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Cinemassacre (AVGN/James Rolfe) Caught Plagiarizing Latest Review (Up: Was an accident)
- Thread starter alr1ght
- Start date
This is where I am at. I have really adored monster madness for a long time, but I have no interest in whatever this weird incarnation of it is
the penis has been disproven. it's a shame he plays into the edge lord humor as he does have some decent knowledge of obscure classic games. the comics are the big sticking point. its from his college years and he's said he regrets making them and just wants to leave the past in the past. the problem is certain people want him to do a full on apology. if he was smart he would do one but i just don't see happening and im not sure he could make one that felt sincere considering his online persona.
any cinemassacre video with mike was getting bombarded in the comments by people from the subreddit about the dick so he messed with them. immature sure but in line with his humor. im surprised they haven't requested that subreddit to be closed. the amount of toxic garbage that comes from there is immense and reminds me of that site that was trying to make gamegrumps into pedophiles.
Even if he did do a big heartfelt apology complete with dogeza style bowing, I doubt much would change. The internet is just... rotten.
Guessing you mean the "Truth" subreddit? Yeah it's a cesspool. For every decent point, there's like 20 posts about how they hate the Screenwave guys or making shit up about James and his family.
That's the subreddit. I feel sorry for mikes girlfriend. When she first appeared on cinemassacre i took a peak at the reddit and they were obsessed with destroying her.
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Another alleged allegation. From someone claiming that Cinemassacre's Polybius video (2017) stole from their 2012 article about it.
I really hope Screenwave hasn't been THIS lazy over the years, or that James somehow hasn't caught on.
Can't wait for the Quinton Reviews or Sarah Z "Fall of AVGN" video.Reddit - Dive into anything
Another alleged allegation. From someone claiming that Cinemassacre's Polybius video (2017) stole from their 2012 article about it.
I really hope Screenwave hasn't been THIS lazy over the years, or that James somehow hasn't caught on.
Don't do that to Quinton... The Victorious preview I saw on Patreon is already over two hours XD. Can't imagine what an AVGN video would be like :0
The length is precisely why I want it to happen.
Chronicle the Nerd's fall from glory in full.
In HD.
All of it.
Mike Mattei, Bootsy, that time he hung out with a Gamegator, all of it must be detailed and analyzed.
Hell, make it a collaboration and have one cover the rise with the other tackling the fall.
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Another alleged allegation. From someone claiming that Cinemassacre's Polybius video (2017) stole from their 2012 article about it.
I really hope Screenwave hasn't been THIS lazy over the years, or that James somehow hasn't caught on.
I'm not sure how I feel about this sort of plagiarism in the context of an entertainment product like AVGN reviews. Making use of ideas or research without citing your sources is definitely plagiarism, as is using pictures without crediting the source -- and in something like a video essay I would absolutely expect these sources to be cited in some way (although, now that I think about it, I don't think I've seen citations for most of the images and video clips that get used in video essays). In the case of something made purely for entertainment though, I'm uncertain about how big of an issue this is. Outright stealing someone's words strikes me as bad in any context -- but a comedy video not mentioning which websites they came across during their google "research" feels different to me somehow. This is just a vague feeling though, and I could easily be convinced otherwise.
Strictly speaking, I think it's *highly* likely that a significant percentage of AVGN videos heavily plagiarize Wikipedia (among other sites), but I would be reluctant to identify this as a real problem.
I think the issue is that pictures are posted everywhere, and with how fast things spread, it's difficult to find the original source.
Looking into it, this sounds like an issue of not giving credit for the pictures rather than outright plagiarism. I'm seeing people claim that taking pictures without asking is plagiarism but that sounds like a stretch.
