Please disregard that I was bamboozled into thinking this man’s name is Harris, even in other videos people call him that. Anyways I got dooped - I wasn’t lying when I said I have no idea who this guy is 😭. Will remember that this man is actually Harry from now on 🫡
It's a fair mistake. A lot of articles call him that when he calls himself "Harris Bomberguy" when Harris is just a combination of his first and last names, Harry Brewis.
I thought it was Harris but _alt_ Harry, like D¡ck/Richard, Bob/Robert, & some vexing ones I can't remember atm. Little Joel's "No, James!" video is short but he put that out within an hour or 2 of James' video and the insightful & relevant comments about James continue there. I strongly recommend for the (at least at the time) pretty solid chatter. Cos Jimmy's (oh, another one) "apology" video was up barely *3* hours when he nuked it - not 1 hour after Little Joel's - and with it, all the well-thought-out comments it had went to oblivion with it. Though by that point, the "rude! He just got back from _hospital!"_ comments were starting & his most deluded fans were finally making it round to make weak "arguments" (was hardly his first tearful SI-baiting B.S.), but idk, I hope folks heeded my warning to save screenshots. I have the text of my comment, which included some JS quotes and responses. But fwiw, The Ace Couple's looong pod from a day or a few after the Hbomberguy video was illuminating. I wish there was an edited (shorter) version, but they get to it, & include receipts. And fwiw, I feel like Harry/Harris was talking about "reaction content" like Bowblax & other such (imo) low-effort reactionary (& usually regressive) type of stuff. But I hadn't noticed that he'd used iNabber in his example, and that's harsh, especially cos some people even noted that "idea laundering" - oh wait, this time it was "human centipeded" - that crediting issue. I.e. crediting to Illuminaughtii LLC, Blair herself [despite her avoiding showing the video cos you saw the hburgerguy video], or crediting other CCs cos of clear awareness among the good ones like iNabber & that. Sorry that was a mess, but that's my brain now. I do very much appreciate the video, Miss Mika! Fantastic, as ever.
i’m so glad you mentioned the idea that credit alone doesn’t make it not plagiarism. especially in the content world, i’m there for analysis. if you’re just reciting a ton of stuff other people said (even with credit), if you don’t add onto it and make it your own then you just don’t have a complete product
Yes! I hate how so many people are boiling the issue down to "no proper credit" while like, stealing stuff and telling people where you stole it from don't make that not stealing. Like what? If your "work" is 90% citations, even if properly credited, it's still not your work.
@f1mbultyr Precisely! It would be let's say...not the best show of "academic honesty" I think maybe the whole "no citation will automatically result in____" or be considered plagiarism as some professors have told me. But, I think, some profs have done that because it gets too complicated to explain it all lol XD
Yes, he fails to realise that copying it word for word and citing it as a source is still stealing...if he cited it as where got his information from and used said information in his own written words, thats fine! Thats what genuine video essayists do!
I remember the biggest hurdle in college was transitioning to not only properly citing but being able to express your knowledge on a subject. One of my professors said that these paper formats are teaching us to speak from a place of authority and to collaborate with other professionals in our field. This professor, and a few others in the same college, often would discuss cases where bipoc and women's contributions to the field were uncredited and/or outright stolen. It is why James Somerton's plagiarism really hits different. I didn't watch his content religiously but when I did, there was lots of misinformation or bad correlations presented as fact. The Todd in the Shadows video fact checking him brings up some even more concerning misinformation about the Nazis Somerton presented in his videos. The combination of minfo and plagiarism revealed through those videos is extremely shocking but also is something I have seen reviewing papers when I worked at the writing lab. Also, I am on team "you don't need big words to sound smart and sometimes it is harder to simplify a thought."
Yeah I feel like in the academic world the work you reference is the foundation for your analysis. You can’t build a house off of no foundation, but if you just copy/rephrase the foundation you didn’t build a house. Does that analogy make sense? No clue
For my undergrad program our final project *had* to be built off primary sources, we could of course use secondary academic sources but our projects weren't even considered viable unless we were able to construct an argument about the primary sources that didn't yet exist in other secondary sources (or if someone was doing a topic that has already been intensely studied, they had to be in conversation with other academia in a unique way). Reading academic arguments, understanding and presenting academic arguments, and making your own academic arguments are 3 different skills and you have to be able to do all of them for your final work to be meaningful (Edit: I am very much not in the stem field in or out of school but stem is the exact same way no? Academic research is pretty standard across all fields in a lot of basic mechanical ways, and I think sometimes people forget this about humanities/social sciences. Like I think people like James Somerton assume if you read enough "smart" material and are able to regurgitate it, that makes you "smart" too, when in reality social sciences like history are built off hypothesis and research just like any other science. If you have nothing new to say, or if anything new you say is bad-faith and nonsensical, what are you even doing?)
@@manic_girl Make sense to me :) Creating your own analysis and opinions has to start from somewhere, but you have to add yourself to it. Especially because the variety of new opinions can lead to new discoveries.
@@greenonionbabey I am currently on medical leave from school but yes, the humanities and stem are more similar than people think. Sociology/psychology/anthropology/even art are built off of the knowledge and techniques are a collaborations of people of all levels. One thing that really irked me while listening to Somerton's videos was he often would have an authority to his voice, but when listening to some of his points they were so flimsy. One of his videos I watched was the Killing Stalking one where he didn't really back up his statement about "(straight) men don't wanna read a book about a gay, gays don't wanna read a (straight) women don't a book about a gay...unless it is romance" with any evidence of those claims? And it also played into the whole women only read romance stereotype. Like I am not discounting that straight women do fetishize gay men in fandom spaces, but often times queer stories can be a gateway to experiences a person can learn to empathize with. Heck, lots of women I knew who were 'fujoshis' later were queer or are stanch allies to the queer community. Heck, my straight male roommate loves to watch tons of gay media like John Water's filmography or the biopic of a certain nsfw gay artist and I am sure he isn't the only one. While those are anecdotal examples on my part, there is a ton of research and historic records of individuals and groups of heterosexual cis men and women being in queer circles and enjoying queer creations. tdlr; James Somerton needs citations LOL
"You don't need big words to sound smart and sometimes it's harder to simplify a thought." Philosopher Byung-chul Han enters the chat. The dude is known for and a master at how condensed his writing is in terms of simplicity, with some people literally highlighting the entire text in their Kindle. Which is a sharp contrast to German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who in addition to being an open supporter of the Nazi Party during WWII and being unrepentant of it after WWII, is also known for his obscure and opaque writing style. Simplicity is best.
Around 37:00, I have to disagree with you here. HBomber’s point wasn’t that the drama channels weren’t crediting him, it’s that they weren’t showing the original source of the documentary in question being from Brian Deer. It’s the whole thesis he had with James Somerton not crediting the queer authors he stole from.
and also Brain Deer's continuous problem with not getting credit for the work that exposed why mainstream anti-vaxx conspiracy theory was started in the first place, and threatened his livelihood when dandy wafefield got litigious about his sleuthing
First of all, he does explicitly say that the drama videos credit each other and not him, even though the ones he showed did. Sure, he then says that Deer should get the credit, but that's not how crediting works. He made a transformative video comparing the documentary and the triangle woman's content, that is the original source. When you write an essay, you cite the book you read and not its sources because you never read them or they aren't even on the subject. Why on earth would they credit a piece of media they didn't interact with?
@@bean2046 Nevermind the fact that at least some of them (Vangelina, for instance) *DID* credit Brian Deer as well as H.Bomberguy! That was so maddening to me.
What drives me up a wall is somertons apology video was mainly him trying to rebrand his character or finding a way to restart his channel saying he could put videos back up and donate the income and credit sources in future videos. Like he completely dodged the sending hate to people for calling him out claiming they gave him death threats… it’s sad it took someone will millions of subs to put him in his place.
We don't really know if he did receive death threats. Several things can be true at once, Somerton can be an unrepentant plagiarist, and homophobic people might have sent him death threats in response to some of the previous accusations of plagiarism. Some of the things HBomberguy clearly says aren't proven, are now being presented as undisputed facts.
This may have already been mentioned by others, but when it comes to the "drama channel" thing, I think you and hbomb are just coming at it from very different perspectives/experiences. What you're saying about commentary bros directing that term at mostly fem-presenting & queer people, you're totally right. But the majority of people he showed as examples of the drama community were masc men, some of which are (from what I can tell) in the same community as those misogynistic commentary bros. I totally get what you're saying, but when I see that part of hbomb's video, I interpret it as him mostly calling out a very specific part of the drama community - the ones who try to get information out as soon as possible without much research, don't really care about not harming people or spreading false rumors, and just want to make money. I don't think channels like yours, who actually take the time to do research + add actual helpful/interesting analysis about drama topics would be lumped into that. He definitely could've been more specific, but I think he's just not well-versed in how diverse the modern drama community is. It used to be dominated by men like Keemstar. I could be wrong though, and I still think your criticism is fair! Just another perspective I wanted to put out there as someone who's watched him/creators in his community for years and might have some insight 😅
You’re not wrong for the most. I listened to the video minimum seven times now. The point was that they were not actually crediting sources. His example was people crediting him for the footage from Brian Deer’s documentary, and then even that got lost. Yes, he made the montage. But that then evolved into one drama channel crediting another drama channel even though it was still from the documentary and/or his reel.
And he’s right. I watch a few drama youtubers. They have so many videos on the DAILY. They offer some good insights and comments- but a lot of time they didn’t even lookup who are the people in the video that they’re commenting on
related to james, "the ace couple" has a good podcast episode highlighting how james scammed them out of $1500 CA and has had a repeated pattern of behavior in regards to deflecting criticism and weaponizing his larger audience against people who call him out both politely AND in good faith. james' "apology" is hysterically laughable; like bro pulled a laura lee and wiped away tears that weren't even there XD edit: 1:12:02 OH MY GOD that "i want to give money to the people i plagiarized" is 100% performative as HELL
I also think that ace couple podcast episode really highlighted what Jessie Gender was talking about and him not being in community with other creators.
Yes! I never heard of James until the HBomberguy video, but I ended up going down the rabbit hole after and saw their video, too. It's WILD how much shit James got away with!
Wow Somerton even blames the audience in his "apology". They HAD to make videos they didn't want to make because the fans kept requesting them. Why would you throw your own fans under the bus as a defense to plagiarism... TO YOUR FANS!?!
Illuminaughti and Somertons editing is not that impressive when you consider that the editing was also stolen from other creators. I was so impressed with illuminaghti’s editing until HBomberguy made me realize she was literally just reposting documentaries from Hulu. 😂
I would add that their editing isnt stolen so much as it was never theirs to begin with. I believe it was legal eagle who went into it but he and blair use the same editing software and that software uses plug-ins made by others and put out often for free. So blair tried to copyright claim a editing technique that she herself never owned. LE editor who asked Blairs editor about the thing actively mentioned that they could go and look for the plug-in themself but figured it'd be faster to just ask a fellow editor. Which is true and absolutely not offensive. As for Somerton... if he used a similar editing system then I really dont know why in gods name he didnt just edit his videos and transitions differently... (hes a plagiarist and lazy we know why)
@@sylas3265 no im talking about the editing. Like the way shots are composed together. Both Blair and Somerton just took pieces of other peoples work and put it in their videos. Like compilations that were created by someone else or parts of actual documentaries straight from the source. Blair took large sections of documentaries and put a filter on it and thats it. Hbomber goes into this pretty thoroughly. They werent just plagiarizing words but video too.
@@sylas3265 i meant the editing. I thought it was impressive until i realized that the editors were employed by Hulu and had nothing to do with her. Somerton stole entire compilations with impressive editing from other creators too.
37:57 I don’t think his discussion of what happened to his tweet is a vendetta thing or even disconnected from his discussion of plagiarism. A big part of that discussion is basically data rot where it becomes more and more difficult to trace the conversation or identify the original sources so you can review research, reproduce it, or begin your own. In academia it could be like using a (Smith qtd. Frank 12) citation. It’s totally ok, it is traceable, but by pulling on someone else’s framing of that original source, you’re losing all the other context around it and relying entirely on their read of it. The issue in social media spaces is that no one goes back to that original source to quote it, they just keep quoting each other so it’s (Smith qtd Frank) -> (Smith qtd James) -> (Smith qtd Darren) So while it’s not plagiarism, it can lead to a similar loss of context, loss of voice, and loss of reproducibility.
@@meow.4972I remember seeing a really big sign in the window of a musical instrument store that was just like foot tall bright red letters saying “WE HAVE UKES!” To show they had ukuleles in stock
A bit of context that might be helpful: Harry calls various sections of TH-cam "the worst section of TH-cam" in his videos. I think its just a running joke on his channel at this point 😅
It is. i have started watching him since this video amd he does it a lot. most often aimed at himself. but this is what happens when you judge a creator without additional context. It would be like judging a book with social commentary without knowing any background on the author- a thing we were specifically taught not to do in high school because that way we miss most of the content. But even inside this one video they somehow missed that he also considered some video essay channels being content mills and this one video being a drama video.
