact. He was basically a fiction writer all along. The skill James has developed of plagiarizing other peoples work is less transferable.

His story regarding his mom's life changed. I first donated to him in response to that news and then he said that she hadn't reported a previous bout of depression that was in remission so now I'm doubting that too. What he needs to do is exactly what Harry asked him to do: Help identify his victims so they can be added to the list

I appreciate how even-handed you and Jease have been about this, but my last ex was sociopathic and Somerton rings my BS bell big-time in these apologies.