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Hey everyone, just a heads up that today I’m going to be talking about some very upsetting topics that YouTube’s advertisers will hate. So first of all, thanks to my patrons for supporting this video, and if you do not want to hear about suicide and abuse, you might wanna give this one a skip.
That said, I’ll start with something I found (and still find) very funny: James Somerton. Somerton was a very popular YouTube creator who I had never heard of before hbomberguy made a video about plagiarism, which exposed the fact that Somerton had engaged in absolutely over-the-top theft in order to make loads of money from his videos, from Patreon patrons, and even from fans who donated to his fundraisers that were meant to kickstart a short film that never came to be.
That was entertaining, obviously, but things got wilder when Somerton responded with an apology. A really horrible apology, where instead of just apologizing and going off to get a real job, Somerton tried to manipulate the audience into feeling sorry for him and continuing to support him.
So many people made fun of that apology that he almost immediately removed it, and then posted a new “apology” that was somehow even worse, full of obviously bullshit excuses.
I am but a mere mortal and thus as many of you know, I do love mess. I found that “apology” so hilarious that I legit could not help it anymore: I sat down and filmed a quick reaction for my alt channel. I was reacting to Somerton, but also to some of the people who he had hurt who were so nice that they were continuing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Like, “Well, I don’t know that he DOESN’T have some disorder that makes him incapable of not getting a real job, I’m just saying that if so, it PROBABLY didn’t force him to steal content from other creators.” Personally, I didn’t believe a single word that came out of his mouth.
A few days after I posted that video, I started getting weird comments like “Guess you got what you wanted?” and “Well, this did not age well.” It turns out that on March 4, Somerton posted this on his Xitter account:
“If this message is live it means I scheduled it before ending things. I have videos scheduled to go out over the next couple of days. Nothing new. I just wanted Nick’s portfolio of work to be available. I’ve left directions that any money from those videos be donated to The Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. They’ve tried very hard to pull me back but there’s simply no life for me anymore. I’ve lost everything… My only friend, my livelihood, my name…
And it’s all my own fault. The world will be a little bit better off now. Goodbye.”
He then almost immediately deleted the post.
At the moment I saw that, my very first thought was this: “Oh, he’s pretending to commit suicide in order to manipulate people into feeling bad for him and attacking hbomberguy for his valid criticism.”
And I was correct. He did not actually commit suicide, which we now know for sure just over two months later. So you can relax. The way we know he’s still alive (as of the filming of this video) is very, very funny, so if you stick through to the end of the video I will tell you.
Of course, I said absolutely nothing publicly at the time, even as more and more comments popped up accusing even me of driving this poor man to suicide by laughing about how obvious his previous lies were. Why did I say nothing? Because I, unfortunately, have a lot of experience with this type of manipulation.
The first time was with my first serious relationship, a man I started dating when I was 17 and he was at least 27. I say “at least” because I eventually learned that he was lying about everything, including sneakily dying his hair to look younger than he was, so honestly who knows? This was obviously (in retrospect) a really unhealthy relationship. He was also my boss. We moved in together when my roommate moved out and replaced herself with a tenant who refused to pay rent and had a gun and threatened to kill me. Again, in retrospect this was all more chaotic than a teenager should be going through but it is what it is.
Three years into our extremely screwed up relationship, I woke up and realized it was time to get the hell out. I hustled to finish up college a semester early and then I put in my 30-day notice, on my job, my apartment, and my boyfriend. Leaving immediately wasn’t an option, and so for the next few weeks my now ex-boyfriend had ample time to continually tell me that if I actually left, he would kill himself. He started cutting his arms to sell it, and I’ll be honest, I felt terrible about it. Because I have depression and have had suicidal thoughts, I took him seriously. It didn’t really occur to me at the time that he was trying to manipulate me. Luckily he was such a monster that I knew that even if he went through with it, it would be a better result than me staying in that relationship. So I left, and guess what? He never made an actual attempt and is still alive today. For better or worse.
The next time it happened many years later with a good friend, I went to experts to figure out what was happening, if this really was just a manipulation tactic, and what exactly I should do about it. Here’s what I’ve learned.
Yes, certain people can and will use threats of self-harm and suicide with no intention of actually doing it. It’s hard to say how common that is, because all the experts can do is ask people what their true intentions are and hope they tell the truth, and to track suicidal threats and gestures and see how often they result in a suicide attempt.
