Mark Felton Productions

[DetCord12B 2789]

Anyone else tune in on occasion?

 

I came across the channel over a year ago and was intrigued by the stories I saw. It wasn't until I saw his Jagdtiger, 2 SS Panthers vs 21 Shermans, and Hind Heist stories that I realized he was not only plagiarizing others work but also reiterating now debunked historical fallacies. The worst being the Panther/Tiger deployment during Kursk when he makes them seem like super tanks when if fact nearly 20-40% never saw action because they broke down after unloading from the rail-head and before ever seeing action.

 

Via the Axis History forum.

Quote

Mark has been exposed as a massive, unrepentant plagiarist, and outright purveyor historical falsehoods. There are threads all over the internet, reddit, and the like about this guy calling him out for one-wording forum posts, books, pervading debunked history, and outright lying. Everything he's done needs to be called into question, everything. The fact that he gets away with it is a testament to social-media sensationalism and YT fanboyism itself.

 

Mark Felton and Bad History.

 

The r/badhistory sub has quite a few posts on him as do numerous WWII centric forums around the web, most of which come from vetted and verified SME's, scholars, historians and the like. Even Antony Beevor has chimed in on occasion. Point being, take what you hear and see via the internet with a grain of salt. 

[CrazyhorseB34 13]

No obvious attempt by him to give out false information. On any of his twelve minute YouTube vids.

 

Original poster is just being a "hater." 

[DD_Arthur 2752]

7 hours ago, DetCord12B said:

Point being, take what you hear and see via the internet with a grain of salt. 

 

Er....is this news?

[AndyJWest 2658]

Yeah, Felton is rather too inclined to go for the 'Nazi space monkeys' side of historical reporting to my taste, and some of what he's said has seen a little off even from my limited knowledge. It's YouTube though, and anyone relying on that for historical accuracy should probably consider their options further. Read books by recognised specialists. And then ask yourself, why is he/she telling me this, and does the evidence they present back it up? And then read another book, by another specialist. Rinse and repeat. Do that often enough, and your historical understanding will become as good as theirs, and only as wrong about everything as everyone else the next generation of historical specialists will conclusively debunk.

 

Historians are generally wrong about everything. Non-historians are almost universally wronger though...

 

 

[Bremspropeller 2325]

Use "history light" to get interested in topics and then, if you fancy, get smart about the topic by getting books or other kinds of specific sources on it, later.

[sevenless 2329]

Well, nice for entertainement, but I always get sceptical about "historians" without published peer reviewed papers or academic track record. So yes, take it with a huge grain of salt.

[Mitthrawnuruodo 703]

On 10/30/2020 at 9:38 PM, DetCord12B said:

Anyone else tune in on occasion?

 

I had only seen a handful of his videos, so I wasn't immediately aware of the problem.

 

Now that I look at his channel closely, it is quite worrying. Plagiarizing research and passing off false or contested narratives as fact is totally unacceptable. I've noticed other things indicative of laziness in some videos, including hilariously inaccurate War Thunder screenshots.

 

It's unfortunate that he seems so good at summarizing complicated topics in an entertaining format. I'll have to be more careful in the future.

[Jaws2002 1577]

After every major confrontation, the winners are doctoring history to cover their crimes. 

  Maybe one day, we'll find out, the true history of this planet, but i won't hold my breath.

 

 

[ZachariasX 2532]

48 minutes ago, Jaws2002 said:

After every major confrontation, the winners are doctoring history to cover their crimes. 

Often enough, the losers are doctoring as well.

[Legioneod 2022]

At the end of the day history is only a partial understanding of the past, there are many things we can't know and won't know.

Another thing to remember is there are two sides to every story both can be right and both can be wrong. Just because two sides disagree doesn't mean one is wrong or one is right. Both can be right and both can be wrong.

[Gambit21 5416]

55 minutes ago, Legioneod said:

At the end of the day history is only a partial understanding of the past, there are many things we can't know and won't know.

