Plagiarism and You

[olivermoss]

Oh, hey, it's a topic I talk about a lot.

HBomberGuy just put out a video on the topic and it's... 4 hours? Holy heck. Well, there goes my productivity for the evening.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

Well that's four hours I need to fit into my schedule...

[olivermoss]

He really should let me know if advance if he's going to take up a chunk of my weekend like this

[mistressofmuses]

No kidding!

(I got through about an hour of it in small chunks throughout my very slow workday, and I'm expecting I'll wind up watching the rest tonight.)

[muccamukk]

I like that guy, but honestly his videos do not need to be as long as they are. It can be said in less time!

[olivermoss]

I like the length. Some of the basics he's setting up I already know, but I always see people be so dismissive of how plagiarism really works online that it's nice to see it talked about realistically.

[muccamukk]

Fair enough. I have now watched it, and can see why it was that long, in this case (though I generally think he runs longer than he needs to). Also, the general schadenfreude pie vibes are delicious.

[olivermoss]

Myself and a lot of people have known he's a liar and a plagiarist for a long time, but since he's so parasocial with his audience saying anything about it on most platforms could go really badly. A lot was needed to disarm the defenses and also explain to people unaware why this is a big problem. If you look at his account, his viewcounts are pretty mid, but that's only do to repeatedly re-uploading. His first uploads often have 500k-1.5m views and between patreon and sponsorships and his fake GFM he was raking in cash.

[muccamukk]

I don't follow video essays enough to have been aware of him, though from the general party on tumblr, it seems like a lot of people did. I'm glad they're all having a nice weekend.

Having only seen the clips of him in the two videos, I found his presentation very smarmy and off putting, but as said elsewhere, I'm a cranky old lesbian, and very much not his target audience.

I'm curious what kind of money the youtube angle was. I've seen people ballpark the patreon based on number of subscribers and average donations, and we know the total for the GFM, but I've always been very fuzzy on how much youtube pays out. I'm guessing it was a lot though. Maybe someone will sue him.

I'm glad HBomberGuy is paying out the people James S. stole from, though some of them have died since, so I guess maybe he could donate their bit to an AIDS fund or something.

[olivermoss]

The sponsorships he got were probably worth a ton more than he got from youtube. We can't ever know how much he made, but there is reason to think it's a lot. There are expenses in video making that get overlooked, but when you are in his ballpark there is a lot of money to be made.

I don't know how often he had sponsors, but that almost doesn't matter. If you don't typically do sponsorships, that means you can command a much higher rate. Hitting a market / viewing space that isn't already saturated is what advertisers want most.

[muccamukk]

I guess it would be hard to figure out, even if you tallied up the sponsorships (also how many were on videos he later took down), because the rates very so much on basis of numbers of followers v. how many you take v. if it's a Tuesday, etc. Something (communist) could be said about this sector comparing their wages and coming up with a schedule, but I imagine it'd be a difficult thing to unionise, lol.

[rionaleonhart]

Oh, thank you for the heads-up; I love his videos!

[olivermoss]

Welcome! It's a long one!

[evilinsanemonkey]

I'm looking forward to watching this one, but it's probably gonna have to be in Stages, lol

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I took it in chunks (and was watching certain things on twitter during the breaks)

[evilinsanemonkey]

I accidentally watched most of it in one sitting, lol