47:43 the point you make here is so odd because Blaire does not have a small channel. She could make one video a month and actually put in the work and her channel would still be fine. And as Im typing this you’re actually saying the same thing lol The internet historian plagiarism wasnt niche. He plagiarized an entire article and added imagery to it. He literally just read the article word for word for his video with no citation at all.
Regarding Harris's criticism of drama TH-cam--I haven't seen your video on iilluminaughtii so I can't speak to how you approached it, but the way I internalized it was that he was speaking in generalizations about a thing that happens very commonly in drama TH-cam, though not all drama videos act that way. I certainly watched a lot of channels that I thought were very informative...and yet I also saw the ones that had done so little research that even the information they were going over they were getting wrong, because they were doing more of a react video than a research/commentary video and not paying enough attention to the information in front of them. That said, I don't blame you at all for being hurt by it--as a person who watches a lot of drama TH-cam, I felt a bit called out. Part of why I came around on that statement was because I watched Demon Mama's reaction to the plagiarism video, and for context, she had also been my favorite iilluminaughtii commentary channel, through whom I felt I got a grasp on the situation as it was unfolding after having watched several others whom I felt, despite not having a great grasp on the situation myself, did not really understand that situation that well either. The way she took the comment, reflected on her own content, then concluded that no, she did her research, so his comment was not about her, made me feel a lot better. And to Harris's credit, though at the time I had not watched any of his videos so I had no personal attachment to him specifically, in those early days when I was scouring drama TH-cam for someone to explain to me what was going on without confusing me further, I was using the way they talked about what went down on Twitter, including Hbomb's clip, as a metric for how reliable their takes might be. I get that there are a lot of drama youtubers who put in time and effort, but there really are a bunch of channels that don't understand the situations they are talking about, and as a result end up creating more misinformation for those of us trying to get caught up to try to weed through. My take comes from a consumer of drama TH-cam who prefers the higher quality stuff though, not a creator of those types of video, so I am definitely coming at it from a different angle. Regarding the question of that comment "you could only make a video a month, or a video a year" thing--I get where you're coming from, but I don't think he was speaking to youtubers in general, but rather making a rhetorical point about the sort of content that people like iilluminaughtii and somerton put out, which requires *way* more time to research than they have on their upload schedule, which is probably in a nutshell why they felt they "had" to plagiarize. They could also have changed their content style to be less documentary-adjacent and more opinion-based, of course; and there is definitely a dialogue to be had about the way youtube's current system incentivizes creators to prioritize high content output over quality or ethics. I hope this made sense. Love your call-out of the way Somerton clearly tries to deflect blame onto Nick while saying he's not in that apology video! :D
the "you could only make a video a month, or a video a year" comment was a in-joke and a self own because Hbomberguy is famous for dropping a banger video and then coming back literally a year later to do another lol
Just want to point out that the issue with hbomb talking about drama channels is more that there's an abundance of them lazily reading tweets and not really doing anything with them, and not channels that are actually investigating and collecting information to talk about or present to other people. He wasn't saying every drama channel is trash, he was saying it's a genre plagued with content mills.
I still disagree. I do think it’s lazy to credit blowblax instead of the original video, using the example in the original video. it’s like drama channels putting their watermark on a video released by tmz that’s still up. it’s one thing if the video is completely gone and now your version is the only archive. and I don’t think you need to take personal offense to that being called lazy. it may not be an entire plagiarized script, but it is irresponsible and worthy of criticism. I don’t know why this is the hill to die on. now I do agree with everything you said about how he shouldn’t have used inabber and vangelina as examples. I also think that’s lazy on his end and worthy of criticism. edt: one more thing. again. you’re taking things personally and it’s affecting your analysis in my opinion. he’s clearly talking about blaire’s upload schedule because of the plagiarism. where did he say all channels need to upload less? that’s not what the point of that was at all, and I think that was pretty clear.
1:13 Excited to see your commentary on this! Im a big fan of Hbomb (4+ yrs), and regardless of the masses upset during stream (?), i think Harris would love to hear any critique given in good faith- which i believe you will do like always. Your degrees arent the only thing that shows the world your intelligence, the way you say stuff is always enlightening and nuanced. I rly hope he sees this !! Melding of the minds or something :D
true😂 he does repeat a lot. but it’s good for putting things back into context. and he does do his own research and adds new points and perspectives. so he gets a pass imo
Ya I stopped watching him for that reason plus he waits until several creators have posted then just consolidates their clips. He has no actual talent.
Your video did not disappoint. Amazing work, as always. I would like to also add that that I'm so happy to be learning from your content. I noticed James' overuse of "lazy" and "he didn't know" to how he used to talk about these alligations while watching the apology. Thank you so much for your work.
I think part of the problem is that you are taking things personally - that are not really aimed at you. I like your channel and I enjoy your videos. But it’s the same when people complain about racist things white people do. If you aren’t doing it then you don’t need to take the the complaint personally. From my point of view, iNabber and some drama channels like him often slip into gossip, projection and unethical behavior. But think about your own rhetoric here when Harris says it’s better to make one good video a month rather than 3 videos a week. He is not talking about small channels. He is talking about massive plagiarist channels. So your complaint kind of twists the intention of his comment and centers it on overly defending yourself. The rest of the video is great and your make up is lovely.
I agree here, but on the note of inabber he recently uploaded a 5+ hour video on the whole 8 passengers/ Ruby Franke thing and in the 45min I've watched he says their last name wrong the whole time. You would think that having done as much research as he must have for that video he would have heard their last name pronounced correctly. It might not be the biggest to some but it really irks me.
@@syd_zI haven't watched iNabber in years, so I can't speak to his current content, but from what I remember, it was not a beacon of great research. very interesting to see people going to bat for him and speaking highly of his content (not that i hate him or anything!)
As a fan of drama content, I have to disagree. I watched Harris' video, and I loved it, but I was really disappointed by him shutting on drama content. I think this is because when you're critiquing the content, you're also critiquing the people who watch that content. Being told that the content I like to watch is "lazy" or "bottom of the barrel" hurts because I like the content. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own perceptions, but I think that demonizing an entire genre of TH-cam video took away from the premise
@@syd_z I think a lot of people see a long ahh video "essay" with flashy editing and believe that the research must be top tier as well. I've watched iNabber occasionally and after a while it got really stale. He fills most of the 4-5 hours with repetitious rants on how "awful" and "gross" a situation is (esp during the Colleen situation).
Glancing over the Internet historian thing without the context was absolutely aggravating he literally used the article as a script. That is rather clear and think that's why it was placed before James video section All his 4chan and nazi racist stuff is just another aggravating thing that came out... That's that side.
Idk, I do wish you would've delved more into the Internet Historian debacle, it wasn't that niche of a controversy and it sparked quite a few conversations where his fans were basically claiming that, because the author of the original article hadn't intended for it to be anything other than an article, IH's video was transformative enough (dumb I know, but you'd be surprised how many of them still have this take on the whole issue).
the fact that the whole internet historian thing got brushed off by everyone is crazy because his fans imo are some of the most dangerous out of all the people Hbomberguy talked about
@@MikasRhetoric i'm sorry you've been anxious about this!! i hate the part of internet culture that takes good faith critiques as someone hating the entirety of something and people getting immediately defensive over it. me personally, i understood the critique you were making in the stream clearly!
For a good few minutes I thought I didn't see the stream. But then I realised that I did. It was very frustrating. I'm a fan of HBomb, to the point that if I had to list my favourite TH-camrs, he would definitely be on that list. People in the chat wouldn't even let Mika finish before trying to make a counterpoint. If they let her finish, and had some thoughts, or context that they thought might make her see it from another perspective, they could have waited, and then said their piece. But even then, if whatever they had to say didn't change Mika's view at all, that's fine. There's TH-camrs who I religiously watch, who I disagree with on a lot of opinions, or I'll think they were missing information that could have changed a conclusion they stated, and I've even been somewhat, I don't know if disappointed is the right word, or if someone who makes content I enjoy is clearly biased about a topic in a way that maybe appears to be entirely due to their own personal involvement in the situation, depending on the issue at hand I can accept that these creators are ultimately just human. I don't need to be 100% behind every single statement a creator I follow makes. In fact it's nice to hear different viewpoints from someone who I enjoy, generally agree a lot with, and/or respect. Just as I would with people I'm close to in real life. I've also managed to get people I know in real life think about things differently. They might not end up in complete agreement with me on that or any other topic. So what's kinda sad to me, is that by being hasty, defensive, arguing against a point they haven't even heard in entirety (making comments about something before listening to everything being said about it in a livestream feels similar to talking over someone in a real conversation), and they're doing this "in defence" of a creator they are a fan of... What are they hoping to achieve with this? They're not going to make people want to check out the creator. Like, if I was doing a livestream and I had a mild criticism of a video from a TH-camr who I hadn't seen much/any videos from, and a bunch of people in chat started arguing before I'd even got partway through what I was saying, I'd be put off from wanting to watch more of the creator they were trying to defend... Like... What are you trying to achieve?!
To talk about Harris's points on drama channels: I like half agreed with him, mainly because I also am someone who watches both his kind of content and drama/commentary channels. During the illuminaughtii drama, I remember the TH-cam algorithm flooding me with half baked commentary on the situation that was just clearly capitalizing on her downfall. A lot of smaller channels were making "slop" ( as Harris would put it) that was just regurgitating the same talking points and even down to the same opinions as other people. I would agree to some sense that drama content is content-milly, but it's only because smaller people are trying to capitalize on the drama of the week in the most lazy way possible. On the other hand; I didn't like his examples he showed. I think showing bowblax mainly was very disingenuous, considering his content isn't about the drama entirely, but showcasing reactions on Twitter and archiving them. I see his content as a useful resource on seeing what's going on during a situation rather than just regurgitating talking points. So I had mixed feelings on his points there when initially watching the video. It did seem petty lol
Bowblax is actually a better example of a content mill drama channel. Browsing through Twitter and narrating people’s reactions to the drama-of-the-week is incredibly easy to do, and is why Bowblax is able to make so many videos. It’s quite literally regurgitating talking points and opinions. Even his longer videos on subjects suffer from the Mauler Effect, where they aren’t long because they’re in depth, but rather because they have so much padding. That doesn’t mean Bowblax’s fans are bad people for liking his content (like you said, it still does have value for documenting reactions to a situation as they’re happening), but they also need to reflect on why Hbomb thinks he’s a content mill
@cito7288 I mean yeah I can agree Bowblax's content isn't high quality and he outputs videos frequently. Drama content can easily fall into the content mill category and I do agree with him there. It just felt a bit disingenuous to include him considering his content is about documentation on said drama rather than giving his full opinion. Sure it's easy to just read tweets, but like that app is a hellscape and I'd rather have someone else gather the top tweets on a topic than me try to figure out what's going on in a trending hashtag. To include him in the talk with other drama channels felt a bit weird considering he's usually used as a source to gather tweets to make it easier to have that information in one spot. Twitter is notorious for being terrible to navigate, people delete tweets constantly, and the app overall just sucks lol I'm not even a fan of bowblax, I just understand what his content is really for 🤷♂️ just because he's making a lot of videos because it's easy content to make doesn't entirely make it a content mill. If that's the case a lot of the commentary community could be considered content mills because they upload content daily or every other day. Not all content needs to be high effort, and that's okay. But that's just my opinion lol
@@sorashiunin5287 I guess Hbomb’s perspective on things comes from how he grew his channel compared to what he deems as “content mills”. He didn’t pump out videos regularly for the sake of retaining engagement, he made whatever videos whenever he wanted to, didn’t fit into strict categories, and also prioritized quality over quantity. He just got very lucky doing so. This was also an era of YT where making quick low-quality content was more frowned upon (think of how much reaction channels got shit on). Now routine content is the norm thanks to the algorithm getting so much worse over time, and as Hbomb points out, this leads to newer channels pumping out low-quality videos, and allowing plagiarists to thrive. I understand that TH-camrs will do what they gotta do to put food on the table, but I don’t respect the culture you’re defending, especially when it comes to topics where getting accurate information is essential.
I'm really looking forward to this. I love your takes, especially in these sort of situations. Didn't watch the stream, but did pick on the fact that the reactions weren't that great from the comments. I loved Hbomber's video (I used to be subscribed to james so realising the kind of content creator he was really hit me like a train), but everything before "the twist" sort of faded into the background for me. I'll say this much, as a casual viewer of creators like inabber and vangelina, I see the work they put in and I wouldn't call them "content mills". On the other hand, living w my sister who detests "drama" content I can see why someone would, looking from the outside, label the entire genre on YT a content mill. Not all "drama" creators do sloppy work and generalising it like that really minimalises the work they do.
Jeje as the gossiping bitch i am, ill give you some context. There was some criticism made to the hbomber guy regarding an opinion he shared on his video about plagiarism. The exact quote i dont remember, but something about content farms being the literal worst, in a very "blanket statement" way. The criticism was in disagreement with that opinion. This criticism was not well received by some chat members, there were no personal attacks or insults, and overall the problem was that some people took it way to personal and got a little heated trying to defend hbomber guy. Overall misunderstandings and maybe too much passion sometimes, but all in all even though some (egos? people?emotions?) Feelings were a little bruised. At the end the situation calmed down a bit and over all massive props to all the conflict mediators on that chat, because i thought it was handled quite maturely all things considered.