In that case I can agree I guess I'm just being selfish because I do want to see those McDonald's places that he is having as a stretch goal c:
Right
Stealing word for word from an existing review? That's terribly lazy
Copying a summary from a Wikipedia article? Umm who cares
Putting pictures in a Youtube video without credit? Ehhh that's really a personal ethics thing
welp, Newt got fired. guess he must've been the culprit. can't link the tweet at work but he said he's leaving the company for mental health reasons.
And there's the fallout. It wouldn't surprise me if Screenwave added a stricter vetting process.
As for the other "incident", I still think that's someone trying to get attention. The fact she told her story to Cinemassacre Truth tells me she is not arguing in good faith.
I'd be willing to beleive this but didn't it come out that James also plagiarized stuff for his Polybius video?
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AlphaOmegaSin, right? The gamergator?
This could be huge if Quinton or Sarah Z or Lindsay Ellis really get into AVGN/Cinemassacre.
Nah he didn't know what AlphaOmegaSin was affiliated with and what he made videos about. James is a good guy.
Cinemassacre isn't just one guy and I don't buy that they had no idea what AOS was all about. Without Cinemassacre, AOS wouldn't have a platform to become one of the gamergate figureheads.
At some point, ignorance has to stop being an excuse for James.
James does not get political because politics are bad for business. This doesn't mean that his own personal beliefs are not reflected by the company he keeps—he just gives the brand plausible deniability by not having any opinion on print.
I think the internet struggles with this because James is for all intents and purposes pretty warm to fans and very passionate about what he does (or did), and they can't rationalize that otherwise good people can have bad politics. You can be friendly and kind and also be an idiot.
James at 40 is a family man with two young kids. James' friends are man children who should be ashamed of themselves for their brand of "humor." The issue is that he has made these people so integral to the running of the channel that he will have to go on another break to just rebuild and find new help and I'm not even sure he could do that in 2021.
I think the internet struggles with this because James is for all intents and purposes pretty warm to fans and very passionate about what he does (or did), and they can't rationalize that otherwise good people can have bad politics. You can be friendly and kind and also be an idiot.
James at 40 is a family man with two young kids. James' friends are man children who should be ashamed of themselves for their brand of "humor." The issue is that he has made these people so integral to the running of the channel that he will have to go on another break to just rebuild and find new help and I'm not even sure he could do that in 2021.
There was the time he talked about old Three Stooges shorts and at the end noted how racist they could get, saying it was bad back then and it's bad now. You'd think "saying racism is bad" should be obvious, but with the current climate, anyone decrying racism is seen as a "lefty shill" or something.
And yeah, while a lot of people do want him to restructure, it likely isn't financially feasible at the moment, if at all.
In 2007, James released three AVGN episodes about Ghostbusters games, where he showcased his love for the franchise and why most of the games being bad was so disappointing to him.
When the Ghostbusters game in 2009 came out, he actually put out his impressions on it as himself. A very rare moment where he talked about a modern game.
In 2010, he released "Follow That Marshmallow", a tribute video where he went around New York and found every outside location seen in the first movie. Including the Firehouse.
Basically, it was clear he's a big Ghostbusters fan, and 100% got dozens if not hundreds of e-mails asking "Are you going to talk about the new movie? Are you going to talk about Female Ghostbusters? Are you going to talk about the Ghostbusters reboot?" etc etc etc.
The point of that video was to tell these people he really had no interest in talking about it. If you actually listened, it had nothing to do with them being women and everything to do with his love of the franchise, and how to him, the series isn't the same without Harold Ramis.
Of course, that was years ago, and I don't know his thoughts about the upcoming Afterlife. Doing a quick search, it seems he hasn't talked about it at any point. He might mention it on the podcast, or do a video to appease the SEO Gods. Or it could be one of the Screenwave toadies instead.
he's never had this kind of stance for any other series reboot though. I guess he did about Star Wars? either way it's suspect at best.
