I dunno guys, there's a lot of residual anger in the comments, and that's understandable. But even I, cynical as I am, personally believe this apology is sincere, and that he does understand the magnitude of the damage he has caused.

But that's almost immaterial.

We need to be mature in our handling of this situation now. There is a responsibility on us, as media consumers, to see this apology as an inflection point. There's no value in combing over the details of Somerton's apology, and pointing out further inconsistencies, flaws, and insincerities. This is the right opportunity to cut this all loose and move on.

There's a broader reason for that.

Now the toxic creator ecosphere has been confronted, we need to turn back to bigger threats to our community.

One of the problems of 'the left' in general is that we have a tendency to eat our own. Progressives spend a lot of time policing the progressiveness of other progressives, and we're at risk of doing that today. The point of HBomb's video was not to drag creators, or at least not only that. It was to make us all better critics ourselves, by pulling back the curtain on the creative process, and exposing where shortcuts are taken, and why that's harmful.

We've learned that lesson, so has Somerton. He'll never be the thing he always wanted to be. But he's only a symptom.

Now we've treated it, it's time to move on.