Because of that, the number one rule in dealing with a friend or loved one making threats or gestures is to always treat them as if they are serious. That doesn’t mean that in my case I shouldn’t have actually left my boyfriend–it means that if anything, I should have informed health services on my way out the door.
This is obviously problematic here in the US, where calling health services sometimes defaults to the cops, and the cops of course are known for sometimes causing way more harm to suicidal people than simply doing nothing at all. But I also could have informed his parents or his brother in order to leave it up to them. The point is: always take the threat seriously and respond in whatever way you are able.
Of course, again, that’s for friends and family. For known manipulative liars on YouTube, I personally think saying nothing at all is perfectly fine.
That said, here’s a little bit of comfort, perhaps: research has found that suicide threats and gestures are actually a poor predictor of suicide attempts. This study from 2014 examined 140 patients at a psychiatric facility in Spain and concluded that those who threaten suicide and those who attempt suicide are two distinct groups that only partially overlap. Another study of more than 1,000 adolescents found “suicide threats/gestures were not uniquely associated with suicide attempts, and youth who reported suicide threats/gestures in the context of a history of self-harm or suicide plan(s) were no more likely to report a history of suicide attempt(s).”
Some of this may be due to the fact that depression actually protects against suicide attempts because it’s like yeah, I want to die but I can’t even get out of bed to brush my teeth. That’s one (unproven) hypothesis doctors have for why going on antidepressants can be dangerous for a small minority of people, as it may give them the energy to follow through on things before it clears up the desire to do it.
But the disconnect between suicide threats and attempts is also because a decent number of people do make those threats with no intention of following through at all. In the case of my ex-boyfriend, thanks to my 20/20 past relationship vision, I can pretty confidently state that that was a manipulation tactic. And research does show that I’m not alone: many abusers threaten suicide to maintain control over a victim who is trying to leave, a technique known as “coercive control.”
This overview of 200 cases of suicide found that “the use of…suicidal behaviour was…a deliberate and calculated response by which some men sought to maintain influence or control over women.”
Similarly, a 12-year review of domestic homicides in Ontario found that prior threats or attempts at suicide were one of the top correlated factors, along with “a history of violence between the perpetrator and the victim in 72% of cases, actual or pending separation, obsessive behavior, and depression on the part of the perpetrator.”
Note that that does also include abusers who actually attempt suicide. Over the past few decades, the view of suicide as always being “aggression turned inward” has evolved amongst experts, who now acknowledge that it can be used as a way “to strike back at those they regard as wrongdoers.” That’s another data point in favor of the most important rule: always treat the threat as real. Even if my ex was attempting to manipulate me into staying, he may very well have followed through on the threat, in order to punish me for leaving.
It’s worth noting, though, that not all people who threaten suicide without intending to follow through are doing so with abusive intent. A study of subjects with borderline personality disorder found that in that cohort, “suicide threats are often related to emotions connected with interpersonal relationships. Suicide threats may function, albeit maladaptively, to regulate these emotions aroused by interpersonal relationships and bring needed support.”
And in that study of the 1,000+ adolescents, the researchers found that suicidal threats and gestures “primarily fulfilled positive social functions” and to “communicate distress to others.”
In other words, it’s a cry for help from someone who doesn’t have the emotional maturity or intelligence, or the mental stability to communicate their feelings in a healthy way.
You can see how without proper treatment and education, a person can go from using these threats for support and emotional regulation to using those threats to manipulate others in a way that is abusive.
In other words, it’s complicated. Which is why I debated making this video, because personally I found it really helpful to learn all this, but at the same time I know that there are plenty of people who will use this video as an excuse to walk away with an overly simplistic message, like “all people who threaten suicide won’t follow through and are just trying to manipulate you so just ignore them.” If you walk away with any one overly simplistic message, please let it be “respond to all suicidal threats and gestures as if they are genuine.” And if you want it to be slightly more complicated, add on “unless it’s a known manipulative liar who you have no actual relationship with, at which point just ignore it until people discover that not only is he still alive but after faking his suicide he immediately switched over to an alt account where he posted horny tweets including photos of his ass and balls, eventually even trying to get a new TikTok account going using a filter that made him hot.” Yeah. You can just safely ignore that when that happens.
