Breaking barriers: Somerton’s YouTube channel fighting for representation

BY JOHN CARTER JR

UPDATE: Allegations of plagiarism and potentially fraudulent behavior have been made against the interviewee of this article, James Somerton. In response to these allegations Somerton has removed all of his YouTube content and social media. At the time of publishing, we were unaware of these actions. Tiger Media Network does not condone such behavior. 

For better or worse, YouTube has been one of the most integral platforms in the release of video essays and individual creator content. There are hurdles content creators go through to achieve success on the platform; however, for users in the LGBTQIA+ community, the struggles appear to be different.

TMN was able to speak with James Somerton, a YouTube creator with over 170,000 subscribers and millions of views on his channel, about his start on the platform, ideas concerning his videos,  his relationship with the YouTube platform and his following. 

Somerton got his start doing short video essays around 2014 with mostly pop culture videos; however, over time he began to find it hard to keep his thoughts to less than a thousand words. 

“I started watching videos from Lindsay Ellis, ContraPoints, and PhilosophyTube,” he said. “And suddenly I realized that people were actually interested in longer format stuff so I made the Monsters in the Closet videos.” 

However, according to Somerton, it didn’t take off immediately, only gaining about 300 views in the first couple of months. However in 2020 during Pride Month, YouTube gave the video some traction, which garnered Somerton 20,000 views in a month- kickstarting his choice to release videos every month and he hasn’t stopped since.

On September 10, 2020, he launched his Evil Queens: A Gay Look at Disney History (Video essay) video on YouTube. This video has gained more than 275,000 views alone and discusses the history behind Disney’s gay creators and gay villains. When asked about the villans that Somerton enjoyed or even admired as a gay youth he said staples of the Jungle Book and Sleeping Beauty came to mind.

 “Sheer Kahn and Maleficent, for sure. I just loved how they weren’t so much evil, but supremely annoyed,” Somerton said. “Being villains because one had a man (cub) encroaching on his territory, and the other didn’t get a party invite. They’re just so petty and dramatic, I love it.” 

When discussing whether or not gay youth looking up to villains as being problematic Somerton believes that the gay youth love classic villains more than even when he was young.

“I see more Ursula’s at Halloween than Ariels, it’s kind of funny,” he said. “But sadly Disney hasn’t really been making new iconic villains. All the bad guys now are just misunderstood or not good people. Not necessarily evil. Which I honestly think is a knee-jerk reaction to everyone seeing the classic villains as queer coded. They don’t want to be seen as homophobic so they’ve done away with real villains altogether. “

This discussion about LGBT history bled into conversation about Somerton’s importance of sharing LGBT history. When asked whether or not he thought the discussion about LGBT is silenced, Somerton agreed. 

“I definitely think it’s silenced, especially in schools,” he said. “You don’t really learn anything about LGBTQ history unless you specifically take a Queer History class in University. And YouTube is way more accessible, and far cheaper, than any university classroom. So even though most of my videos talk about Disney, or anime, or some other kind of media, I always like to insert actual information about queer history and queer culture in there too.” 

Somerton went on to discuss another video he released on January 21, “The Story of the Gay Holocaust (Complete Documentary).”  

“There’s videos like The Pink Triangles, which is entirely historical. I made that because gay victims of the holocaust are basically ignored so I felt like a long-form documentary-type video was required since there’s no way it was being taught in high schools,” he said. “And then YouTube went and made it 18+. Go figure. Just kind of reinforces my point.”

When opening the video, YouTube prompts a “This video may be inappropriate for some users” warning as well as after another warning stating “The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.” immediately after. Both of which require potential viewers to click “I understand and wish to proceed”. The video contains no slurs or pornographic content.

Recently on Twitter, Somerton expressed his struggles with the YouTube platform after the release of his The Necessity of Gay Crime Essay concerning Banana Fish. 

