It is classic internet hivemind at play. If every person who watched Hbomb's video created or liked precisely one slightly negative post about Somerton, then that's a lifetime worth of harassment and cyberstalking for the man despite none of the perpetrators displaying any true sadism towards him (of course in reality many of them did).
At this point, I am starting to wonder if perhaps we should just collectively accept that having an identity on the internet less sanitary than Mr. Beast is consenting to participate in a blood sport, and then we can live with the positives and negatives that come with that. If we can't stop the gladiators from fighting, then we may as well admit to ourselves that we enjoy watching the duels.
Breaking from the conversation about toxic internet culture, and social media…
It’s sad to me is that throughout history, there have been great and unique contributions made to the world by plagiarists. Criticism of plagiarism is completely reasonable, and plagiarism not something I condone, but it doesn’t completely preclude you from being a person worth listening to (it just precludes you from being someone worth giving money to). It means you’re a liar, and a thief, but liars and thieves can be insightful. One particular psychologist comes to mind, but I forget his name, or his specific field of research. What I remember is that after his death, it was discovered that he was a pathological liar, and plagiarized most of his work. However, this contextualized his work and made it far more compelling, because he suffered from a lot of the things he wrote about. It was about him all along, and a new story was born from the ashes of the old one.
I had this thought while reading this, so I’ll post it here, but I might get all the details straight make a Twitter post or something about it. Maybe.
I guess you could argue that some people have popularised a valuable idea by plagiarising it. But I can't see how that can be a 'unique' contribution - someone else came up with the unique part; all the plagiarist is doing is taking credit when they could have popularised the idea honestly.
True, I think at that point you're going beyond what most people would call plagiarism into collage/remixing. Also I think it matters a lot if you're remixing well-known stuff where it's clear what you're doing, or if you're presenting it all as your own ideas like these YouTube plagiarists were doing.
"I believe suicide is a form of murder. You’re killing a defenseless human being, even if it’s you."
I watched a interview with the director of suicide prevention recently, he said the following and it made a lot of sense.
Long term risk factors:
Main trait: Perfectionism.
2nd: Fearlessness
3rd: Pessimism
Are you 3 for 3 on this Max? I suspect you're optimistic though..
Someone has be the whipping boy and take the collective human anger at being alive. I'm glad you're doing it. I wonder if people like yourself revel in sacrifice knowing the long term mission requires the annoyance of daily beatings. I hate that humans are this way, taking so much joy using the internet to inflict a thousand cuts...but it's the most interesting outcome and the Universe wants it's god damned pound of flesh.
I hope you live to be 100 and see your kids research the work you've accomplished to push us forward.
Excellent article! I think you are really on point and it’s really important for people to be having very empathetic, honest conversations when faced with something so serious. This is an entirely new kind of digital experience of watching and consuming your favorite/least favorite content creators suicidal behavior unfold in real time.
P. S. I never forgot how people celebrated the deaths of figures like Bin Laden or Hussein. Justified or not killing didn't seem like something to be joyful about. I always thought that lack of humanity was deeply tragic, and holds our species back from so much.
This isn't central to the point of this post, but it's not true to say that the Red Letter Media crew have only made one movie. They actually made several low budget movies and a web series before they became well-known for reviews. They weren't all spoof/comedy either, one is a sincere horror film called The Recovered. So it's not true to say that they have never taken risks or showed any vulnerability.
And I don't agree that Space Cop was *deliberately bad*. It's a parody, but I think they were trying to make a good comedy. From what I remember it has some good jokes. I think the production process was a lot more difficult and drawn out than they anticipated and maybe they had to make the best of what they could film.
That's why when they make fun of bad low budget movies, it never feels that mean-spirited because they have been in the same position themselves and I think they would be the first to admit that most of their films aren't that good. Also, I don't think the kind of people who have the self-belief and drive to make even a terrible movie are going to be psychologically damaged by being made fun of on Best of the Worst. I think it's OK to make fun of The Phantom Menace or Birdemic, the directors will be fine.
As for the James Somerton situation - it's bad that the only realistic way to stop him plagiarising is a 3 hour 'takedown' video that ends up inciting a mob against him. YouTube should really enforce copyright policies in a less robotic way - instead of just automatically looking for copied footage, there should be a way for viewers to flag up that a video has plagiarised its script without proper credit and have it checked by a human team (who could have tools to automatically do stuff like put chunks of the video transcript into Google Books search). Instead of a 'call-out' and meltdown, he should have just had all the videos with plagiarised scripts demonetised until he learned not to copy.
Thank you for the correction and for the insightful point that YouTube relies on mob justice to address situations like this. I think this is worth adding to the piece--can I credit you with a link or name or something?
"What if you had to choose? Push one button and James Somerton gets to cheat and manipulate his way through life. Push another button and he kills himself.
Would you get out some masking tape and a sharpie and label the suicide button “I’m just calling out bad behavior,” and then push it?"
I love this. Great writing, Max.
Your work has had, and continues to have a big impact on how I think about content and entertainment. I think this is important work.
He recounted:
“The girl answered her mother by saying, 'I don't want to go! ' She seemed to be terrified”.
Punctuation lesson. Lemme know if I got anything wrong!
you would like this story i think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQDKEHSeWQ
It is classic internet hivemind at play. If every person who watched Hbomb's video created or liked precisely one slightly negative post about Somerton, then that's a lifetime worth of harassment and cyberstalking for the man despite none of the perpetrators displaying any true sadism towards him (of course in reality many of them did).