He could of just said "Nah, I dont want to watch any new ones" but he made a video with the title "No Review. I Refuse." knowing full well the controversy going on. I dont know if he just wanted clicks or if he wasn't brave enough to go full nerd rant but he knew what he was doing lmao
I'm sorry guys I should've put a "/S' at the end of that post. Yes I'm not going to jump through hoops to defend befriending much less making vids with a gamergator. I wouldn't be surprised if he was pals with Jontron too.
He had to be specific and call out that while not giving any shit to any other reboots. I'm sure he approves of Afterlife ? I'm shocked he didn't get AOS to write him a script listing all the problems with all women GB's.
it's not just one guy, but the one guy who's apparently producing every video they put out now has.... a past...
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There was absolutely nothing wrong with that video and he made it because he probably got tons of requests to talk about it.
Seriously. Especially because this is like what you've chosen to do and review? Lol. This isn't a high school book report for some crap you don't want to read or can't really even understand
It's amazing that you wrote all the stuff he's done to show how big a GB fan he is but then think it's absolutely normal he made a specific video to say he won't be reviewing the female led GB movie.
Is it that weird? The 2016 movie is hardly related to the original. Why watch that if it can only end up as imitation of the movie you cherish
It was pretty clear in his video he wasn't going to watch it because none of the original team were involved in it. Had nothing to do with females.
He's a Youtuber, the way he communicates with his fans is through Youtube videos.
Honestly it's not hard for me to believe he would have no interest in the Ghostbusters reboot. Dan Aykroyd had been saying for 2 decades that they were making Ghostbusters 3. Ghostbusters is my favorite film of all time and you could probably consider me a pretty harcore fan (I own several prop replicas and I read the excellent comic series). A reboot isn't what I was looking for with the Ghostbusters franchise. I wanted to see one final film with some of my favorite characters in film. I'm sure there were a lot of other hardcore fans who felt the same way.
I did eventually watch the reboot though it was after picking up a cheap blu-ray copy.
I'd be willing to beleive this but didn't it come out that James also plagiarized stuff for his Polybius video?
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Well she's definitely lying about some of the stuff on there, because I first heard of the 'people got sick playing a game' aspect of the Polybius myth before her article in 2012. I actually wrote a fictitious Polybius article making up stuff with a similar style in 2011 for a gaming website (but I don't see anything lifted from my horseshit in there). But at the time I did my own research and saw the bits about someone getting sick and the connection to the myth.
I couldn't speak to the rest and could believe she made up a lot of stuff in her article as well, which I think would be much more damning if she admitted to that...
That's horseshit. I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan and have no interest in ever seeing that one nor Afterlife. I'm not about 'ruining my childhood', but I really have no fucking interest in those. He made that video specifically because he is a Ghostbusters fan.
If you want to give James the sideeye do it for being friends with at the very least a (former???) huge edgy racist guy.
No, it isn't. It was beyond dumb that people were giving him shit for not wanting to see Ghostbusters in 2016. It's even more absurd now years later that we know it was a bad movie.
Polybius has been an urban legend for a long time. I remember when the old G4 show "Blister" talked about it back in 2003.
For her to claim she "exposed it all" sounds like a bunch of shit. Not to mention the AVGN Polybius video came out in 2017. Where the hell was she then? Feels like she took advantage of the current controversy to get views to her blog.
Yeah... definitely not a fan of Justin.
I hope he's long past his shitty edgelord phase, but that's not a good look for him.
James watches plenty of awful franchise movies. Why did he refuse to watch this one? And why did he make a video about it?
Because he didn't want to watch it and wanted to make a video. Why must he watch every bad movie?
Holy shit these people are horrible.it's not just one guy, but the one guy who's apparently producing every video they put out now has.... a past...
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Yeah Mike's a childish edgelord and has some really bad takes (like his tirade on the rewind feature in NSO)... but he's not much of an issue now since he left Cinemassacre.
She explains it and she even cites other videos that used her as a source. Her article was out in 2012. if you read the post she even posts that the stuff that shows up in that video are lifted directly from her article.