The thing I found extra annoying about Harry using a clip of Vangelina's video is...she *did* credit Hbomb's tweet re:his edit of 'Deer v Blair', & mentioned that Blair had stolen it from Deer's doc! She *does* do the research & gives credit & I don't feel like she pumps out nonsensical videos willy-nilly for the *sole* purpose of keeping up with the algorithm. 🤷🏻♀
@@brendaleelydon Except, for the case of Blair, as he explained in the video, it's not just about crediting. She straight up copies everything from the documentaries she sees, quote by quote. That's not research, that's just copying someone's homework and saying you "took inspiration". If not, look at the comparisons Hbomb made.
@@dantemaquiavelli9039 I was talking about Vangelina Skov. We are all aware of what a shite "documentarian" Blair is (in addition to apparently just being a shite person in general).
48:29 I think you pointed out a major Blindspot for Hbomberguy here. And i say this as someone who loves his content. Harris started gaining popularity on TH-cam in 2015/2016, when TH-cam was a VERY different place. I'm willing to bet that Hbomberguy genuinely has no frame of reference for what it means to survive on TH-cam in 2023.
I think regarding the drama channel stuff, a) I think Harry’s point was simply that a lot of these never played the actual clip from twitter that gave credit to Deer and thus erased him as well, b) a lot of people who’s content is „drama“ related took it as a personal attack on the quality of their work when I personally didn’t think that was meant and c)it’s hard to have a nuanced discussion here. There are certainly channels that feel well researched and that use their videos to either really dive into details (some people could be detectives!) and find stuff themselves, or use a broader summary to say something of substance about the problem at hand (ruby franke -> the evils of family channels in general etc) and that FEEL more like they have purpose or at least there was work put into it. But a lot of channels BLAST out very short videos every couple of days just rehashing what happened, kind of like that banner running on a news channel. That’s useful in a way, but there is a threshold to when it starts feeling like klickfarming. It’s kind of the same like with newspapers, everyone is reporting on the same story, but it feels like the quality is different, with the latter sort feeling like The Sun. I mean, H himself kinda falls in the first category, sleuthing and talking about drama, connecting it to a bigger topic. And I didn’t understand it as him looking down on „lesser“ content but simply saying the crediting issue is widespread on YT because a lot of people make fast content they don’t think is serious enough to need proper credit, which lends itself as a breeding ground for people like James and Blair.
Recently watched a video by a youtuber I love where they said that nobody looks at their sources so they aren't going to bother with making them anymore. It feels weird especially since the video is after this whole debacle. Like I don't think anyone is ever going to look at my papers besides my profs but I still work hard to source them? It feels irresponsible and they talk about issues surrounding race, so you Know some people will be requesting sources if it ends up on the wrong side of YT?!?
Cinemassacre's/AVGN's problem was that there are only so many entertainingly bad NES videogames. Gradually moving on to different kinds of content was a solid idea, but he chose... err... exactly the wrong people to help him with that.
@@MikasRhetoric Mendely makes it super easy to execute even with multiple citations, and to me a sexy little number doesn't interrupt the flow of reading as much as clunky brackets. But I will confesse I only write arts essays, so I can't in good faith say Chicago is always 1# sexy cute elegant classy.
Quick note - hbomb's name is actually Harry Brewis, he identified himself as Harris as a joke a couple of times and it stuck. Good job so far otherwise!
Funnily enough, if James Somerton had watched hbomberguy's video, he might've reworded his "apology" video to use a lot less passive voice than he did. "I want to become a really good example of properly citing your sources." Oh, Jimmy, Hbomb already took care of that for you. You're already there. 😂
I just want to offer an alternative view to your criticism of upload less not being financially viable. It is a valid point, however it only further proves the point that when you make content for views you end up in the cycle that leads to creating pointless videos. It's great that you have found a balance to upload consistently and do so without it having a negative impact on your content. However the problem is not going to be solved by defending peoples needs to upload, rather that in the competition of TH-cam content creators that are raised up and get the most attention are the ones that are able to do this, and thereby only serving positive reinforcement for creating videos for the sake of just rather than because you have something to say. The answer is in the system itself and how to change it so that content creators can create and get paid properly. So, all that to say that capitalism is the problem and that will not be solved if good creators such as yourself make content because of views.
I think that this is also true and insightful. I do however think that for many, videos are so cumbersome to make that if you aren’t uploading consistently and no one watches it, they become debilitated. It’s not just a money thing, it’s when you want to share something and no one’s watching that also hurts some to a certain degree. I do agree with you though
Yeah I didn't think about it in the context of just not getting engagement I agree with your point for sure and its difficult to find the balanced answered. I have been thinking a lot about how some of these issues are also created because there isn't enough value in the community itself in how good content is made. For example the Filip guys actual interest seemed to be making aesthetically pleasing videos, and how it never occurred to him to edit for someone who had something interesting to say, and who wanted aesthetically pleasing videos. He was offered a job with a publisher to write videos at a big company, I think its weird at this point that he didn't use the clout he had built up to pitch work in editing or design instead. There are skills that some of these people had they just didn't value other people's skills enough (like research or script writing) to put those to good use.
I love how Somerton will blame the Patreon subs for doing videos he supposedly didn’t like and wasn’t that interested in yet still begs them for money in the last five minutes of the video. And it’s no small potatoes either….his “studio head” 100 dollar level had a requirement of subbing for three months before one could request a video. And that’s like….the bare minimum. There were people who probably paid more but that’s the floor. And he throws them all under the fucking bus too along with Nick and everyone else. I mean, if not for the Colleen Ballenger video, this would’ve been in the running for the worst “apology” video of 2023.
@@Stitchers_Whimsy I think you’re right bc when I went to check out his Patreon after his boohooing a few months ago and there was no $1 or even $5 option.
I'm just starting my undergrad as an English major, and it is so nice to hear you mention Burke and contextualize his ideas in a forum outside of the classroom. You have found such a cool academic niche!
As someone who deeply appreciated hbomb's video but had some issues with how he used bottom of the barrel react content to condemn the entire genre, I'm looking forward to hearing some good faith criticism! Fans' refusal to engage critically with videos facilitates the kind of reflexively-defensive echo chambers that Somerton thrived in.
Yeah I'm there with you, I watch a lot of commentary because it helps me sit with material and process (also bc im very autistic so it helps me see sides) so seeing him drag ALL commentary as being low hanging fruit I'm looking at channels like Swoop who.. Do so much work to get it right.
if u mean the chair react meme about hasan, he asked hasan (and was in chat when hasan reacted to parts of the video) so i think he was more tongue in cheek than people took him to be
Yeah I’m a fan of his and while I didn’t catch that exact joke, I read it more about critiquing commentary channels not properly citing sources/doing enough research. Since he talks specifically about how his little clip he made for Iilluminautii (?) was cited as other people’s video. It felt like a “hey, you could do better here” BUT I also see why it was read negatively.
I think it sounds defensive of you to disagree about the drama channels section lol. How hard is it to search for the original tweet, click on it to see its a creator, and credit it? It's just lazy and speaks of rushed videos to jump on money that everyone else has already done
I don't think it's lazy, it is much more sinister. It's envy and the evil eye at play. They see a piece they like but instead of merely enjoying it, they have to claim it as theirs.
The long awaited!!!!!! I usually feel guilty about schadenfreude but Illuninaughti accusing Legal Eagle's editors of copying her channel being the straw that broke that particular back will never stop amusing me. We Canadians call it "an own goal", in hockey, I believe.
Hbomberguy's name is actually Harry but he calls himself Harris as bit. Even the news called him Harris too so I'm not shading you. 😅 Oh and the journalist Jason Schreier is way more popular than Philip Mnucin so him accusing schreier of being a clout chaser is extra funny.
I mean... A lot of those drama channels are super super shit. I wouldn't put inabber in that group of shit coverage, but there are certainly far too many who do recycle content and jump on things cause it's trending.
I do think there's a spectrum from "drama" to "commentary," where at one end of the spectrum it's pure low-effort slop and at the other end it's well researched and provides thoughtful analysis.
You're doing awesome, Mika! So proud of you for putting out content even if it's risky, but I know how scary that can be. I see your name being mentioned among other creators as a quality commentary channel and it makes me feel so proud of how far you've come on TH-cam.
You really hit on something with the fact that Somerton dressing himself in the aesthetics of queer youtube lent him credibility. The impersonation fit right into the space, so I didn't notice the much poorer quality until H.bombs video. I gave up watching him because the misogynistic rhetoric pissed me off and I could tell his actual essays were lackluster, but the hollowness of the aesthetics and presentation didn't sink in.
I’m glad you touched on him saying they made videos they didn’t want to make because blaming his actions on his audience is one of the grossest things I’ve ever heard
My impression of how HBomber related content mills was that these channels are trying to raise profit/ minimize labor, and so does plagiarized content. Not sure if I agree 💯, but I can see the connection clearly.
38:32 quick note on this small section about the whole “not everyone knows who you are” & tweet credit. Maybe i am misunerstanding- but Harry seemed more upset that Blair was stealing from the original journalist’s documentary (the vaccine one) & not the one Harry made himself. I can’t personally recall him being upset that she stole from his video essay exactly. I could be wrong on that point, but Harry admits to being petty about a few things from the start of the essay xD- so i think it could be more of a tone thing for the vid. In reguards to the topic of drama channels using screen grabs of tweets from other drama videos, i took this as an example of exactly how lazy some channels can be, because when he finally gets to James he touches on the laziness of his scripts- so this portion may be a touchpoint to reflect back on and emphasize that James is doing literally all of them things everyone he mentioned previously was doing. If that makes sense? But i do get yah, weak evidence is a massive pet peeve of mine. Don’t leave something in if it is just “adding” to your argument. Leave it in if it adds well to the argument.
what was confirmed though is that majority of people who consume videos that talk about gay representation in media, or at least watch Somerton don't read books and articles about gay representation. They're not active, just reactive and if the videos didn't exist in youtube they'd never look for it.
I’m really glad you spoke about this video because plagiarism is such an important topic in writing academic papers. Also, your makeup absolutely slays, the white eyeliner really compliments your eye shape!
i've been a fan of hbomb's essays for years now. i def agree with your critique of his section on drama channels - especially in regards to iNabber and VangelinaSkov. from what i've watched, their videos are quite well-researched and his comment about "one video a month" towards Blair applies to iNabber at this point! so calling him a content mill feels particularly wrong in context. to be fair to him, i also think it's inevitable, in a 4-hour video, to miss the mark on something. that doesn't make him immune to criticism, though, so i'm glad you voiced yours! great video as always 🥰 EDIT: please read faith7750's reply to this comment re: Vangelina Skov's content about DID
I feel like everything besides the james somerton stuff was kinda "filler". More there for the pacing and overall narrative than because of genuine issue with those creators in particular (with Blair getting an extra call out video actually focused on her slightly later because focusing on her too much just didn't really fit with the cinematic vision of the 4 hour video)
Not trying to be rude or anything but Vangelina has butted her nose into a lot of discourse about disorders she doesn't have and doesn't experience and it has personally caused those communities great pain. I absolutely can't see how her milking the drama of people with DID for money for like a solid year, meddling in intercommunity discourse abt who is "valid enough to have DID" while not knowing anything about it to be remotely thought through. The bulk of her videos about people like us were really poorly researched. I get what you're saying about it being more nuanced and agree, but like Vangelina is not the example to use. I get people don't take harming my community that seriously and that you might not know about this or see how it harms us, but I really hope you'll consider how much this content hurts us before praising her content. Thanks for reading, just really felt I had to say this. Sensationalizing our mental illness is never ok. There is a reason other people with DID on youtube have called her a plague on the community. She has thankfully taken some of this down, but the bulk of it is still up.
I know nothing about iNabber, but I clicked on one of his videos about Ruby Franke and immediately clicked off because he mispronounces her name in the first line... Like I have no time for people who supposedly "research" but don't bother to listen to any primary sources (like Ruby's own videos where her name is clearly pronounced) 🙄 That makes it clear to me that a creator is just jumping on a band wagon for clicks and reading other people's opinions without doing the work themself.
