With PewDiePie switching to Linux, I’ve seen more and more post with him and they often get locked.
What moral failings did he commit, and has he done anything to make up for them?
Here’s a couple of deep analysis on pewdiepie and the alt-right
The pewdiepipeline, how racist humor lead to vialonce: https://youtube.com/watch?v=pnmRYRRDbuw
The Alt-right playbook: How to radicalize a normie: https://youtube.com/watch?v=P55t6eryY3g
And additional points that no one had mentioned is that pdp, did a couple of videos, meme reviews, with people like Ben Shapiro and recommend books from Jordan Peterson, sending his million of impressionable young audience directly into misogynist, racist and homophonic content creators.
One thing to add to what others have said:
After having done these three or four very questionable things, people realized that YouTube’s algorithm was essentially sending Pewdiepie’s viewers down a radicalization pipeline. The algorithm would start recommending alt-right content to people who had watched Pewdiepie videos.
He himself still at that point made fun of the journalists who reported on this, essentially showing the stance of “I am not responsible for what my viewers do” and “I am not a Nazi and I am not radicalizing anyone”.
In response to the fiverr video in 2017 he was dropped from his partner network and his Youtube Red show was cancelled midway into production. Additionally in what was called “adpocalypse”, advertisers forced Google to disable ads from being shown on controversial videos.
And then in March 2019 a Nazi terrorist livestreamed himself shooting 50 people in two mosques in New Zealand. Before starting to shoot, the terrorist screamed “Subscribe to Pewdiepie!” This was the point where he finally seemed to wake up to the fact that some of his viewers actually were far-right extremists. And he stopped doing any edgy stuff that could be interpreted as being pro-Nazi.
The fact that he wasn’t concerned that a notable chunk of his audience was either fasc-y or being led down that path is concerning.
I remember The Comedy Button (a podcast comprised of mostly ex-IGN staff) during Gamergate. A few of their fans were espousing that kind of thought and the hosts shut that shit down quick. They lost a chunk of listeners, but you gotta kick the nazis out of the bar.
I feel like nurturing an audience is part of the job of a influencer. For example, when Jerma sees bigoted shit in his chat, people are banned , and he tells his chat why it’s wrong to say that stuff. Being clear and concrete is great tools to garnering a wholesome audience.
From what I understand, PewDiePie didn’t do anything.
Hang on I’ll edit my comment in a second with an explanation.
Copied from my comment in a different thread about this (with typo corrections):
"Many years ago he paid like 5 bucks on fiver to see if some Indian guys would write “heil Hitler” on a sign and hold it up for a video (they did). He was doing stupid edgy humor and playing with fire like many creators at the time. Many people canceled him “fully” a year or so after that when he had the “bridge incident”. He called someone the n word for camping or something while he was playing PUBG. He apologized and took responsibility for using the word…sorta. He continued to make content for a few more years and then he “retired” in Japan with his wife and child. They post update videos every few months but more or less he got his bag and dipped out after he pulled too many stupid moves and was seen as “toxic” to work with.
I don’t think he’s a bad person, but that’s just as someone who occasionally watched his videos over the years."
I am by no means a big PewDiePie fan/expert and I don’t claim to know all the specifics, but this is what I gathered from being on YouTube often from the beginning and having two little brothers who went through a PewDiePie phase.
He grew up on the internet during the wild West period, with that being his point of reference for social acceptability. He didn’t evolve with the rest of the internet as more diverse groups and more ‘moral’ groups changed what was acceptable.
His three major incidents were saying the n word, wearing an SS uniform when doing a response video to an article writer that called him a Nazi, and getting some fiverr people to write a sign that said ‘kill all jews’ by taking advantage of the fact they apparently didn’t speak English. He’s apologized for all but the middle multiple times and essentially left most of the internet after having his kid.
But since we’re in the era of the internet we’re in, nothing is ever forgotten or forgiven no matter what, and with the rise of actual Nazis across the world anyone that ever made edgy jokes or used inappropriate language has generally been swept up in it.
That all being said he’s not exactly a great person, despite his massive charity work, he’s just another entertainer, like all the rest. No better or worse than your average random person that got money and wealth way too young.
My dude, the Internet he grew up in wasn’t the wild west. You make it seem like anything pre-2016 was the wild west when it absolutely was not. He absolutely knew what he was doing, just because he chose to associate with a certain culture doesn’t absolve him of what happened because of it. You could, AND STILL CAN, go find communities that are like what he was about…
You’re doing a lot of revisionist history for a grown ass man doing grown ass shit.
wearing an SS uniform when doing a response video to an article writer that called him a Nazi,
Okay the others are pretty bad but this one is actually funny.
Uhh so I am pretty sure he mentioned it was a British military uniform, which made him lose it when they put him in the article for being a nazi because they just needed him to look the part.
Not defending anything but he did have receipts stating it was a British military uniform/costume
i have also heard this. however it does not matter. his response to being called a nazi was to invoke nazi imagery by wearing a military uniform. so he did not refute the claim, but played along. not something you do if you don’t want people to call you a nazi. and even if you don’t care, allowing it to continue around you is bad.
