I watch his stuff occassionally, used to watch his funny montages back when he first got famous. I never really watched most of his playthrough stuff. I think I stopped paying attention to him until recently, crawled back after he started to make waves again in the media. The video of him trolling a site to make them do anything for money was def a watchable video.
I'm not sure why media is painting him to be an anti semite, racist and a nazi sympthatizer, it's almost like he's at war with the media lol. This seems to be the new thing.
Felix now and again makes Nazi jokes in his videos. The ones which caused this specific controversy were based on a couple of videos he made recently. There is a website where you can order personalized messages delivered by people playing various characters.
Felix decided to come up with something controversial to see if they would go through with it. So in one vid, he paid for a guy playing Jesus to say “Hitler did nothing wrong.” And in another he paid two kids to hold up a sign reading “Death to all Jews,” and say ‘Subscribe to Keemstar.”
Anyway, some 'reporters' from Wall Street Journal took these obvious jokes (along with some other nazi related jokes he has made in the past), removed all the context, and put out a video and article which suggested that Felix actually holds these views, and is deliberately exposing his audience to hateful ideas. A bunch of other news orgs jumped on the bandwagon like The Guardian, Salon, Wired, & Independent, and they seem intent on taking him down. This manufactured controversy has led to Disney cancelling a contract with him and Youtube Red cancelling his upcoming series.
It’s complete bullshit, and the original WSJ vid has to be one of the most dishonest things I’ve ever seen. These are just jokes, and these humourless turds are trying to shut him down. The independent article claims that Pewdiepie is 'normalizing racism' and making it cool. Never mind that the premise of all the jokes was that fascism is bad. I can’t wait for these prudes to become irrelevant.
If Pewdiepie normalizes racism then so does South Park, and so does Bill Burr. I don’t see anybody calling them out.
And their attempt to smear him has backfired completely. He is gaining a whole bunch of new subscribers thanks to their efforts! Maybe they should try doing some actual journalism in future instead of wasting time trying to take down a youtube star.
I agree that the NY Times piece was pretty shit, the title was garbage and it definitely was badly written. The problem I have with him and just the Internet culture in general is people saying statements like that or racist/xenophobic shit (especially on FB relating to a lot of Trump's policy) and hiding under the fact that it was "oh dude it was just trolling" Troll culture sucks, this guy clearly wanted attention and hurting others is the easiest way to get views these days. Is he racist? Probably not? Is he a douche? For sure, he deserves to lose these sponsorship and revenue for acting like a donkey. You're a business and a brand.
But "Hitler did nothing wrong" and "Death to all Jews" wasn't the joke.
The joke was that the internet is such a crazy place that you can actually order someone dressed as Jesus to say that, or that you can order kids to hold up a sign like that.
Hell, one of the Nazi jokes he made in the past was a reaction to the media's attempt to slander him...as a Nazi.
Comedians use offensive jokes to make a point all the time. And these jokes in particular weren't even that bad in comparison.
South Park had an episode where Cartman goose-stepped through the town preaching death to the Jews. George Carlin said some outrageous things!
But even if Pewdiepie actually was making racist jokes which served no greater purpose, I still wouldn't advocate shutting him down. Ultimately, he has a huge audience who love him, and nothing is going to change that.
Youtube and Disney were fully aware of what his content was like. They have had to drop him to distance themselves from the controversy.