Oh come on, those channels absolutely are just here for the drama and clicks - they’re literally the TH-cam equivalent of tabloids (actually probably a lot worse tbh since tabloids are normally more worried about getting sued). That doesn’t mean they’re not enjoyable bc people DO love drama, but I’m not going to pretend they’re not trashy
@@alexbennet4195 The issue is, nobody calls it "trashy" or any of that other stuff when breadtube video essayists do the exact same thing. In some ways a lot worse than your average commentary channel.. Even with multiple creators habitually targeting disabled people (often "not for being disabled ", but they never act mindfully of disability and tend to only acknowledge it far enough to scream "disability isn't an excuse to be/act disabled") and enabling their fanbase to do things like mock addiction and suicide and trying to trigger both over some of the most petty and trumped up drama. (Eg after she took down kiwifarms and did a lot to help trans youth, keffals was highly targeted by pretty much all of breadtube while the reactionaries are still going after her. Because "noddles are tasty" is the worst most egregious racism of all times and These People Need To Be Purged. So they literally don't care about aligning with those hate groups and campaigns targeting disability and transness to up the suicide numbers, because it's just what the breadtube crowd says gets them views these days. Hoots is a really easy example since her claims were so bad and so sensationally made up and ignorant/parroting the breadtube lines that she ended up apologizing to keffals in the end. But Jessie Gender is so bad that you can see a video from over a year ago where she defends keffals citing the reactionary desire to get leftists to join in the dog pile or at least leave her isolated. When she later joined in the same dog piling only 5 months ago by working with foreign man to pedo jacket her/mock her for being swatted while just lying and painting her like a terrible person that "uses addiction/autism as an excuse" when she's just being open about going to rehab and stuff like that. With absolutely 0 apology besides crying about how victimized she feels because some people said she doesn't care about trans suicide and that made her feel bad and is the real bullying uwu.. But yeah let her know if she messes up guys. She totally cares about accountability and all that) Simply because ableism isn't one of the trendy social justice causes so not worth giving any real thought beyond raging about the R word in particular (other medicalized slurs with eugenicist history like moron and idiot are totally fine tho. It's a deep and sincere concern for disabled people that makes them care so much about policing other people using that word in particular but never once questioning their own behavior, biases, or even why so many of their favorite insults reference disability in some way or another. Including neckbeard which is just woke for sperglord and puts more focus on struggles with ADLs and dyspraxia or even ftm gender transition/PCOS struggles more than just the aspie supremacist coded superiority complex of Elon musk types that tend to underline the sperglord subculture. But it doesn't reference a disability DIRECTLY so it's actually more PC to these leftists lmao) It's a huge double standard and it's hard to support the narratives surrounding both subcultures
tbh the outcome I like the most from hbomb's video is I've seen a number of channels who I knew to be decent or seemed to be decent already just...have a proactive think on plagiarism, their own practices, what they wanted to do with their own channels upon reflection, & have a conversation with their communities/fans about all of it, with many pledging to standards explicitly they felt had been implied or unclear prior. I think ultimately that happened with a lot of viewers too --- I know I gave it a lot of thought afterwards --- & the ethical ripples, for the better, will ripple onward, incalculably. I appreciate all the conversations that are just beginning bc of this work by HB + Todd & others (including/esp HB's beloved producer).
Hey Mika, enjoying the video so far, an appreciate the work you put in! Just want to mention 'Cinemassacre' is the production company made by 'James Rolfe' aka The Angry Video Game Nerd, his online alias. Cinemassacre is a collection of people over the years, AVGN is the individual. Appreciate all the effort put into your scripts, just something small I caught.
I understand your statement about smaller channels and how Harrys perspective may not encompass that but i also cant help but feel that you mentioning this did have a personal relevance to you also colors your look into the channels hes criticizing, I personally understand why the examples were included as ive watched both creators in the past and had my own criticisms of how they presented their findings as they still rely on that relatively quick news cycle even if they are doing “deep” dives into something. And the point about smaller channels rings somewhat off to me as at least of the channels i can recognize that he showed, all of them have a pretty solid follower base I understand that the twitter video may have seemed like not a huge point- and honestly i dont think Harry did either? the tone of that part of the video seemed honestly pretty clearly joking about the irony of the situation if not like. legit condemning these people for doing so. I may be wrong but im pretty sure he mentions the difference in actual severity/seriousness in the video. I always enjoy watching your videos, this included, and your points about illuminaughtii are very relevant. I just think the way that you discuss these aspects as weakening his presentation to the degree that you do may have a similar effect on the points youre trying to convey❤
ur commentary on hboms video is so refreshing! first vid of urs ive ever watched. essayist myself, n honestly didnt realize i had conflicting opinions with the “drama” channel shit until you explained it! i didnt rly think too much about it, compared to the other 3.5 hrs of the video lol, but i think there are numerous points to be made regarding that concept on youtube. sorry chat got to you lmfao as a twitch user ive been there, but trust me, your point was clear to me at least! happy to have found so many new channels thru all this, including urs :) also bc we r on the topic… your writing skills are so evident in your script this video was so engaging thank u thank u
i think sometimes people don't want to admit the content they watch is not extremely high quality. the channels i love range from ridiculously meticulously planned videos to just goofs and gaffs but they still are both fine to like. i think people take the criticism towards commentary and drama youtube a little harshly especially when you take a step back from the genre and see that a lot of channels do fall under those generalizations. nothing wrong with liking them, obviously.
I like the plagiarism video's structure a lot. The first example shows simple paraphrasing and the basic wording tricks when addressing the situation, the second one shows an actual version of a plagiarist co-author, the third one is about how a single resource can be presented to be as if from a multitude or from the authors themselves and the fourth one showed the deleting and reuploading pattern. All of these are basically to explain the various actions and responses of James Somerton. As someone that watched hbomberguy years before, this is a very atypical video for him, spending so much time to expose just one youtuber. He is one of the earlier leftist youtubers that did videos on pick-up-artist types years before, and more recently his antivaxx history video was basically one of the best documentary-style works on youtube. This video engaged a lot of new people to him.
Yes! I honestly never even heard of James Somerton until the HBomberguy video dropped, then I found the Timintheshadows (? Can't remember off the top of my head) and then I saw The Ace Couple's video about how they donated money and his obvious hate of ace people. As if his hate for so many other groups wasn't bad enough. And the way he played everything off as if he just let his co-writer take the wheel and as if James wasn't the one to write that stuff in his apology video... just... First of all, the bigotry and outright lies he did have in the videos weren't just sprinkled here and there. They weren't once in a while. They were everywhere, just based on what's come out since HBomberguy's video. Let's pretend he isn't lying and that he didn't write those things and those aren't actually his beliefs about ace people, trans people, white women, lesbians, "boring" gay men, etc. There's no way he doesn't watch the finished product before it's uploaded. There's no way you can hear those words and listen to the tone his says them in, and NOT know those are effed up things to say!! You can't not know those are bad things to say and believe about a group of people, unless those are his genuine beliefs. Or at the very least, his genuine stupidity. If he didn't at least agree with those things, he would have noticed they sounded bad and changed them or edited them out.
When James, in his apology ,sneered when he mentioned putting up his patreon so people could unsubscribe before the next billing month. That shone a huge light on his motives of his whole grift. All he cared about was money . He begged for money while buying expensive cameras and equipment. I really enjoyed his videos until the begging video then I started noticing his misogyny and i was out.
46:47 I had the same little twitch when he popped off on drama channels and im so relieved it wasnt just me. It just felt very dismissive of drama channels which already get a bad wrap for a one reason or another. I also agree that over all he did make really good points. Also I'm still working my way through your videos (in a very chaotic manner). So you'll prolly see more of my comments floating around.
commentary and drama are different commentary is talking about something that happened and adding your opinion drama is saying something happened for views eg sunnyv2
Not necessarily, I follow plenty of female commentarists and video essayists and depending on the topic they're covering and how much more information it's added to it, it can fall under either category. Same goes for male creators.
I'm really glad you stuck to your criticism re drama channels. I totally admit that section of hbomb's video totally snuck in for me, even though I sometimes watch vangelina and inabber and never found plagiarism problems with either of them. It's very fair and valid criticism and I'm glad you brought it to our attention. I had just seen praise for his video and I think 99% of it is absolutely warranted. Which is what makes your small criticism all the valuable and I super appreciate it. Thanks Mika 💙
I think the issue with the drama channel point is that he doesn't fully explain his point? I think there are drama channels that are content mills, but I also see why it got some people's hackles up because there may be some unspoken assumptions there? Like not all drama channels are content farms.
But also I'm a big fan of hbomberguy so I'm more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt there. So maybe I'm adding caveats that he didn't even intend to make.
This video shows that no video essayist is above criticism. While Hbomberguy's and Kat's video is superbly researched, excellently presented and largely important I also have some issues with his takes on minor, inconsequential things. I think he would do well to have you on his team.
I kind of wonder how much of the entirely wrong stuff was James' writing partner Nick. He did excuse himself from the whole thing by basically saying "I didn't plagiarize anything because I don't read or watch anything, everything I wrote was just based on assumptions and vibes" Of course, there's no reason to believe James does not have awful takes, bad recall and a general inability to express himself on top of stealing, but I'm very weary of accepting Nick's excuses/apology
Mika, i love your videos, but... u made a small mistake about a documentary which was plagirased by Blair. Its not an Andew Wakefield's film, it's an investigation ABOUT Wakefield, and its made by Brian Deer. maybe u meant that, but its not particulary clear :'з (maybe its my fault bc english is not my native language, so i misinterpreted ur words a little) anyway, tanks for ur input!!
Hi this is my first video of yours i watched and i really like your commentary! Hbomb is one of my fav youtubers, and honestly i think your criticism is very valid. I think drama youtubers is a very broad term and definitely not the same or a sub part of content mills. I watch drama youtubers pretty often and i watch commentary youtubers often. Because of that, i was able to tell very quickly when i was recommended illuminaughtlg endlessly for a week, that her content was content mill territory. i think he could of done a much better job clarifying the difference, or what can make a drama channel (or any channel like a review channel he mentioned) become a content mill and not have to bring down all drama channels in the process.
I don’t think your editing is bad at all! I feel like it’s appropriate for the type of videos you do!! Thanks for continuing to educate me w/ your awesome vids! 💗
I agree with you on HBomb lumping drama and commentary channels together a bit too much. Think maybe a lot of the out of touch place HBomb comes from is perhaps his own experience where he just initially made video essays and response videos to anti feminists cos he wanted to and happened to blow up and maybe that’s why he seems very against anything that comes off as a content mill Must admit, this might come off as harsh but i do think having TH-cam as a job is a privilege not a right, so if it involves unethical ways of making content - it’s maybe just not the correct career path. but I would likely feel differently if it’s like great, this thing I worked really hard on won’t be recognised
Please disregard that I was bamboozled into thinking this man’s name is Harris, even in other videos people call him that. Anyways I got dooped - I wasn’t lying when I said I have no idea who this guy is 😭. Will remember that this man is actually Harry from now on 🫡
It's a fair mistake. A lot of articles call him that when he calls himself "Harris Bomberguy" when Harris is just a combination of his first and last names, Harry Brewis.
I thought it was Harris but _alt_ Harry, like D¡ck/Richard, Bob/Robert, & some vexing ones I can't remember atm. Little Joel's "No, James!" video is short but he put that out within an hour or 2 of James' video and the insightful & relevant comments about James continue there. I strongly recommend for the (at least at the time) pretty solid chatter. Cos Jimmy's (oh, another one) "apology" video was up barely *3* hours when he nuked it - not 1 hour after Little Joel's - and with it, all the well-thought-out comments it had went to oblivion with it. Though by that point, the "rude! He just got back from _hospital!"_ comments were starting & his most deluded fans were finally making it round to make weak "arguments" (was hardly his first tearful SI-baiting B.S.), but idk, I hope folks heeded my warning to save screenshots. I have the text of my comment, which included some JS quotes and responses. But fwiw, The Ace Couple's looong pod from a day or a few after the Hbomberguy video was illuminating. I wish there was an edited (shorter) version, but they get to it, & include receipts.
And fwiw, I feel like Harry/Harris was talking about "reaction content" like Bowblax & other such (imo) low-effort reactionary (& usually regressive) type of stuff. But I hadn't noticed that he'd used iNabber in his example, and that's harsh, especially cos some people even noted that "idea laundering" - oh wait, this time it was "human centipeded" - that crediting issue. I.e. crediting to Illuminaughtii LLC, Blair herself [despite her avoiding showing the video cos you saw the hburgerguy video], or crediting other CCs cos of clear awareness among the good ones like iNabber & that.
Sorry that was a mess, but that's my brain now. I do very much appreciate the video, Miss Mika! Fantastic, as ever.
I always thought it's a reference to "Do it again, Bomber Harris!" meme, he started doing videos at about the time that was a thing.
Honestly been watching his channel for like 8 years and just found this out right now hahahah.
Just don’t confuse him with Hareton Splimby, the Serious Lore Analyist
i’m so glad you mentioned the idea that credit alone doesn’t make it not plagiarism. especially in the content world, i’m there for analysis. if you’re just reciting a ton of stuff other people said (even with credit), if you don’t add onto it and make it your own then you just don’t have a complete product
Yes! I hate how so many people are boiling the issue down to "no proper credit" while like, stealing stuff and telling people where you stole it from don't make that not stealing. Like what? If your "work" is 90% citations, even if properly credited, it's still not your work.
What you’re talking about is orthogonal to plagiarism. If someone is correctly assigning credit but adding nothing else, it’s a different issue.
@@MarcosElMalo2 it is 100% not a separate issue. Did you even listen?
@f1mbultyr
Precisely! It would be let's say...not the best show of "academic honesty"
I think maybe the whole "no citation will automatically result in____" or be considered plagiarism as some professors have told me. But, I think, some profs have done that because it gets too complicated to explain it all lol XD
Yes, he fails to realise that copying it word for word and citing it as a source is still stealing...if he cited it as where got his information from and used said information in his own written words, thats fine! Thats what genuine video essayists do!