At this point, I am starting to wonder if perhaps we should just collectively accept that having an identity on the internet less sanitary than Mr. Beast is consenting to participate in a blood sport, and then we can live with the positives and negatives that come with that. If we can't stop the gladiators from fighting, then we may as well admit to ourselves that we enjoy watching the duels.
Breaking from the conversation about toxic internet culture, and social media…
It’s sad to me is that throughout history, there have been great and unique contributions made to the world by plagiarists. Criticism of plagiarism is completely reasonable, and plagiarism not something I condone, but it doesn’t completely preclude you from being a person worth listening to (it just precludes you from being someone worth giving money to). It means you’re a liar, and a thief, but liars and thieves can be insightful. One particular psychologist comes to mind, but I forget his name, or his specific field of research. What I remember is that after his death, it was discovered that he was a pathological liar, and plagiarized most of his work. However, this contextualized his work and made it far more compelling, because he suffered from a lot of the things he wrote about. It was about him all along, and a new story was born from the ashes of the old one.
I had this thought while reading this, so I’ll post it here, but I might get all the details straight make a Twitter post or something about it. Maybe.
I guess you could argue that some people have popularised a valuable idea by plagiarising it. But I can't see how that can be a 'unique' contribution - someone else came up with the unique part; all the plagiarist is doing is taking credit when they could have popularised the idea honestly.
You could create a wholly unique body of work by plagiarizing tons of different people, and recontextualizing it all.
True, I think at that point you're going beyond what most people would call plagiarism into collage/remixing. Also I think it matters a lot if you're remixing well-known stuff where it's clear what you're doing, or if you're presenting it all as your own ideas like these YouTube plagiarists were doing.
mrgirl, I know you don't believe, but you and I will be going to Valhalla
My doggy Dane will be going home to the big field in the sky
He has brought my family so much joy and laughs, much frustration and many bites and is so much more than just "a dog"
Not ashamed to say i'm heartbroken but his body is failing and its the kindest thing we can do
So today, our hearts bleed a little, but we also celebrate the uniqueness of his character and he will always stand out in that way
"I believe suicide is a form of murder. You’re killing a defenseless human being, even if it’s you."
I watched a interview with the director of suicide prevention recently, he said the following and it made a lot of sense.
Long term risk factors:
Main trait: Perfectionism.
2nd: Fearlessness
3rd: Pessimism
Are you 3 for 3 on this Max? I suspect you're optimistic though..
Someone has be the whipping boy and take the collective human anger at being alive. I'm glad you're doing it. I wonder if people like yourself revel in sacrifice knowing the long term mission requires the annoyance of daily beatings. I hate that humans are this way, taking so much joy using the internet to inflict a thousand cuts...but it's the most interesting outcome and the Universe wants it's god damned pound of flesh.
I hope you live to be 100 and see your kids research the work you've accomplished to push us forward.
Excellent article! I think you are really on point and it’s really important for people to be having very empathetic, honest conversations when faced with something so serious. This is an entirely new kind of digital experience of watching and consuming your favorite/least favorite content creators suicidal behavior unfold in real time.
Very well written, thanks for the good work.
P. S. I never forgot how people celebrated the deaths of figures like Bin Laden or Hussein. Justified or not killing didn't seem like something to be joyful about. I always thought that lack of humanity was deeply tragic, and holds our species back from so much.
Well Max - you deserve to live. Enjoyed the thought provoking read, as always.
This isn't central to the point of this post, but it's not true to say that the Red Letter Media crew have only made one movie. They actually made several low budget movies and a web series before they became well-known for reviews. They weren't all spoof/comedy either, one is a sincere horror film called The Recovered. So it's not true to say that they have never taken risks or showed any vulnerability.
And I don't agree that Space Cop was *deliberately bad*. It's a parody, but I think they were trying to make a good comedy. From what I remember it has some good jokes. I think the production process was a lot more difficult and drawn out than they anticipated and maybe they had to make the best of what they could film.
That's why when they make fun of bad low budget movies, it never feels that mean-spirited because they have been in the same position themselves and I think they would be the first to admit that most of their films aren't that good. Also, I don't think the kind of people who have the self-belief and drive to make even a terrible movie are going to be psychologically damaged by being made fun of on Best of the Worst. I think it's OK to make fun of The Phantom Menace or Birdemic, the directors will be fine.
As for the James Somerton situation - it's bad that the only realistic way to stop him plagiarising is a 3 hour 'takedown' video that ends up inciting a mob against him. YouTube should really enforce copyright policies in a less robotic way - instead of just automatically looking for copied footage, there should be a way for viewers to flag up that a video has plagiarised its script without proper credit and have it checked by a human team (who could have tools to automatically do stuff like put chunks of the video transcript into Google Books search). Instead of a 'call-out' and meltdown, he should have just had all the videos with plagiarised scripts demonetised until he learned not to copy.
Thank you for the correction and for the insightful point that YouTube relies on mob justice to address situations like this. I think this is worth adding to the piece--can I credit you with a link or name or something?
No worries - you can just credit me as 'Ben', link to my Substack if you like!
Beautiful ending
"What if you had to choose? Push one button and James Somerton gets to cheat and manipulate his way through life. Push another button and he kills himself.
Would you get out some masking tape and a sharpie and label the suicide button “I’m just calling out bad behavior,” and then push it?"
I love this. Great writing, Max.
Your work has had, and continues to have a big impact on how I think about content and entertainment. I think this is important work.