HBomberguy

On one hand, James should go get help.

But also on the other "Woe is me" is kind of James' entire thing, its not the first time he brings up suicide either after this, he did it in his first apology video. Also throwing that on Nick that losing their friendship is just... a fantastically shitty thing to do.

Again, if this real, James should go get help.

The cynic in me is screaming "Desperate bid for sympathy", because I've known men who do that. My best friend was in an emotionally abusive relationship for three years with a guy who would guilt them into staying with him by threatening to kill himself if they left. Suicide is an extremely serious topic and should be handled with care, but "Okay I'll just go kill myself bye" is also a sympathy-bait tactic used by toxic people.

And if the context of your relationship is a toxic one, then there's not really anything you can do but just... walk away from that. Certain kinds of people do use suicide to build sympathy traps. If that's the kind of relationship you have then there comes a point where you have to be like, "Maybe this is fake or maybe you actually do need help... but that can't be my problem."

That's kind of how I feel about this. I don't know if this is sincere or not. I could believe that James genuinely feels that there's no way out after having his livelihood and credibility destroyed. I could also believe that he's just trying to create more drama, make people feel bad for him, and maybe drum up some ad revenue for those "final" videos "that's definitely going to suicide prevention, totes". I could believe either.

But I don't honestly care. I don't want to be the person rushing to his side with forgiveness and comfort and "It's okay, maybe we can try again, it's fine." Maybe James really, truly does need help. If so, then I hope he gets it. But it isn't my problem. If this is real then he needs therapy, not internet fans.

And I hope Hbomb doesn't let James make that his problem. Or let James make him feel guilty for it, if it is real.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 5th 2024 at 6:59:22 AM

Yeah, that's kind of the thing here. James is clearly lying about some of the oh poor me stuff he talks about (like, the idea that no Canadian company would hire him because of epilepsy because they couldn't get him on insurance is just...straight up wrong, Canadian insurance companies aren't allowed to discriminate like that and wouldn't anyway if it was a corporate health insurance plan) and even if some of it is true, it's mixed in with clear lies and combine that with his history of lying about shit with a straight face, I don't think he should get anything but firm pressure to get therapy and actually deal with his issues.

If he does go through with this, Hbomb is not to blame, because someone getting exposed for doing something that is wildly wrong and immoral committing suicide because their prospects crashed down isn't even remotely the fault of the person who puts the truth under the spotlight.

I don't think sympathy and disgust are binary emotions, nor does everyone have to be the perfect little victim. So it's possible for Somerton to have had a history of mental illness, bullying, and physical problems while also being the guy that stole from dozens of marginalized creatives and begged for money on projects that never got off the ground. And we can be scornful of the latter even if I pity the former.

I hope he's still alive.

Edited by Stage7-4 on Mar 5th 2024 at 7:13:53 AM

Like I said, if it's true, then I wish he goes and get some help swiftly.

But at the same time he's a serial self-victimizer and liar.

I'm echoing the sentiment of more than a few people both here and on Harry's discord when I say that one way or another this is awful. It's awful if it's a fake plea for attention and sympathy, it's awful but in a different way if it's not.

I'd like to think that in the places that there's been the most discussion on this - here, the discord, reddit - that a majority of people don't want James to come to harm. They want accountability, which is an entirely different thing. What is perhaps the worst thing if this is a legitimate suicide/suicide attempt is the undertone intentional or not of "look what you made me do". Were people just supposed to stand by and let James continue doing what he was doing unabated? Were they supposed to welcome him back with open arms and no scrutiny once he did return? The obvious answer to both of those questions is no.

Yet, some people are inevitably going to feel guilt if he has taken his own life. That's not fair to them, it's not something that should be on them. Suicide is always a terrible thing, a devastation to the lives of those around the person even only tangentially. There are going to be ghouls that look to lay the blame of this at the feet of Harry, Kat, and anyone else that aided in the creation of the video and any follow-up that was done. Those people are unambiguously, 100% wrong.