I remember the biggest hurdle in college was transitioning to not only properly citing but being able to express your knowledge on a subject. One of my professors said that these paper formats are teaching us to speak from a place of authority and to collaborate with other professionals in our field. This professor, and a few others in the same college, often would discuss cases where bipoc and women's contributions to the field were uncredited and/or outright stolen. It is why James Somerton's plagiarism really hits different. I didn't watch his content religiously but when I did, there was lots of misinformation or bad correlations presented as fact. The Todd in the Shadows video fact checking him brings up some even more concerning misinformation about the Nazis Somerton presented in his videos. The combination of minfo and plagiarism revealed through those videos is extremely shocking but also is something I have seen reviewing papers when I worked at the writing lab.
Also, I am on team "you don't need big words to sound smart and sometimes it is harder to simplify a thought."
Yeah I feel like in the academic world the work you reference is the foundation for your analysis. You can’t build a house off of no foundation, but if you just copy/rephrase the foundation you didn’t build a house. Does that analogy make sense? No clue
For my undergrad program our final project *had* to be built off primary sources, we could of course use secondary academic sources but our projects weren't even considered viable unless we were able to construct an argument about the primary sources that didn't yet exist in other secondary sources (or if someone was doing a topic that has already been intensely studied, they had to be in conversation with other academia in a unique way). Reading academic arguments, understanding and presenting academic arguments, and making your own academic arguments are 3 different skills and you have to be able to do all of them for your final work to be meaningful
(Edit: I am very much not in the stem field in or out of school but stem is the exact same way no? Academic research is pretty standard across all fields in a lot of basic mechanical ways, and I think sometimes people forget this about humanities/social sciences. Like I think people like James Somerton assume if you read enough "smart" material and are able to regurgitate it, that makes you "smart" too, when in reality social sciences like history are built off hypothesis and research just like any other science. If you have nothing new to say, or if anything new you say is bad-faith and nonsensical, what are you even doing?)
@@manic_girl Make sense to me :) Creating your own analysis and opinions has to start from somewhere, but you have to add yourself to it. Especially because the variety of new opinions can lead to new discoveries.
@@greenonionbabey I am currently on medical leave from school but yes, the humanities and stem are more similar than people think. Sociology/psychology/anthropology/even art are built off of the knowledge and techniques are a collaborations of people of all levels.
One thing that really irked me while listening to Somerton's videos was he often would have an authority to his voice, but when listening to some of his points they were so flimsy. One of his videos I watched was the Killing Stalking one where he didn't really back up his statement about "(straight) men don't wanna read a book about a gay, gays don't wanna read a (straight) women don't a book about a gay...unless it is romance" with any evidence of those claims? And it also played into the whole women only read romance stereotype. Like I am not discounting that straight women do fetishize gay men in fandom spaces, but often times queer stories can be a gateway to experiences a person can learn to empathize with. Heck, lots of women I knew who were 'fujoshis' later were queer or are stanch allies to the queer community. Heck, my straight male roommate loves to watch tons of gay media like John Water's filmography or the biopic of a certain nsfw gay artist and I am sure he isn't the only one. While those are anecdotal examples on my part, there is a ton of research and historic records of individuals and groups of heterosexual cis men and women being in queer circles and enjoying queer creations.
tdlr; James Somerton needs citations LOL
"You don't need big words to sound smart and sometimes it's harder to simplify a thought."
Philosopher Byung-chul Han enters the chat. The dude is known for and a master at how condensed his writing is in terms of simplicity, with some people literally highlighting the entire text in their Kindle.
Which is a sharp contrast to German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who in addition to being an open supporter of the Nazi Party during WWII and being unrepentant of it after WWII, is also known for his obscure and opaque writing style.
Simplicity is best.
Around 37:00, I have to disagree with you here. HBomber’s point wasn’t that the drama channels weren’t crediting him, it’s that they weren’t showing the original source of the documentary in question being from Brian Deer. It’s the whole thesis he had with James Somerton not crediting the queer authors he stole from.
and also Brain Deer's continuous problem with not getting credit for the work that exposed why mainstream anti-vaxx conspiracy theory was started in the first place, and threatened his livelihood when dandy wafefield got litigious about his sleuthing
I listened to his video for at least seven times now - that’s exactly what it is
First of all, he does explicitly say that the drama videos credit each other and not him, even though the ones he showed did. Sure, he then says that Deer should get the credit, but that's not how crediting works. He made a transformative video comparing the documentary and the triangle woman's content, that is the original source. When you write an essay, you cite the book you read and not its sources because you never read them or they aren't even on the subject. Why on earth would they credit a piece of media they didn't interact with?
@@bean2046 Nevermind the fact that at least some of them (Vangelina, for instance) *DID* credit Brian Deer as well as H.Bomberguy! That was so maddening to me.
What drives me up a wall is somertons apology video was mainly him trying to rebrand his character or finding a way to restart his channel saying he could put videos back up and donate the income and credit sources in future videos. Like he completely dodged the sending hate to people for calling him out claiming they gave him death threats… it’s sad it took someone will millions of subs to put him in his place.
We don't really know if he did receive death threats. Several things can be true at once, Somerton can be an unrepentant plagiarist, and homophobic people might have sent him death threats in response to some of the previous accusations of plagiarism. Some of the things HBomberguy clearly says aren't proven, are now being presented as undisputed facts.
This may have already been mentioned by others, but when it comes to the "drama channel" thing, I think you and hbomb are just coming at it from very different perspectives/experiences. What you're saying about commentary bros directing that term at mostly fem-presenting & queer people, you're totally right. But the majority of people he showed as examples of the drama community were masc men, some of which are (from what I can tell) in the same community as those misogynistic commentary bros.
I totally get what you're saying, but when I see that part of hbomb's video, I interpret it as him mostly calling out a very specific part of the drama community - the ones who try to get information out as soon as possible without much research, don't really care about not harming people or spreading false rumors, and just want to make money. I don't think channels like yours, who actually take the time to do research + add actual helpful/interesting analysis about drama topics would be lumped into that. He definitely could've been more specific, but I think he's just not well-versed in how diverse the modern drama community is. It used to be dominated by men like Keemstar.
I could be wrong though, and I still think your criticism is fair! Just another perspective I wanted to put out there as someone who's watched him/creators in his community for years and might have some insight 😅
I appreciate this perspective a lot
You’re not wrong for the most. I listened to the video minimum seven times now. The point was that they were not actually crediting sources. His example was people crediting him for the footage from Brian Deer’s documentary, and then even that got lost. Yes, he made the montage. But that then evolved into one drama channel crediting another drama channel even though it was still from the documentary and/or his reel.
And he’s right. I watch a few drama youtubers. They have so many videos on the DAILY. They offer some good insights and comments- but a lot of time they didn’t even lookup who are the people in the video that they’re commenting on
related to james, "the ace couple" has a good podcast episode highlighting how james scammed them out of $1500 CA and has had a repeated pattern of behavior in regards to deflecting criticism and weaponizing his larger audience against people who call him out both politely AND in good faith.
james' "apology" is hysterically laughable; like bro pulled a laura lee and wiped away tears that weren't even there XD
edit: 1:12:02 OH MY GOD that "i want to give money to the people i plagiarized" is 100% performative as HELL
I also think that ace couple podcast episode really highlighted what Jessie Gender was talking about and him not being in community with other creators.
Oh my god he is just downright a horrible person who can only form sympathy for himself. Do you know which episode they talk about it?
@@babysoulie not the most recent one, but just prior to it. The mention him in the title. It’s really good, definitely recommend
@@babysoulie "we were personally victimized by James Somerton" Dec. 13, 2023. It's also here on TH-cam.
Yes! I never heard of James until the HBomberguy video, but I ended up going down the rabbit hole after and saw their video, too. It's WILD how much shit James got away with!
Wow Somerton even blames the audience in his "apology". They HAD to make videos they didn't want to make because the fans kept requesting them. Why would you throw your own fans under the bus as a defense to plagiarism... TO YOUR FANS!?!
The audacity of this man. Sir, nobody forced you to plagiarize!
Illuminaughti and Somertons editing is not that impressive when you consider that the editing was also stolen from other creators.
I was so impressed with illuminaghti’s editing until HBomberguy made me realize she was literally just reposting documentaries from Hulu. 😂
I would add that their editing isnt stolen so much as it was never theirs to begin with. I believe it was legal eagle who went into it but he and blair use the same editing software and that software uses plug-ins made by others and put out often for free.
So blair tried to copyright claim a editing technique that she herself never owned. LE editor who asked Blairs editor about the thing actively mentioned that they could go and look for the plug-in themself but figured it'd be faster to just ask a fellow editor. Which is true and absolutely not offensive.
As for Somerton... if he used a similar editing system then I really dont know why in gods name he didnt just edit his videos and transitions differently... (hes a plagiarist and lazy we know why)
@@sylas3265 no im talking about the editing. Like the way shots are composed together. Both Blair and Somerton just took pieces of other peoples work and put it in their videos. Like compilations that were created by someone else or parts of actual documentaries straight from the source. Blair took large sections of documentaries and put a filter on it and thats it. Hbomber goes into this pretty thoroughly. They werent just plagiarizing words but video too.
@@KaylaMarie_ ooooooh yeah sorry, I thought you meant the video editing and not the actual video and documentary footage they stole. My bad lol
@@sylas3265 i meant the editing. I thought it was impressive until i realized that the editors were employed by Hulu and had nothing to do with her. Somerton stole entire compilations with impressive editing from other creators too.
37:57 I don’t think his discussion of what happened to his tweet is a vendetta thing or even disconnected from his discussion of plagiarism. A big part of that discussion is basically data rot where it becomes more and more difficult to trace the conversation or identify the original sources so you can review research, reproduce it, or begin your own. In academia it could be like using a (Smith qtd. Frank 12) citation. It’s totally ok, it is traceable, but by pulling on someone else’s framing of that original source, you’re losing all the other context around it and relying entirely on their read of it. The issue in social media spaces is that no one goes back to that original source to quote it, they just keep quoting each other so it’s (Smith qtd Frank) -> (Smith qtd James) -> (Smith qtd Darren)
So while it’s not plagiarism, it can lead to a similar loss of context, loss of voice, and loss of reproducibility.
James Somerton not having a uke is disappointing 0/10
Agreed
misread uke. In our good lords year 2023, both pronunciations are topical for James. Iykyk.
@@meow.4972I remember seeing a really big sign in the window of a musical instrument store that was just like foot tall bright red letters saying “WE HAVE UKES!” To show they had ukuleles in stock
Being able to sing and play an instrument would require him to have some kind of talent
A bit of context that might be helpful: Harry calls various sections of TH-cam "the worst section of TH-cam" in his videos. I think its just a running joke on his channel at this point 😅
It is. i have started watching him since this video amd he does it a lot. most often aimed at himself.
but this is what happens when you judge a creator without additional context. It would be like judging a book with social commentary without knowing any background on the author- a thing we were specifically taught not to do in high school because that way we miss most of the content.
But even inside this one video they somehow missed that he also considered some video essay channels being content mills and this one video being a drama video.
47:43 the point you make here is so odd because Blaire does not have a small channel. She could make one video a month and actually put in the work and her channel would still be fine. And as Im typing this you’re actually saying the same thing lol
The internet historian plagiarism wasnt niche. He plagiarized an entire article and added imagery to it. He literally just read the article word for word for his video with no citation at all.
Regarding Harris's criticism of drama TH-cam--I haven't seen your video on iilluminaughtii so I can't speak to how you approached it, but the way I internalized it was that he was speaking in generalizations about a thing that happens very commonly in drama TH-cam, though not all drama videos act that way. I certainly watched a lot of channels that I thought were very informative...and yet I also saw the ones that had done so little research that even the information they were going over they were getting wrong, because they were doing more of a react video than a research/commentary video and not paying enough attention to the information in front of them. That said, I don't blame you at all for being hurt by it--as a person who watches a lot of drama TH-cam, I felt a bit called out. Part of why I came around on that statement was because I watched Demon Mama's reaction to the plagiarism video, and for context, she had also been my favorite iilluminaughtii commentary channel, through whom I felt I got a grasp on the situation as it was unfolding after having watched several others whom I felt, despite not having a great grasp on the situation myself, did not really understand that situation that well either. The way she took the comment, reflected on her own content, then concluded that no, she did her research, so his comment was not about her, made me feel a lot better. And to Harris's credit, though at the time I had not watched any of his videos so I had no personal attachment to him specifically, in those early days when I was scouring drama TH-cam for someone to explain to me what was going on without confusing me further, I was using the way they talked about what went down on Twitter, including Hbomb's clip, as a metric for how reliable their takes might be. I get that there are a lot of drama youtubers who put in time and effort, but there really are a bunch of channels that don't understand the situations they are talking about, and as a result end up creating more misinformation for those of us trying to get caught up to try to weed through. My take comes from a consumer of drama TH-cam who prefers the higher quality stuff though, not a creator of those types of video, so I am definitely coming at it from a different angle.
