bloo<p>finished the hbomberguy plagiarism vid. it's heartbreaking what Somerton and others like him did.</p><p>i found myself predicting the conclusion a bit, "The Cost" (as in the human cost) that this way of creating content as, purely, a means of generating output and not geniune artistic endeavor has on the writing/videomaking community as a whole.</p><p>that in order to pull any of this off, you have to create not art but an artifical scarcity. you're not making your own work that adds to the collection of similar works that exist. </p><p>you're taking other peoples' stuff and making a funnel where your audience can wrap themselves in the belief that *only* you can give them this content. this insight. that's what keeps people coming back. the idea that you have something to say that no one else has said before.</p><p>in an environment where so many people can write something and post it online, it can be both overwhelming in scale AND underwhelming in diversity. this is why. </p><p>people like James Somerton feel the need to make the ocean look like a pond, so they look larger and more important in comparison.</p><p>it's soul-crushing. was anything real? the calls to action at the end of his videos, the calls to create and form solidarity and community...was it just a ploy to him? does he believe in any of that? cuz he's not fucking doing any of it.</p><p>in between the seething anger and horror, the sheer audacity of this man to make a living advocating against the erasure of queerness in media whilst doing the exact same fucking thing for his own profit, i thought of The Truman Show.</p><p>(spoilers)</p><p>at the end, when Truman reaches the end of the "world" he grew up in. he gets to where the large water tank that makes up the "ocean" meets the "sky". it's a painted wall.</p><p>i always remember that particular moment where he touches The Wall, the boundary of all he's ever known, and he looks at it in wonder, somewhat reverently.</p><p>because he didn't reach The End (i mean, *we* [the audience] do 'cause it's the end of the film but...). for Truman, this is where his life begins. he has to leave the show now. his Self is too large to be contained.</p><p>he knows there's a whole wide world past that wall. there's a real ocean and sky and a sun that isn't a spotlight. and everyone watching him knows they can't hold onto him anymore. he exists beyond their screens now. the control was an illusion.</p><p>like the Matrix (a simulation): once you know it's there, you have a choice. if you take the red pill, you can't go back. you know there's *more*.</p><p>it's easy to feel hopeless. what if behind that wall is just another larger set with a more realistic looking "sky" set further away, harder to get to? what if everything sucks and you wish you were ignorant again. it seemed easier back then. it wasn't, but it seemed like it was.</p><p>i don't think that matters, not really. you know how the trick works now. 'do or do not; there is no try.'</p><p>by stealing the work of so many artists and monopolizing creative resources, by making the world seem smaller to have power and control over a little fiefdom, by that web being untangled with Harris' video,,,we know there's more out there. </p><p>look at all the people and good work that's been made. it had to be there already for it to be stolen, after all. just like the work of our queer elders and ancestors had to be known to be silenced, straightwashed, destroyed. it exists. the big, wide world is out there and it's closer than we think it is.</p><p>by revealing the artifice, we can see the abundance.</p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/jamessomerton" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>jamessomerton</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/hbomberguy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>hbomberguy</span></a></p>