The Shocking Downfall of the Internet Anarchist

Over the holiday break, YouTube found itself embroiled in another plagiarism controversy. This time, the channel the Internet Anarchist of plagiarizing a video from a smaller creator.

But, just as the plagiarism story seemed ready to blow over with a happy ending for all, more plagiarism was discovered.

To add a layer of schadenfreude to the story, the Internet Anarchist is a channel that has made its hay on clickbait stories of other people’s downfalls. Now it faces a similar scandal that is equally ripe for clickbait.

To understand what happened, we first have to go back to before Christmas when another YouTuber accidentally uncovered plagiarism on the channel. It’s a tale of serendipity, a botched response and a problem that went much deeper than anyone imagined.

The Story So Far

The Internet Anarchist is a YouTube channel that has been in operation for about four and a half years. With over 1.8 million subscribers, the channel has found success in the YouTube/influencer drama space, posting clickbait-y titles and thumbnails about the “downfall” of various creators.

On December 19, 2025, another YouTuber, Mr. Snowflake, uploaded a video accusing The Internet Anarchist of plagiarizing a September 2025 video about James Gordon. In the video, Mr. Snowflake highlighted similarities between The Internet Anarchist’s video and an April 2025 video uploaded by the channel Tell Us More.

The similarities between the video were incredibly obvious with similar structure, word choice and even clips used. Though no single clip proved plagiarism, in aggregate, it was clear that the Internet Anarchist had used the Tell Us More video as the skeleton for his video.

However, the Internet Anarchist did not deny this. In a post on YouTube, he openly acknowledged that the video was plagiarized. He proceeded to apologize for the incident, saying that, in recent months, he’d been expanding his operation and brought in a new writer. He said he let the new writer go, but takes responsibility for not adequately checking the work before recording.

In addition to his apology, he unlisted the video and agreed to give Tell Us More 100% of the revenue generated from that video. He also added that it was just an issue with this video and that he had conducted an “internal review” of the channel’s other content.

For a few days, that seemed to be an end to the controversy. However, on Christmas Day, Mr. Snowflake published a second video about the Internet Anarchist, this time highlighting five more videos by The Internet Anarchist going back roughly two years.

Now, two weeks later, the Internet Anarchist has not responded. Though the channel has posted another video, its comments are flooded with questions about the plagiarism allegations and asking him to include writer credits. Several commenters also asked if he was going to a do a video about the downfall of the Internet Anarchist.

So far, no such video has been uploaded on that channel.

My Analysis

The plagiarism itself is fairly self-explanatory. Much as with hbomberguy video from December 2023, there no single definitive example of the plagiarism. One or two instances of similar phrasing or using the same clips/structure could be written off as coincidence. But the evidence piles up quickly and makes such a coincidence all but impossible.

But what makes this story frustrating is the initial response from the Internet Anarchist. It is a near-perfect response to plagiarism allegations. It takes responsibility for what happened, rights things with the victim and highlights both immediate and ongoing changes that the channel will make to prevent a repeat instance.

The only thing that would have truly made it better is if the plagiarized video had included writer credits. Since it didn’t, calling out the writer directly would have been inappropriate in this case. Y

YouTubers should be in the habit of crediting people working on their videos, both to give credit when they do well, but to also highlight when they do poorly. Since Internet Anarchist didn’t credit the author, it would be inappropriate to name and shame them when they didn’t credit the author from the outset.

Despite that, the apology handled the situation well. But that apology was contingent on one thing: that it was the only plagiarism on the channel.

With the release of Mr. Snowflake’s second video, any good will that the apology earned was destroyed. Everything from that apology is called into question. Was there ever a writer? What was the “internal review?” What is the process behind creating an Internet Anarchist video? And so forth.

However, there’s also a sense of irony in this story. As Mr. Snowflake points out, the Internet Anarchist had previously called out a separate YouTube channel that had done the same with his videos. This prompted Mr. Snowflake to call the Internet Anarchist “a weird guy” and argue that he may be the most upset by the plagiarism.

While that is obviously tongue in cheek, it adds one final layer to an already multi-layered story.

Bottom Line

I only have one minor point of contention with Mr. Snowflake’s work. He said that it was odd that the Internet Anarchist would make such a stance against plagiarism despite being so free with other people’s content. As someone who has confronted hundreds of plagiarists, it’s actually shockingly common behavior.

When I was first hunting and stopping plagiarists my content, nearly 25 years ago, many of them would have “do not steal” warnings all over their pages even as their entire presence was made up of plagiarized content. At first, this struck me as odd, however, over time I realized they were obsessed with being plagiarized because of their plagiarism.

Just like any other unethical action, plagiarists seek to justify their actions to themselves. These justifications often don’t make sense, but they allow the plagiarists to put the issue to bed in their own minds. Part of that typically includes taking a strong stance against “bad” plagiarism, even if to an outsider it is no different from what they are doing.

But that really does explain the schadenfreude here. The Internet Anarchist has made a career discussing the “downfall” of many of YouTube’s creators. In that time, he has become one of those top creators. To be clear, the vast majority of creators he’s covered are still doing well. But it’s interesting that a channel that has been the source of so much scandal clickbait is now involved in a scandal ripe for clickbait.

That said, it will be fascinating to see what, if any, long term impact this has on the channel. I suspect most of his followers either are unaware of the allegations or simply don’t care. I don’t think most of his subscribers come for authentic and original content. While this may be less original than they thought, it may not be a dealbreaker for many.

I think proof of that comes from Mr. Snowflake himself because he discovered the plagiarism when he had YouTube videos on in the background. What is actually strange about this story is that Mr. Snowflake noticed the issue despite not being heavily engaged. Most viewers won’t notice that and won’t care if they do.

This is part of why plagiarism thrives on YouTube. Since many don’t engage closely with the content, it’s easy to plagiarize, use AI-generated content or generally succeed with low-effort work. That’s not likely to change.