Regarding the question of that comment "you could only make a video a month, or a video a year" thing--I get where you're coming from, but I don't think he was speaking to youtubers in general, but rather making a rhetorical point about the sort of content that people like iilluminaughtii and somerton put out, which requires *way* more time to research than they have on their upload schedule, which is probably in a nutshell why they felt they "had" to plagiarize. They could also have changed their content style to be less documentary-adjacent and more opinion-based, of course; and there is definitely a dialogue to be had about the way youtube's current system incentivizes creators to prioritize high content output over quality or ethics.
I hope this made sense. Love your call-out of the way Somerton clearly tries to deflect blame onto Nick while saying he's not in that apology video! :D
the "you could only make a video a month, or a video a year" comment was a in-joke and a self own because Hbomberguy is famous for dropping a banger video and then coming back literally a year later to do another lol
Just want to point out that the issue with hbomb talking about drama channels is more that there's an abundance of them lazily reading tweets and not really doing anything with them, and not channels that are actually investigating and collecting information to talk about or present to other people. He wasn't saying every drama channel is trash, he was saying it's a genre plagued with content mills.
Just started but wow, this is probably the best look you've had so far. Really raising the bar for us all huh
I saw it on insta and wanted to try it
@@MikasRhetoric I might plagiarise that idea
@@sokumachi729I'm plagiarising it for sure
she slayed!
I still disagree. I do think it’s lazy to credit blowblax instead of the original video, using the example in the original video. it’s like drama channels putting their watermark on a video released by tmz that’s still up. it’s one thing if the video is completely gone and now your version is the only archive. and I don’t think you need to take personal offense to that being called lazy. it may not be an entire plagiarized script, but it is irresponsible and worthy of criticism. I don’t know why this is the hill to die on.
now I do agree with everything you said about how he shouldn’t have used inabber and vangelina as examples. I also think that’s lazy on his end and worthy of criticism.
edt: one more thing. again. you’re taking things personally and it’s affecting your analysis in my opinion. he’s clearly talking about blaire’s upload schedule because of the plagiarism. where did he say all channels need to upload less? that’s not what the point of that was at all, and I think that was pretty clear.
You mean “bowlax”?
1:13 Excited to see your commentary on this! Im a big fan of Hbomb (4+ yrs), and regardless of the masses upset during stream (?), i think Harris would love to hear any critique given in good faith- which i believe you will do like always. Your degrees arent the only thing that shows the world your intelligence, the way you say stuff is always enlightening and nuanced. I rly hope he sees this !! Melding of the minds or something :D
2:30 FUCK. sorry
Lmao it’s okay!!
literally 70% of inabber 's videos he is just repeating the same things over and over, not a good example to defend
true😂 he does repeat a lot. but it’s good for putting things back into context. and he does do his own research and adds new points and perspectives. so he gets a pass imo
For real. Thats the reason why I stopped watching his content. It was too repetitive and long.
Ya I stopped watching him for that reason plus he waits until several creators have posted then just consolidates their clips. He has no actual talent.
Your video did not disappoint. Amazing work, as always. I would like to also add that that I'm so happy to be learning from your content. I noticed James' overuse of "lazy" and "he didn't know" to how he used to talk about these alligations while watching the apology. Thank you so much for your work.
I think part of the problem is that you are taking things personally - that are not really aimed at you.
I like your channel and I enjoy your videos. But it’s the same when people complain about racist things white people do. If you aren’t doing it then you don’t need to take the the complaint personally.
From my point of view, iNabber and some drama channels like him often slip into gossip, projection and unethical behavior.
But think about your own rhetoric here when Harris says it’s better to make one good video a month rather than 3 videos a week. He is not talking about small channels. He is talking about massive plagiarist channels. So your complaint kind of twists the intention of his comment and centers it on overly defending yourself.
The rest of the video is great and your make up is lovely.
I agree here, but on the note of inabber he recently uploaded a 5+ hour video on the whole 8 passengers/ Ruby Franke thing and in the 45min I've watched he says their last name wrong the whole time. You would think that having done as much research as he must have for that video he would have heard their last name pronounced correctly. It might not be the biggest to some but it really irks me.
@@syd_z yup. Agree completely. I’ve seen basic errors, and other issues like that too. I don’t watch him anymore.
@@syd_zI haven't watched iNabber in years, so I can't speak to his current content, but from what I remember, it was not a beacon of great research. very interesting to see people going to bat for him and speaking highly of his content (not that i hate him or anything!)
As a fan of drama content, I have to disagree. I watched Harris' video, and I loved it, but I was really disappointed by him shutting on drama content. I think this is because when you're critiquing the content, you're also critiquing the people who watch that content. Being told that the content I like to watch is "lazy" or "bottom of the barrel" hurts because I like the content. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own perceptions, but I think that demonizing an entire genre of TH-cam video took away from the premise
@@syd_z I think a lot of people see a long ahh video "essay" with flashy editing and believe that the research must be top tier as well. I've watched iNabber occasionally and after a while it got really stale. He fills most of the 4-5 hours with repetitious rants on how "awful" and "gross" a situation is (esp during the Colleen situation).
Glancing over the Internet historian thing without the context was absolutely aggravating he literally used the article as a script. That is rather clear and think that's why it was placed before James video section
All his 4chan and nazi racist stuff is just another aggravating thing that came out... That's that side.
Idk, I do wish you would've delved more into the Internet Historian debacle, it wasn't that niche of a controversy and it sparked quite a few conversations where his fans were basically claiming that, because the author of the original article hadn't intended for it to be anything other than an article, IH's video was transformative enough (dumb I know, but you'd be surprised how many of them still have this take on the whole issue).
the fact that the whole internet historian thing got brushed off by everyone is crazy because his fans imo are some of the most dangerous out of all the people Hbomberguy talked about
Based on how the stream chat went, good luck with this comment section girlie 😭
I have been having anxiety about this since then :)
@@MikasRhetoric i'm sorry you've been anxious about this!! i hate the part of internet culture that takes good faith critiques as someone hating the entirety of something and people getting immediately defensive over it. me personally, i understood the critique you were making in the stream clearly!
For a good few minutes I thought I didn't see the stream. But then I realised that I did.
It was very frustrating.
I'm a fan of HBomb, to the point that if I had to list my favourite TH-camrs, he would definitely be on that list.
People in the chat wouldn't even let Mika finish before trying to make a counterpoint. If they let her finish, and had some thoughts, or context that they thought might make her see it from another perspective, they could have waited, and then said their piece.
But even then, if whatever they had to say didn't change Mika's view at all, that's fine.
There's TH-camrs who I religiously watch, who I disagree with on a lot of opinions, or I'll think they were missing information that could have changed a conclusion they stated, and I've even been somewhat, I don't know if disappointed is the right word, or if someone who makes content I enjoy is clearly biased about a topic in a way that maybe appears to be entirely due to their own personal involvement in the situation, depending on the issue at hand I can accept that these creators are ultimately just human.
I don't need to be 100% behind every single statement a creator I follow makes. In fact it's nice to hear different viewpoints from someone who I enjoy, generally agree a lot with, and/or respect. Just as I would with people I'm close to in real life.
I've also managed to get people I know in real life think about things differently. They might not end up in complete agreement with me on that or any other topic.
So what's kinda sad to me, is that by being hasty, defensive, arguing against a point they haven't even heard in entirety (making comments about something before listening to everything being said about it in a livestream feels similar to talking over someone in a real conversation), and they're doing this "in defence" of a creator they are a fan of... What are they hoping to achieve with this? They're not going to make people want to check out the creator. Like, if I was doing a livestream and I had a mild criticism of a video from a TH-camr who I hadn't seen much/any videos from, and a bunch of people in chat started arguing before I'd even got partway through what I was saying, I'd be put off from wanting to watch more of the creator they were trying to defend... Like... What are you trying to achieve?!
To talk about Harris's points on drama channels: I like half agreed with him, mainly because I also am someone who watches both his kind of content and drama/commentary channels. During the illuminaughtii drama, I remember the TH-cam algorithm flooding me with half baked commentary on the situation that was just clearly capitalizing on her downfall. A lot of smaller channels were making "slop" ( as Harris would put it) that was just regurgitating the same talking points and even down to the same opinions as other people. I would agree to some sense that drama content is content-milly, but it's only because smaller people are trying to capitalize on the drama of the week in the most lazy way possible. On the other hand; I didn't like his examples he showed. I think showing bowblax mainly was very disingenuous, considering his content isn't about the drama entirely, but showcasing reactions on Twitter and archiving them. I see his content as a useful resource on seeing what's going on during a situation rather than just regurgitating talking points. So I had mixed feelings on his points there when initially watching the video. It did seem petty lol
Bowblax is actually a better example of a content mill drama channel. Browsing through Twitter and narrating people’s reactions to the drama-of-the-week is incredibly easy to do, and is why Bowblax is able to make so many videos. It’s quite literally regurgitating talking points and opinions. Even his longer videos on subjects suffer from the Mauler Effect, where they aren’t long because they’re in depth, but rather because they have so much padding.
That doesn’t mean Bowblax’s fans are bad people for liking his content (like you said, it still does have value for documenting reactions to a situation as they’re happening), but they also need to reflect on why Hbomb thinks he’s a content mill
@cito7288 I mean yeah I can agree Bowblax's content isn't high quality and he outputs videos frequently. Drama content can easily fall into the content mill category and I do agree with him there. It just felt a bit disingenuous to include him considering his content is about documentation on said drama rather than giving his full opinion. Sure it's easy to just read tweets, but like that app is a hellscape and I'd rather have someone else gather the top tweets on a topic than me try to figure out what's going on in a trending hashtag. To include him in the talk with other drama channels felt a bit weird considering he's usually used as a source to gather tweets to make it easier to have that information in one spot. Twitter is notorious for being terrible to navigate, people delete tweets constantly, and the app overall just sucks lol
I'm not even a fan of bowblax, I just understand what his content is really for 🤷♂️ just because he's making a lot of videos because it's easy content to make doesn't entirely make it a content mill.
If that's the case a lot of the commentary community could be considered content mills because they upload content daily or every other day. Not all content needs to be high effort, and that's okay. But that's just my opinion lol
@@sorashiunin5287 I guess Hbomb’s perspective on things comes from how he grew his channel compared to what he deems as “content mills”. He didn’t pump out videos regularly for the sake of retaining engagement, he made whatever videos whenever he wanted to, didn’t fit into strict categories, and also prioritized quality over quantity. He just got very lucky doing so. This was also an era of YT where making quick low-quality content was more frowned upon (think of how much reaction channels got shit on).
Now routine content is the norm thanks to the algorithm getting so much worse over time, and as Hbomb points out, this leads to newer channels pumping out low-quality videos, and allowing plagiarists to thrive. I understand that TH-camrs will do what they gotta do to put food on the table, but I don’t respect the culture you’re defending, especially when it comes to topics where getting accurate information is essential.
I'm really looking forward to this. I love your takes, especially in these sort of situations. Didn't watch the stream, but did pick on the fact that the reactions weren't that great from the comments. I loved Hbomber's video (I used to be subscribed to james so realising the kind of content creator he was really hit me like a train), but everything before "the twist" sort of faded into the background for me. I'll say this much, as a casual viewer of creators like inabber and vangelina, I see the work they put in and I wouldn't call them "content mills". On the other hand, living w my sister who detests "drama" content I can see why someone would, looking from the outside, label the entire genre on YT a content mill. Not all "drama" creators do sloppy work and generalising it like that really minimalises the work they do.
Jeje as the gossiping bitch i am, ill give you some context. There was some criticism made to the hbomber guy regarding an opinion he shared on his video about plagiarism. The exact quote i dont remember, but something about content farms being the literal worst, in a very "blanket statement" way. The criticism was in disagreement with that opinion. This criticism was not well received by some chat members, there were no personal attacks or insults, and overall the problem was that some people took it way to personal and got a little heated trying to defend hbomber guy. Overall misunderstandings and maybe too much passion sometimes, but all in all even though some (egos? people?emotions?) Feelings were a little bruised. At the end the situation calmed down a bit and over all massive props to all the conflict mediators on that chat, because i thought it was handled quite maturely all things considered.
The thing I found extra annoying about Harry using a clip of Vangelina's video is...she *did* credit Hbomb's tweet re:his edit of 'Deer v Blair', & mentioned that Blair had stolen it from Deer's doc! She *does* do the research & gives credit & I don't feel like she pumps out nonsensical videos willy-nilly for the *sole* purpose of keeping up with the algorithm. 🤷🏻♀
@@brendaleelydon Except, for the case of Blair, as he explained in the video, it's not just about crediting.
She straight up copies everything from the documentaries she sees, quote by quote.
That's not research, that's just copying someone's homework and saying you "took inspiration".
If not, look at the comparisons Hbomb made.
@@dantemaquiavelli9039 I was talking about Vangelina Skov. We are all aware of what a shite "documentarian" Blair is (in addition to apparently just being a shite person in general).
48:29 I think you pointed out a major Blindspot for Hbomberguy here. And i say this as someone who loves his content.
Harris started gaining popularity on TH-cam in 2015/2016, when TH-cam was a VERY different place. I'm willing to bet that Hbomberguy genuinely has no frame of reference for what it means to survive on TH-cam in 2023.
