And they are not passive fans rather, they known for their aggressive loyalty to PewDiePie, to the point that they’ve created a YouTube-wide “subscribe to PewDiePie” meme that has pushed his follower count to nearly 80 million. PewDiePie’s 76 million followers tend to skew young, with the majority of his subscribers younger than 24 and 11 percent of them younger than 17.
Regardless of PewDiePie’s intent, any anti-Semitic commentary - no matter how “joking” - could have a dangerous effect. I'm goddamn tired of telling people that is joking /w7Y6eP9A3s- 보라해요 방탄. WHEN WILL PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT FELIX IS MAKING SATIRE, HE IS NOT SERIOUS MOST OF THE TIMES AND STOP FUCKING TREATING EVERYTHING HE SAYS SERIOUSLY How many times can a person explain a fucking joke to multiple people Should PewDiePie have known better? His critics say yes though he has been dismissive about the uproar, this is not the first time he has appeared to flirt with alt-right beliefs, and he’s previously faced backlash for this type of incident many times. I don’t really have a reason to dip into that again - it’s just stupid.”īut each of the three videos that PewDiePie featured in his since-removed shoutout of the E R channel featured fairly obvious examples of the channel’s offensive content - in fact, not only did part one of the Death Note review that PewDiePie said he liked directly invoke a racial slur in its video description (the description has since been edited), but the first 15 seconds of part two contain a reference to a 2017 incident in which PewDiePie himself dropped a racial slur, strategically edited but unmissable if you’re familiar with the clip in question - which most of PewDiePie’s followers would reasonably be. “I said publicly a year and a half ago that I was going to distance myself from Nazi jokes and that kind of stuff, because I want nothing to do with it,” PewDiePie explained.
PewDiePie also referred to several past incidents that sparked a similar outcry: a video in which he performed a Nazi “heil” salute, and one in which he hired a pair of performers from a freelancer website to hold up a sign reading “Death to all Jews.” He said these examples were satirical, but many observers condemned them as anti-Semitic. “ apparently likes to have hidden and not-so-hidden Nazi references in his videos and obviously if I noticed that I wouldn’t have referenced him in the shoutout.” “All I said was I like this guy’s anime review,” PewDiePie says in the video. In response, PewDiePie released a follow-up video on December 11 in which he described the incident as an “oopsie” and scoffed at the idea that he was promoting anti-Semitism by merely “recommending someone for their anime review.” The outcry against PewDiePie’s recommendation of the channel was immediate, with media outlets and other YouTube users citing it as an example of PewDiePie flirting with alt-right culture and sending a dangerous message to his millions of followers, many of whom are teenagers. E R’s creator even refers to his reputation as a racist in the channel’s FAQ. But a more-than-cursory dive into the channel would have revealed several instances of disturbing imagery, slurs, and white supremacist messaging. To casual observers, PewDiePie’s support of E R may have appeared harmless - one YouTube user supporting another. (The recommendation has since been edited out of the video.) One of those channels is called “E R,” and PewDiePie lauded its “great video essays,” including “one on Death Note which I really enjoyed.” He also linked to the channel in his video description. In a since-edited video posted on December 9, he recommended several YouTube channels he said he’d been enjoying recently. Felix Kjellberg, is the most popular individual on YouTube. With 76 million subscribers, gaming vlogger PewDiePie, a.k.a. YouTube’s most popular user is once again facing backlash - this time for promoting a highly anti-Semitic channel by recommending a video featuring a racial slur and a white supremacist conspiracy.