I hope, sincerely, that James is okay. As shitty as it would be I hope that this was a fake plea, or one that was made and then someone intervened or he couldn't go through with it. He needs to get help. He needs to not be online right now, for his own sake. If it's the worst case scenario, well then I'm just honestly not sure.

Hbomb has a Discord? Is it Patreon-exclusive?

I believe it is. At least it got added to my discord when I joined patreon

Wonder if this will affect the popularity of digital essays and careers focused around them.

This is going to be hard to watch.

Edited by FOFD on Mar 7th 2024 at 9:26:26 AM

double post, my bad

Edited by FOFD on Mar 7th 2024 at 9:26:10 AM

I wont pretend I'm privy to what's going on inside his head.

Like I said, if it's real, hope he gets help. But at the same time, wouldn't be surprised if it's not based on past history.

Jesus Christ, really now.

...why would it? It's not anything about video essays themselves that's a problem, it's one guy.

Just to keep people updated on what's happening.

Nick (James' former co-writer) was asked about the current situation, and replied "i'm aware of the tweet and the situation. right now and to my knowledge, there's nothing to worry about."

People are tentatively taking this to be positive news. Granted nothing has been confirmed one way or the other.

James' twitter was also closed after the post yesterday, which implies he's around.

Glad he's alright, but also not thrilled that threatening suicide is apparently a thing he's willing to do to take the pressure off.

:I

Edited by Chortleous on Mar 6th 2024 at 9:14:10 AM

I'm not a mod or anything, but I'd strongly urge that we collectively not speculate on this, and just wait to see if any further information comes out. It could very well have been a legitimate suicide note; there could have been an attempt made. It could've been just the opposite, where he had no plans and was just being manipulative. It could be something else entirely. We don't know. Unless more information becomes publicly available we're all in the dark.

Like despite everything, I can sympathize with what I think has happened with James. He had a dream of being a video essayist and a filmmaker. He cut corners, because he thought he could get away with it. He put all his eggs in that basket, and now feels like there's no way out. As someone who's a fan of web video from since early days of Channel Awesome, I've seen a lot of people flame out in this career path. Yeah, it seems easy, just talk to a camera for twenty minutes, and that's a twenty minute video, right?

Yes, James caused a lot of his problems with his own behavior. No, I absolutely do not blame Hbomb or Todd (or any of the creators James plagiarized that called him out) on his crisis. Yes, there are also vultures circling the scene that are trying to exploit all of this. I hope James hasn't done anything irreversible to himself, but I also hope he finds something else to do with his life.

I'm not going to speculate on the nature of this last event or whether somerton was being manipulative or actually in a bad mental health place, but regardless it goes without saying that even from a more sympathetic lens, what he's doing is the equivalent of putting your hand on the fire over and over again.

Having your video be filled with 95% "l+ratio+plagiarizer+bad video quality" comments and your new patreon only managing to get 3 paying members frankly sounds like a humiliating experience to go through and one he subjected himself to entirely willingly. And I don't think that's going to stop anytime soon.

On one level I get why he'd be trying regardless because the alternative for him is probably something miserable like working retail or flipping burgers, but well, maybe he should have thought of that before plagiarizing other lgbt creators and trafficking misogyny in his videos.

In a less depressing note, the vid is now at 18M views, which… goddamn. I don’t know how many video essays approach the 20M mark, but it’s probably not many.

For comparison, Dan Olson's Line Goes Up video, which was big enough to basically single-handedly kill NF Ts and get an interview with the NYT, is at 14M. Goodness gracious, H Bomb.

Dan's NFT video didnt kill NFTs though. Like, Dan himself points that out.

NF Ts were always a bubble and already on their decline, but there's no doubt in my mind that Olson's video hastened that if only by merit of being a useful reference point allowing people to point to it and going "you know, that."

Yeah, there's a difference between "this is a direct cause of the downfall" and "this is a very handy way to explain to people what the hell is even going on with the already occurring downfall."