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i watched the new hbomberguy video, the one about plagiarism, and wow that has given me much to think about
makes me realise that an ability to edit prose is an ability i take for granted, even as i struggle to complete long-form texts. there are people out there who just, feel alienated from the written word in a way i can't really imagine
but also… i spend far too much time worrying about potential unconscious plagiarism of tiny little melodies and chord progressions in my work and yet people are out there actively, deliberately, fully consciously, unapologetically ripping off entire video essays
oh, did anyone else notice this: what's actually most telling about james somerton's videos is the lack of suggested reading or references. there are no serious queer critical theory (etc) videos on YouTube that don't tell you what books the author read while writing them.
there are people who don't read a lot, that's respectable in its own way, but in such cases you'd know it from the way they talk. when they sound like a well-read academic and then there is no bibliography at all, that's… very weird. i wonder why nobody noticed?
oh my god the video by “Todd in the Shadows” about all the times mr. somerton and/or his co-writer has apparently and very audaciously made shit up, sometimes quite incendiary stuff about queer history, is possibly worse than the plagiarism stuff. jesus christ
like the guy has been doing plagiarism and not sourcing stuff properly, this is a horrible way to treat your fellow queers, but using that unearned credibility to falsify history feels like an even greater crime. people will just believe you because you sound like you know shit
@hikari kind of surreal to see everyone talking about my old friend from school (Todd, not the main character, fortunately)
@hikari I’m sure plenty of people did (I never watched any of his videos, not my jam to begin with) but 99% of the time they’re just going to shrug and avoid clicking his videos in the future because they seem low quality, not launch the inquisition
@0xabad1dea yeah that's fair. hbomb himself said he had ignored this guy's videos because they seemed low-quality
@0xabad1dea @hikari in a space where folks compete for attention the correct response to bad behaviour is a lack of attention, not extra focus. From that point of view the inquisition is sending entirely the wrong message
@canteen @hikari the thing is that he had already gotten a lot of attention through illicit means and was actively preventing the people he was stealing from getting paid the money he was getting paid. the patreon has been vaporized as a direct result of the video. sometimes lasers at full blast is the right move
@0xabad1dea @hikari fair
@0xabad1dea @hikari it's still mind blowing and infuriating that one could get thousands of dollars on patreon by doing that. mmmmmm fuck, why am i trying to do a patreon for open source software again? ☠️
@valpackett @0xabad1dea i know right???? (i also do OSS and try to fund it with donations, though i might stop doing it in a while because the amount of money i get is just too little for it to be worth it)