YouTube star PewDiePie used the N-word
during a livestream and is facing more
public backlash. Welcome back to What's
Trending, I'm Adam Bozarth. Be sure to LIKE
and SUBSCRIBE for more. Felix Kjellberg,
better known as PewDiePie, is back in the
center of another controversy. PewDiePie
was livestreaming while playing the
very popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds when he said this: "What a
f*cking n*gger. Jeez. Oh my God. What the f*ck? Sorry, but what the f*ck?" What the fuck, indeed,
PewDiePie! As you can imagine there has
been a lot of backlash on social media
over this moment for many different
reasons.
Wellington Boyce calls out the
childishness, tweeting, "PewDiePie playing
video games like all the white
12 years old on Xbox Live calling
everyone the n-word." Brianna Wu says, "Retweet if unlike PewDiePie, you don't start
randomly screaming racial slurs while
playing video games." @bigbossboze
posts this reaction, "When you're a
PewDiePie fan but you just saw the clip."
Mike Drucker writes,
"Nobody is shocked by PewDiePie being
racist. At most, the emotional response is, 'Yep, there it is.'"
In February of this year, PewDiePie got
caught up with a battle with the media.
As YouTube's biggest earner, PewDiePie
was called out for his use of Nazis and
Anti-semitism as fodder for comedy.
PewDiePie put out a response, but he
didn't seem to grasp why he was getting
all the backlash. "A lot of people love
the video, and a lot of people didn't. And
it's almost like two generations of
people arguing whether this is okay or
not. I'm sorry for the words that I used
as I know they offended people. And I
admit that the joke itself went too far."
PewDiePie defended his content as being
sarcastic and humorous,
however, disguising racism as a shocking
punchline is still racism. After the
white nationalist march on
Charlottesville, PewDiePie put out another
video that seemed more apologetic than
any of his others. "Well, I don't think
anyone that watches me think I'm an
actual Nazi, but I know a lot of people
still might have doubt. Mainly because of
all the jokes that I've been making. I
remember back when everything happened
in February,
I was sort of like, 'I mean, they're just
jokes. There's not actual Nazis out there.'
'What are you... what are you talking about?'
And then I look at this and I'm like,
"Oh, oh, okay I see.'"
But many people defend PewDiePie because
he represents the new media, and
PewDiePie tells his audience that the
media is misrepresenting him just for
the story. "Variety, for example, posted in
2013 'If PewDiePie is YouTube's Top
Talent, We're All Doomed.
Old-school media does not like Internet
personalities, because they're scared of
us." However, being YouTube's biggest star
means his actions affect all creators. In
April of this year YouTube made changes
to their monetization rules hoping to
stop channels that profit off of hate
speech, terrorism, or piracy. And while
YouTube had been working on these rules
for a while before any of this
controversy started, many people think
that PewDiePie, as YouTube's biggest star,
sets the tone for the entire website. And
so does his casual acceptance of racist
and anti-semitic jokes. Because of the
controversy in February,
PewDiePie lost a lot of opportunities.
Disney cancelled their contract with him,
he's also off of YouTube's premium
content now... He may not be one of
YouTube's biggest earners anymore, but he
is still one of YouTube's biggest stars.
However, to put it into perspective, what
if one of YouTube's biggest stars
currently did something like this? Yousef
Erakat tweets, "Like imagine what the
Internet would do if Jake Paul did what
PewDiePie did. But the Internet favors
their friends and heroes." All of these
actions have affected PewDiePie's
ability to earn money, but this moment
might impact his ability to make money
even more. In reaction to the livestream
video, one video game company is filing a
copyright complaint against PewDiePie.
Sean Vanaman, co-founder of Campo Santo,
wrote on Twitter, "We're filing a DMCA
takedown of PewDiePie's Firewatch content
and any future Campo Santo games." For
more stories like these, go to whatstrending.com.