I think regarding the drama channel stuff, a) I think Harry’s point was simply that a lot of these never played the actual clip from twitter that gave credit to Deer and thus erased him as well, b) a lot of people who’s content is „drama“ related took it as a personal attack on the quality of their work when I personally didn’t think that was meant and c)it’s hard to have a nuanced discussion here. There are certainly channels that feel well researched and that use their videos to either really dive into details (some people could be detectives!) and find stuff themselves, or use a broader summary to say something of substance about the problem at hand (ruby franke -> the evils of family channels in general etc) and that FEEL more like they have purpose or at least there was work put into it. But a lot of channels BLAST out very short videos every couple of days just rehashing what happened, kind of like that banner running on a news channel. That’s useful in a way, but there is a threshold to when it starts feeling like klickfarming. It’s kind of the same like with newspapers, everyone is reporting on the same story, but it feels like the quality is different, with the latter sort feeling like The Sun.
I mean, H himself kinda falls in the first category, sleuthing and talking about drama, connecting it to a bigger topic. And I didn’t understand it as him looking down on „lesser“ content but simply saying the crediting issue is widespread on YT because a lot of people make fast content they don’t think is serious enough to need proper credit, which lends itself as a breeding ground for people like James and Blair.
Recently watched a video by a youtuber I love where they said that nobody looks at their sources so they aren't going to bother with making them anymore. It feels weird especially since the video is after this whole debacle. Like I don't think anyone is ever going to look at my papers besides my profs but I still work hard to source them? It feels irresponsible and they talk about issues surrounding race, so you Know some people will be requesting sources if it ends up on the wrong side of YT?!?
Was it Khadija Mbowe?
@@Haittavero yes lol
Cinemassacre's/AVGN's problem was that there are only so many entertainingly bad NES videogames. Gradually moving on to different kinds of content was a solid idea, but he chose... err... exactly the wrong people to help him with that.
Finally found an opinion to beef with Mika on; Chicago is the best formatting style. Footnotes ghoulie through and through 😤
Ok but like I loved Chicago for philosophy papers but when it’s a research paper with 20+ sources the footnotes are painful imo
@@MikasRhetoric Mendely makes it super easy to execute even with multiple citations, and to me a sexy little number doesn't interrupt the flow of reading as much as clunky brackets. But I will confesse I only write arts essays, so I can't in good faith say Chicago is always 1# sexy cute elegant classy.
Agreed bestie, sorry Mika lol
CHICAGO NATION RISE UP AND SWEEEPPPPPPP
Quick note - hbomb's name is actually Harry Brewis, he identified himself as Harris as a joke a couple of times and it stuck. Good job so far otherwise!
Funnily enough, if James Somerton had watched hbomberguy's video, he might've reworded his "apology" video to use a lot less passive voice than he did.
"I want to become a really good example of properly citing your sources." Oh, Jimmy, Hbomb already took care of that for you. You're already there. 😂
I just want to offer an alternative view to your criticism of upload less not being financially viable. It is a valid point, however it only further proves the point that when you make content for views you end up in the cycle that leads to creating pointless videos. It's great that you have found a balance to upload consistently and do so without it having a negative impact on your content. However the problem is not going to be solved by defending peoples needs to upload, rather that in the competition of TH-cam content creators that are raised up and get the most attention are the ones that are able to do this, and thereby only serving positive reinforcement for creating videos for the sake of just rather than because you have something to say. The answer is in the system itself and how to change it so that content creators can create and get paid properly. So, all that to say that capitalism is the problem and that will not be solved if good creators such as yourself make content because of views.
I think that this is also true and insightful. I do however think that for many, videos are so cumbersome to make that if you aren’t uploading consistently and no one watches it, they become debilitated. It’s not just a money thing, it’s when you want to share something and no one’s watching that also hurts some to a certain degree. I do agree with you though
Yeah I didn't think about it in the context of just not getting engagement I agree with your point for sure and its difficult to find the balanced answered.
I have been thinking a lot about how some of these issues are also created because there isn't enough value in the community itself in how good content is made. For example the Filip guys actual interest seemed to be making aesthetically pleasing videos, and how it never occurred to him to edit for someone who had something interesting to say, and who wanted aesthetically pleasing videos. He was offered a job with a publisher to write videos at a big company, I think its weird at this point that he didn't use the clout he had built up to pitch work in editing or design instead. There are skills that some of these people had they just didn't value other people's skills enough (like research or script writing) to put those to good use.
I love how Somerton will blame the Patreon subs for doing videos he supposedly didn’t like and wasn’t that interested in yet still begs them for money in the last five minutes of the video. And it’s no small potatoes either….his “studio head” 100 dollar level had a requirement of subbing for three months before one could request a video.
And that’s like….the bare minimum. There were people who probably paid more but that’s the floor. And he throws them all under the fucking bus too along with Nick and everyone else.
I mean, if not for the Colleen Ballenger video, this would’ve been in the running for the worst “apology” video of 2023.
HE HAD A $100 TIER??!???
If I remember correctly, bottom tier was $20. But i only saw a screenshot so there might have been other tiers.
Also, Colleens video kinda deserves its own subcategory now
@@Stitchers_Whimsy I think you’re right bc when I went to check out his Patreon after his boohooing a few months ago and there was no $1 or even $5 option.
I'm just starting my undergrad as an English major, and it is so nice to hear you mention Burke and contextualize his ideas in a forum outside of the classroom. You have found such a cool academic niche!
As someone who deeply appreciated hbomb's video but had some issues with how he used bottom of the barrel react content to condemn the entire genre, I'm looking forward to hearing some good faith criticism!
Fans' refusal to engage critically with videos facilitates the kind of reflexively-defensive echo chambers that Somerton thrived in.
Thank you for understanding!!
Yeah I'm there with you, I watch a lot of commentary because it helps me sit with material and process (also bc im very autistic so it helps me see sides) so seeing him drag ALL commentary as being low hanging fruit I'm looking at channels like Swoop who.. Do so much work to get it right.
if u mean the chair react meme about hasan, he asked hasan (and was in chat when hasan reacted to parts of the video) so i think he was more tongue in cheek than people took him to be
@@foolishlyfoolhardy6004 oh 100%, i was just kinda downplaying it a lil bit to soften my language if that make sense
Yeah I’m a fan of his and while I didn’t catch that exact joke, I read it more about critiquing commentary channels not properly citing sources/doing enough research. Since he talks specifically about how his little clip he made for Iilluminautii (?) was cited as other people’s video. It felt like a “hey, you could do better here” BUT I also see why it was read negatively.
As a former theology student, I cackled when you mentioned the hell that is Chicago reference style. Thanks for making my day!
I think it sounds defensive of you to disagree about the drama channels section lol. How hard is it to search for the original tweet, click on it to see its a creator, and credit it? It's just lazy and speaks of rushed videos to jump on money that everyone else has already done
I don't think it's lazy, it is much more sinister. It's envy and the evil eye at play. They see a piece they like but instead of merely enjoying it, they have to claim it as theirs.
"I can't imagine what making money is like" LMAO same girl. xD Also your makeup is super cute!
And now I’m an adult with a masters and need to like actually get a job
The long awaited!!!!!!
I usually feel guilty about schadenfreude but Illuninaughti accusing Legal Eagle's editors of copying her channel being the straw that broke that particular back will never stop amusing me. We Canadians call it "an own goal", in hockey, I believe.
Hbomberguy's name is actually Harry but he calls himself Harris as bit. Even the news called him Harris too so I'm not shading you. 😅
Oh and the journalist Jason Schreier is way more popular than Philip Mnucin so him accusing schreier of being a clout chaser is extra funny.
EVERYONE TOLD ME HES HARRIS 😭😭😭😭😭😭
@@MikasRhetoric Tbf I'm pretty sure even Wikipedia had him down as Harris for a while. Dude just committed to the bit lol.
@@MikasRhetoric NBC has an article about the video and they called him Harris so don't worry about it lol
It's been years since I heard APA format, and I recoiled.
Real
I have to use it all the time for my classes 💀 I much prefer it over mla 8 or Chicago
I mean... A lot of those drama channels are super super shit. I wouldn't put inabber in that group of shit coverage, but there are certainly far too many who do recycle content and jump on things cause it's trending.
I do think there's a spectrum from "drama" to "commentary," where at one end of the spectrum it's pure low-effort slop and at the other end it's well researched and provides thoughtful analysis.
Thanks!
You're doing awesome, Mika! So proud of you for putting out content even if it's risky, but I know how scary that can be. I see your name being mentioned among other creators as a quality commentary channel and it makes me feel so proud of how far you've come on TH-cam.
You really hit on something with the fact that Somerton dressing himself in the aesthetics of queer youtube lent him credibility. The impersonation fit right into the space, so I didn't notice the much poorer quality until H.bombs video. I gave up watching him because the misogynistic rhetoric pissed me off and I could tell his actual essays were lackluster, but the hollowness of the aesthetics and presentation didn't sink in.
I’m glad you touched on him saying they made videos they didn’t want to make because blaming his actions on his audience is one of the grossest things I’ve ever heard
yayyyyy super long video, thanks! excited to watch/listen while i knit
me crocheting a sweater lol i love finding fellow fiber art hobbyists in the wild
@@organicpigeonmilk lol i'm currently working on a sweater too!! i also crochet :)
Ok but drama channels truly are the bottom of the barrel of youtube.
Takes no effort or talent, just talking about other people's content
You can thank Leafy and Keemstar for that
Yeah, there's a lower barrier to entry than most subgenres, but I would dare you to tell inabber his multiple hour videos took no effort...
My impression of how HBomber related content mills was that these channels are trying to raise profit/ minimize labor, and so does plagiarized content. Not sure if I agree 💯, but I can see the connection clearly.
38:32 quick note on this small section about the whole “not everyone knows who you are” & tweet credit. Maybe i am misunerstanding- but Harry seemed more upset that Blair was stealing from the original journalist’s documentary (the vaccine one) & not the one Harry made himself. I can’t personally recall him being upset that she stole from his video essay exactly. I could be wrong on that point, but Harry admits to being petty about a few things from the start of the essay xD- so i think it could be more of a tone thing for the vid. In reguards to the topic of drama channels using screen grabs of tweets from other drama videos, i took this as an example of exactly how lazy some channels can be, because when he finally gets to James he touches on the laziness of his scripts- so this portion may be a touchpoint to reflect back on and emphasize that James is doing literally all of them things everyone he mentioned previously was doing. If that makes sense?
But i do get yah, weak evidence is a massive pet peeve of mine. Don’t leave something in if it is just “adding” to your argument. Leave it in if it adds well to the argument.
what was confirmed though is that majority of people who consume videos that talk about gay representation in media, or at least watch Somerton don't read books and articles about gay representation. They're not active, just reactive and if the videos didn't exist in youtube they'd never look for it.
my ass did not blink when you said minecraft oof
I'm not ashamed I watched this twice & your comment is the first I noticed of it.
I love how you’ve been putting cute TikToks at the end of videos, feels like a treat for keeping a bare minimum attention span 😭❤
I’m really glad you spoke about this video because plagiarism is such an important topic in writing academic papers. Also, your makeup absolutely slays, the white eyeliner really compliments your eye shape!
i've been a fan of hbomb's essays for years now. i def agree with your critique of his section on drama channels - especially in regards to iNabber and VangelinaSkov. from what i've watched, their videos are quite well-researched and his comment about "one video a month" towards Blair applies to iNabber at this point! so calling him a content mill feels particularly wrong in context. to be fair to him, i also think it's inevitable, in a 4-hour video, to miss the mark on something. that doesn't make him immune to criticism, though, so i'm glad you voiced yours! great video as always 🥰
EDIT: please read faith7750's reply to this comment re: Vangelina Skov's content about DID
I feel like everything besides the james somerton stuff was kinda "filler".
More there for the pacing and overall narrative than because of genuine issue with those creators in particular
(with Blair getting an extra call out video actually focused on her slightly later because focusing on her too much just didn't really fit with the cinematic vision of the 4 hour video)
Not trying to be rude or anything but Vangelina has butted her nose into a lot of discourse about disorders she doesn't have and doesn't experience and it has personally caused those communities great pain. I absolutely can't see how her milking the drama of people with DID for money for like a solid year, meddling in intercommunity discourse abt who is "valid enough to have DID" while not knowing anything about it to be remotely thought through. The bulk of her videos about people like us were really poorly researched. I get what you're saying about it being more nuanced and agree, but like Vangelina is not the example to use. I get people don't take harming my community that seriously and that you might not know about this or see how it harms us, but I really hope you'll consider how much this content hurts us before praising her content. Thanks for reading, just really felt I had to say this. Sensationalizing our mental illness is never ok. There is a reason other people with DID on youtube have called her a plague on the community. She has thankfully taken some of this down, but the bulk of it is still up.
I know nothing about iNabber, but I clicked on one of his videos about Ruby Franke and immediately clicked off because he mispronounces her name in the first line... Like I have no time for people who supposedly "research" but don't bother to listen to any primary sources (like Ruby's own videos where her name is clearly pronounced) 🙄 That makes it clear to me that a creator is just jumping on a band wagon for clicks and reading other people's opinions without doing the work themself.