(not directed at you josh)
All good, just stating he wasn’t wearing an SS uniform
In the past, he was a gaming streamer. During many of his streams, his actions and words strongly suggested that he was racist and/or a Nazi. At least once, he was called out for using the n-word (with the hard r). He has never expressed any remorse.
Because of that, many people consider him to be the gateway of the alt-right pipeline. Essentially, children are attracted to his channel for the gaming content, and over time, they are influenced by his behavior to be increasingly accepting of racist and/or alt-right content (after which the YouTube algorithm will then feed them increasingly extremist content)
Since at least several years ago, he retired from his channel, started a family, and moved to Japan (not necessarily in that order). It’s entirely unclear if he’s changed his mind about any of his previous behaviors, and in the absence of any indicators of change, many people take the stance that he probably still is a racist/Nazi
This is a ridiculous stance. A lot of people say stupid stuff on the internet and then mature and move on. A lot of us have the privilege of people (the entire world) not remembering what we said. I don’t think it’s right that he impressed on his viewers that those words are acceptable, but that doesn’t make him a nazi or racist in public or private. That dilutes the word further when there isn’t enough evidence to even suggest it’s true, ignores the fact that most of us are prejudiced more than we’d admit, and causes people to just ignore us when we aren’t making a reactionary standpoint on a real issue. I have never been a PewDiePie viewer nor do I think his content is interesting nor his move to Linux, but I hate to see Lemmy pinning him on a wall as if he’s responsible for an entire generation becoming radicalized with alt-right. I would blame Big Tech and algorithms.
Has he apologized or acknowledged that what he did was wrong? If not, then I would assume that he still holds these views.
You’re missing the point. It’s likely that he never held those views to begin with. He was just a kid doing and saying what he could to get reactions from people. Clearly it worked, 'cause we’re still talking about it.
A tangent, if I may: it’s important that entertainers be allowed to joke about things society deems offensive. It allows us to process such ostensibly offensive content in safe environments, to shine a light on the absurdity of such negative ideas. We laugh at nazi jokes not because we agree with naziism, but because they’re so wildly divorced from reality and our own views as to be absurd to even consider.
Thank you! :3
Correction, he’s apologized for and expressed remorse multiple times but stopped apologizing after a subset of people completely outside of any potential audience of anyone related to the internet wouldn’t let it go.
Many people that discovered the internet later in life and believe that people are once and always evil no matter what still think he’s racist/a Nazi. We call those people the web 3.0 people and they’re why reddit was ruined, why Tumblr got the rep it did, and why we don’t listen liberals on matters of inclusion anymore.
TIL you can do whatever horrible shit you want to people unless they are part of your “target audience”
…what do you think he did? Can you name the victims or the crimes?
Yeah, I was an edgy teenager back in the day too. It wasn’t alright then and it’s not alright now.
This comment is spot on, yet the downvote hive goes on…
It would be entirely another thing if he still did ironic racist jokes after that; but he apologised multiple times and haven’t done anything remotely similar to their past actions; which for me speaks the loudest about it. He moved on, y’all should too.
Any turd can make an apology. Let me know when he does something to fix the damage he caused.
Damage? No matter how you feel about the man personally damage is absolutely not the word I’d use. And in the first place what do you want him to do?
What articulable damage did he cause by doing what every single person in voice chat circa 2005 did?
Helping to make it acceptable, laying the footwork for shit like Gamergate, and helping funnel young men to the alt right.
At least he has an army to defend him. That’s what all rich people that never suffer consequences could ever hope for.
All of those events were after gamergate… and it was already acceptable which was the problem.
And I’m not defending him, I’m correcting the timeline for you ridiculous people. You newcomers to the internet genuinely have no idea what the pre-iphone internet was like, especially gaming communities. PewDiePie was always on the safer child friendly side.
If we forget what progress has been made and demonize everyone that has corrected their mistakes were just stuck with you people. And you people just suck. You’re not actually inclusive, you’re not actually offensive, you just confirm to whatever you think will not get you in trouble. Aka the original meaning of politically correct; being nice on the surface without meaning any of it.
I’ve been using the internet since 56k modems was the only option, chud
You are definitely defending him, and those that act like him. You’re saying it’s okay to be a shit person as long as you apologize while changing nothing. Go take a hard look in the mirror.
Except he did change his content, has made more contributions to charity than you have, and has done more than what’s asked.
And I can guarantee your first website interaction was Facebook based on your beliefs. Nothing he did was outrageous, the actions were misplaced in time by ten years. Should he have been more mature? Sure. But no one that grew up on the internet would find his humor shocking or really any more offensive than south Park.
In your eyes as long as someone makes a mistake their evil for life, well let’s execute everyone over 20 then. We all know what forums were like. We all know what voice chats were like.
How has he corrected his mistakes?
Is PewDiePie one of those ponies? Or a Brony?
I know the name PewDiePie, but I have no idea why he’s so famous or why he was one of the biggest streamers in the world.
It’s solely because he was an early adopter of the YouTube platform.
I’m so OOL that I don’t know who this pewdiepie is, sorry!