Another thing to remember is there are two sides to every story both can be right and both can be wrong. Just because two sides disagree doesn't mean one is wrong or one is right. Both can be right and both can be wrong.

 

I disagree with this philosophy/mind-set.

Often there is just the TRUTH.

 

If I decide to walk up to an old lady in the grocery store and just deck her for no reason - there isn’t two sides to that story. There is simply the truth that I decked an old lady for no reason.

 

The same thing applies often to history. The truck isn’t the lack of a discernible truth, but rather the lack of discernment itself. We’re experiencing that right now IRL aren’t we?

 

 

I’m not saying “2 sides” never holds up, but I can’t stand it as a blanket statement. It’s simply not the case.

I often see one side’s story based in utter (easily proved) fallacy and revisionist history.

[Bremspropeller 2325]

32 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

If I decide to walk up to an old lady in the grocery store and just deck her for no reason - there isn’t two sides to that story.

 

Yes there is - she took your avocado, and it's your right to show that old hag who's boss! 😜

[Legioneod 2022]

59 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

I disagree with this philosophy/mind-set.

Often there is just the TRUTH.

 

If I decide to walk up to an old lady in the grocery store and just deck her for no reason - there isn’t two sides to that story. There is simply the truth that I decked an old lady for no reason.

 

The same thing applies often to history. The truck isn’t the lack of a discernible truth, but rather the lack of discernment itself. We’re experiencing that right now IRL aren’t we?

 

 

I’m not saying “2 sides” never holds up, but I can’t stand it as a blanket statement. It’s simply not the case.

I often see one side’s story based in utter (easily proved) fallacy and revisionist history.

Clearly but my point was that just because two sides disagree or seem to disagree doesn't mean one is right or wrong, they could both be right or both be wrong.

[NETSCAPE 737]

I've only watched a handful of Marks videos even though I subscribe to him. Everything I've watched so far seemed reasonable and accurate. He has a very large amount of videos, most of which I will probably never get around to watching. I rather read books.

 

Secondly, people using Reddit as an end-all be-all authority is just about as cringe and annoying as people thinking "snopes" (which is some dude, his fat hooker wife & a couple of cats - no joke) or "wikipedia" (which any pink-haired university idiot can edit) is an infallible authority handed down by God almighty himself. bUt MuH aCaDeMiCs. mUh SoUrCeS. uhuh, yeah yeah yeah. People make errors. Historians make errors. Websites may reflect these errors. 

 

Thirdly, Anthony Beever is perhaps the most annoying "main stream" historian that writes about WW2. Every book he constantly crys about how evil the Authoritarianism of Communism and National Socialism was. Rather than trying to remain non-biased in tone and stick with the facts and provide me with the information I am expecting...he writes as though he is a journalist by inserting an obnoxious amount of emotions - sad tiny violins playing because you can imagine how horrible it must have been that the 3rd Reich and Soviet Union never got McDonalds & LGBT rights. Meanwhile, scary tremlo strings play every time an image of Stalin or Hitler is put in your mind - just like the old History Channel. I much prefer Glantz - even if some consider his work "dry" or "boring". I read about history to learn - not to be entertained. 

 

My favorite historian currently is Jason D. Mark. He is a turbo autist that gathers an insane amount of detail on whatever subject he is writing about. I have half his books and plan on getting the other half even though shipping from Australia to the States is pricey. I can't recommend his books enough!

 

BONUS ROUND:

I HATE DAN CARLIN AND HARD(SOFT)CORE HISTORY. It takes Dan 1 hour to give me the same amount of information I could obtain from like 20 minutes of reading a book. His tone is similar, actually worse in some cases, to Beevers constant "boo-hoo-ing". It's good that his podcast gets people interested in history I guess. But I just can't stand his delivery... which is ironically why people love him... weird. I don't know. I guess I'm just too autistic/INTJ mode.