Oh come on, those channels absolutely are just here for the drama and clicks - they’re literally the TH-cam equivalent of tabloids (actually probably a lot worse tbh since tabloids are normally more worried about getting sued). That doesn’t mean they’re not enjoyable bc people DO love drama, but I’m not going to pretend they’re not trashy
@@alexbennet4195
The issue is, nobody calls it "trashy" or any of that other stuff when breadtube video essayists do the exact same thing. In some ways a lot worse than your average commentary channel..
Even with multiple creators habitually targeting disabled people (often "not for being disabled ", but they never act mindfully of disability and tend to only acknowledge it far enough to scream "disability isn't an excuse to be/act disabled")
and enabling their fanbase to do things like mock addiction and suicide and trying to trigger both over some of the most petty and trumped up drama.
(Eg after she took down kiwifarms and did a lot to help trans youth, keffals was highly targeted by pretty much all of breadtube while the reactionaries are still going after her. Because "noddles are tasty" is the worst most egregious racism of all times and These People Need To Be Purged. So they literally don't care about aligning with those hate groups and campaigns targeting disability and transness to up the suicide numbers, because it's just what the breadtube crowd says gets them views these days.
Hoots is a really easy example since her claims were so bad and so sensationally made up and ignorant/parroting the breadtube lines that she ended up apologizing to keffals in the end.
But Jessie Gender is so bad that you can see a video from over a year ago where she defends keffals citing the reactionary desire to get leftists to join in the dog pile or at least leave her isolated. When she later joined in the same dog piling only 5 months ago by working with foreign man to pedo jacket her/mock her for being swatted while just lying and painting her like a terrible person that "uses addiction/autism as an excuse" when she's just being open about going to rehab and stuff like that.
With absolutely 0 apology besides crying about how victimized she feels because some people said she doesn't care about trans suicide and that made her feel bad and is the real bullying uwu.. But yeah let her know if she messes up guys. She totally cares about accountability and all that)
Simply because ableism isn't one of the trendy social justice causes so not worth giving any real thought beyond raging about the R word in particular (other medicalized slurs with eugenicist history like moron and idiot are totally fine tho. It's a deep and sincere concern for disabled people that makes them care so much about policing other people using that word in particular but never once questioning their own behavior, biases, or even why so many of their favorite insults reference disability in some way or another.
Including neckbeard which is just woke for sperglord and puts more focus on struggles with ADLs and dyspraxia or even ftm gender transition/PCOS struggles more than just the aspie supremacist coded superiority complex of Elon musk types that tend to underline the sperglord subculture. But it doesn't reference a disability DIRECTLY so it's actually more PC to these leftists lmao)
It's a huge double standard and it's hard to support the narratives surrounding both subcultures
tbh the outcome I like the most from hbomb's video is I've seen a number of channels who I knew to be decent or seemed to be decent already just...have a proactive think on plagiarism, their own practices, what they wanted to do with their own channels upon reflection, & have a conversation with their communities/fans about all of it, with many pledging to standards explicitly they felt had been implied or unclear prior.
I think ultimately that happened with a lot of viewers too --- I know I gave it a lot of thought afterwards --- & the ethical ripples, for the better, will ripple onward, incalculably. I appreciate all the conversations that are just beginning bc of this work by HB + Todd & others (including/esp HB's beloved producer).
“big important, very slay” lmao
Hey Mika, enjoying the video so far, an appreciate the work you put in! Just want to mention 'Cinemassacre' is the production company made by 'James Rolfe' aka The Angry Video Game Nerd, his online alias. Cinemassacre is a collection of people over the years, AVGN is the individual. Appreciate all the effort put into your scripts, just something small I caught.
I got it backwards because how it was described I thought AVGN was a series he made because that was also the podcast name
But thank you by the way!
I understand your statement about smaller channels and how Harrys perspective may not encompass that but i also cant help but feel that you mentioning this did have a personal relevance to you also colors your look into the channels hes criticizing, I personally understand why the examples were included as ive watched both creators in the past and had my own criticisms of how they presented their findings as they still rely on that relatively quick news cycle even if they are doing “deep” dives into something. And the point about smaller channels rings somewhat off to me as at least of the channels i can recognize that he showed, all of them have a pretty solid follower base
I understand that the twitter video may have seemed like not a huge point- and honestly i dont think Harry did either? the tone of that part of the video seemed honestly pretty clearly joking about the irony of the situation if not like. legit condemning these people for doing so. I may be wrong but im pretty sure he mentions the difference in actual severity/seriousness in the video.
I always enjoy watching your videos, this included, and your points about illuminaughtii are very relevant. I just think the way that you discuss these aspects as weakening his presentation to the degree that you do may have a similar effect on the points youre trying to convey❤
ur commentary on hboms video is so refreshing! first vid of urs ive ever watched. essayist myself, n honestly didnt realize i had conflicting opinions with the “drama” channel shit until you explained it! i didnt rly think too much about it, compared to the other 3.5 hrs of the video lol, but i think there are numerous points to be made regarding that concept on youtube. sorry chat got to you lmfao as a twitch user ive been there, but trust me, your point was clear to me at least! happy to have found so many new channels thru all this, including urs :) also bc we r on the topic… your writing skills are so evident in your script this video was so engaging thank u thank u
i think sometimes people don't want to admit the content they watch is not extremely high quality. the channels i love range from ridiculously meticulously planned videos to just goofs and gaffs but they still are both fine to like. i think people take the criticism towards commentary and drama youtube a little harshly especially when you take a step back from the genre and see that a lot of channels do fall under those generalizations. nothing wrong with liking them, obviously.
Just wanted to say you’re an absolute QUEEN for putting time markers on all your videos. Thank you❤
I like the plagiarism video's structure a lot. The first example shows simple paraphrasing and the basic wording tricks when addressing the situation, the second one shows an actual version of a plagiarist co-author, the third one is about how a single resource can be presented to be as if from a multitude or from the authors themselves and the fourth one showed the deleting and reuploading pattern. All of these are basically to explain the various actions and responses of James Somerton.
As someone that watched hbomberguy years before, this is a very atypical video for him, spending so much time to expose just one youtuber. He is one of the earlier leftist youtubers that did videos on pick-up-artist types years before, and more recently his antivaxx history video was basically one of the best documentary-style works on youtube. This video engaged a lot of new people to him.
girl ur makeup floors me every time, i literally heart u
Yes! I honestly never even heard of James Somerton until the HBomberguy video dropped, then I found the Timintheshadows (? Can't remember off the top of my head) and then I saw The Ace Couple's video about how they donated money and his obvious hate of ace people. As if his hate for so many other groups wasn't bad enough. And the way he played everything off as if he just let his co-writer take the wheel and as if James wasn't the one to write that stuff in his apology video... just...
First of all, the bigotry and outright lies he did have in the videos weren't just sprinkled here and there. They weren't once in a while. They were everywhere, just based on what's come out since HBomberguy's video. Let's pretend he isn't lying and that he didn't write those things and those aren't actually his beliefs about ace people, trans people, white women, lesbians, "boring" gay men, etc. There's no way he doesn't watch the finished product before it's uploaded. There's no way you can hear those words and listen to the tone his says them in, and NOT know those are effed up things to say!! You can't not know those are bad things to say and believe about a group of people, unless those are his genuine beliefs. Or at the very least, his genuine stupidity. If he didn't at least agree with those things, he would have noticed they sounded bad and changed them or edited them out.
It’s Todd in the Shadows. :)
When James, in his apology ,sneered when he mentioned putting up his patreon so people could unsubscribe before the next billing month.
That shone a huge light on his motives of his whole grift.
All he cared about was money . He begged for money while buying expensive cameras and equipment.
I really enjoyed his videos until the begging video then I started noticing his misogyny and i was out.
You literally get kicked out of uni for plagiarism, there has to be some consequences
46:47 I had the same little twitch when he popped off on drama channels and im so relieved it wasnt just me. It just felt very dismissive of drama channels which already get a bad wrap for a one reason or another. I also agree that over all he did make really good points.
Also I'm still working my way through your videos (in a very chaotic manner). So you'll prolly see more of my comments floating around.
the candy cane makeup look is so gorgeous ☺️
Super excited to watch this. Congrats on finishing your degree! 🎉🎊
yeah i do have a major issue of when women creators cover something, it’s “drama” but if it’s a male creator, it’s “commentary”
commentary and drama are different
commentary is talking about something that happened and adding your opinion
drama is saying something happened for views eg sunnyv2
Not necessarily, I follow plenty of female commentarists and video essayists and depending on the topic they're covering and how much more information it's added to it, it can fall under either category. Same goes for male creators.
Been so excited to listen during work
Thank you 🫶
I'm really glad you stuck to your criticism re drama channels. I totally admit that section of hbomb's video totally snuck in for me, even though I sometimes watch vangelina and inabber and never found plagiarism problems with either of them. It's very fair and valid criticism and I'm glad you brought it to our attention. I had just seen praise for his video and I think 99% of it is absolutely warranted. Which is what makes your small criticism all the valuable and I super appreciate it. Thanks Mika 💙
right on time mika, cant wait to dive into this vid headfirst
I love hbomberguy. I love drama chanels. Some. Not all are bad. Some he refernced do actual journalism.
Oh damn a hit banger by Mike for the holidays!
I think the issue with the drama channel point is that he doesn't fully explain his point? I think there are drama channels that are content mills, but I also see why it got some people's hackles up because there may be some unspoken assumptions there? Like not all drama channels are content farms.
But also I'm a big fan of hbomberguy so I'm more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt there. So maybe I'm adding caveats that he didn't even intend to make.
And I also felt that iNabber was misplaced- perhaps because he's conflated two points and/or his personal distaste of drama channels.
Your makeup is so pretty holy moly
YES i was hoping to get your perspective on this!!!
I CANT GET OVER YOUR MAKEUP OH MY GODDDDD YOU LOOK AMAZING!!
This video shows that no video essayist is above criticism. While Hbomberguy's and Kat's video is superbly researched, excellently presented and largely important I also have some issues with his takes on minor, inconsequential things. I think he would do well to have you on his team.
Ur makeup looks sooooo bomb
Thank you!! I tagged the girl that did it first!
lookin forward to this one omg
Doing this as work?! 22:00 YESSS
28:43 I had exactly the same response to Illuminaughti! The videos were so flat
je trouve cette conversation intéressante et j'ai écouté le live donc i'm looking forward to hearing your full thoughts on this😁
really great video so far! i so appreciate you speaking about this and sharing your criticism!!
Thank you I was genuinely scared
Pop off, your makeup looks so good!!!!
Somebody else thought that Harry said that puting one piece of a tweet from another video equals Blair level of plagiarism? What the heck girl?
Congrats on your achievements! 🎉 💐
I kind of wonder how much of the entirely wrong stuff was James' writing partner Nick.
He did excuse himself from the whole thing by basically saying "I didn't plagiarize anything because I don't read or watch anything, everything I wrote was just based on assumptions and vibes"
Of course, there's no reason to believe James does not have awful takes, bad recall and a general inability to express himself on top of stealing, but I'm very weary of accepting Nick's excuses/apology
Mika, i love your videos, but... u made a small mistake about a documentary which was plagirased by Blair.
Its not an Andew Wakefield's film, it's an investigation ABOUT Wakefield, and its made by Brian Deer.
maybe u meant that, but its not particulary clear :'з (maybe its my fault bc english is not my native language, so i misinterpreted ur words a little)
anyway, tanks for ur input!!
Yes I mean “Wakefield documentary” as in about him but yes that’s my bad for not having it more clear
@@MikasRhetoric oh i see! thank you for clarifying this
please show us the pottery strawberry cow, I am in fact begging
Hi this is my first video of yours i watched and i really like your commentary! Hbomb is one of my fav youtubers, and honestly i think your criticism is very valid. I think drama youtubers is a very broad term and definitely not the same or a sub part of content mills. I watch drama youtubers pretty often and i watch commentary youtubers often. Because of that, i was able to tell very quickly when i was recommended illuminaughtlg endlessly for a week, that her content was content mill territory. i think he could of done a much better job clarifying the difference, or what can make a drama channel (or any channel like a review channel he mentioned) become a content mill and not have to bring down all drama channels in the process.
I don’t think your editing is bad at all! I feel like it’s appropriate for the type of videos you do!! Thanks for continuing to educate me w/ your awesome vids! 💗
This vid be a 3 course meal, hella delicious
Merci 😳
I agree with you on HBomb lumping drama and commentary channels together a bit too much. Think maybe a lot of the out of touch place HBomb comes from is perhaps his own experience where he just initially made video essays and response videos to anti feminists cos he wanted to and happened to blow up and maybe that’s why he seems very against anything that comes off as a content mill
Must admit, this might come off as harsh but i do think having TH-cam as a job is a privilege not a right, so if it involves unethical ways of making content - it’s maybe just not the correct career path. but I would likely feel differently if it’s like great, this thing I worked really hard on won’t be recognised
That’s an interesting perspective and I see your perspective