“There is absolutely a difference in how they [Youtube) treat straight and LGBTQ content. I’ve seen educational channels put out videos that are almost identical sex-ed videos,” he said. “One for straight kids, one for gay. And then the gay one is demonetized. In my own experience, there are thousands of Holocaust videos on YouTube. Documentaries, commentaries, etc. And they’re all safe by YouTube standards. Even some full on Holocaust denial videos, totally monetized. But my gay Holocaust video is 18+. So YouTube has a huge double standard they like to pretend doesn’t exist. The fact that “pray away the gay” organizations can advertise in front of my videos, but my video about the queer panic defense gets rated 18+ says a lot.”

Somerton says he has been trying to get some content on Nebula but has not found success there and has been relying on his patrons, especially this past month when Youtube demonetized both the videos he posted. 

“My Patrons are amazing. I couldn’t be more lucky to have them on my side.”  

When asking more about his experience with his following and the discussion made surrounding his videos Somerton states that the response has been shockingly positive. 

“I love doing live streams and things like that because I actually get to talk to the people who watch my videos,” he said. “A few videos have actually been made because of discussions I’ve had on live streams.” 

Concerning negative responses, Somerton says that while rare, is something he has learned to navigate. 

“It’s very rare that any real negativity will pop up in my comments or Twitter or Discord. And I’ve gotten pretty good at policing my comments to make sure any hateful people are kept out of there,” he said. “If people have a problem with me, I’ll gladly talk to them and figure things out, but if people come into the comments just to bash on gay or trans youth, those comments get deleted right away. I like my channel to be safe. “

On April 1, 2021 the video “Killing Stalking” and The Romancing of Abuse was posted to Somerton’s channel and it gained over 1.4 million views. 

“I think toxic love is marketed toward women as a project. A sort of ‘You can fix him’ storyline,” he said. “Whereas for gay men, it’s more ‘you’re lucky you found someone at all, just deal with it.’ Both are horrible, but I do think its interesting how toxic romance is marketed differently between the two.”

In The Sadism of Class video posted July 20, 2021, which has now gained over 330,000 views Somerton finishes the video saying… 

“As individuals, we may not have a lot of power. But our strength is in our cooperation. Our Numbers. The rich know how powerful numbers can be and that’s why they do everything They can to divide us. To create as many minority categories as possible. To pit the middle class against the poor. The poor against the destitute. But if we could just for a moment show them how powerful we can be together. There’s no telling the change we can bring.” 

When asked about these comments and what he thought holds oppressed populations back from working together to advocate for all of their needs, rights, and place, he stated it starts at the top. 

“I think it’s ‘higher ups’ of society making sure that everyone is focused on their own issues instead of looking at the big issues,” he said. “Gays and lesbians are dealing with gay books being banned. Trans people are dealing with trans healthcare laws. People of color are dealing with police violence, and their right to vote being impeded. Poor white people are dealing with drug addiction and the loss of manufacturing jobs. So as long as everyone is forced to deal with issues within their own community they won’t realize that all of these issues are being created by rich people and politicians. If we had time to not focus on these problems we might see that all of us are being screwed over by the same people. And then we might fix that problem, which they definitely don’t want.”

Somerton gives viewers a taste of what they can expect in the future. 

“I think I’m going to be covering some more anime soon, probably “Given” and “No. 6”. Which of course will be 30% anime talk, 70% social commentary, because apparently that’s my brand now,” Somerton said. “But before that I actually might be putting out a sort of follow-up to my video about Wiccan and Hulkling, this time looking at how the queer community has adopted the Scarlet Witch as an icon.”

Somerton also says to be on the lookout for more gaming streams and has recently launched his indiegogo funding campaign for his production company Telos Pictures.

“[Telos Pictures] will produce short films, feature films and series that will focus on LGBTQ characters and stories written and produced by LGBTQ people.” 

The project has already raised over $24,000 dollars. 


One Reply to “Breaking barriers: Somerton’s YouTube channel fighting for representation”

  1. Hey! Writing this article without addressing the several confirmed incidents of plagiarism this guy has made money off of doesn’t rub me the right way. Please do a bit more due diligence on these things.

Leave a Reply to DCancel reply

Top