PewDiePie Addresses Recent Media Coverage Amidst Controversy

Lizzy Finnegan

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PewDiePie Addresses Recent Media Coverage Amidst Controversy

Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg has some stern words for the media.

Earlier this week, both Disney and Google made the decision to sever ties [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/169543-Pewdiepie-YouTube-Series-Cancelled-Following-Anti-Semitic-Posts] with popular YouTube personality Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg due to content in his videos. Scare PewDiePie was a collaboration between Disney's Maker Studios and The Walking Dead parent company Skybound Entertainment. Maker Studios cut ties with PewDiePie, while YouTube canceled his show.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal [https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533], nine of PewDiePie's videos allegedly contained anti-semitic imagery. One in particular shows two men holding a "Death to all Jews" sign, commissioned by the YouTube star.

"Although Felix has created a following by being provocative and irreverent, he clearly went too far in this case and the resulting videos are inappropriate," said a spokeswoman for Maker Studios.

"We've decided to cancel the release of Scare PewDiePie Season 2 and we're removing the PewDiePie channel from Google Preferred," a YouTube spokesperson said.

On February 12, Kjellberg penned a Tumblr post [http://pewdie.tumblr.com/post/157160889655/just-to-clear-some-things-up] in which he explained the "Death to all Jews" video. In the post, Kjellberg stated that the video was created in order to "show how crazy the world is, specifically some of the services available online."

"I picked something that seemed absurd to me-That people on Fiverr would say anything for 5 dollars," Kjellberg wrote. "I think it's important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes." The post concluded with Kjellberg stating that he does not support hate-based groups "in any way."


In a video posted to YouTube today (above), Kjellberg addressed the issue, apologizing for the jokes while also criticizing the media for its coverage of the controversy - specifically, the way in which it was covered.

"I just want to reiterate that my intention was just to show how stupid the website is and how far you can push it by paying five dollars," he said in reference to the "Death to all Jews" video. "I'm sorry for the words that I used, as I know that they offended people. And I admit that the joke itself went too far."

"I do strongly believe that you can joke about anything, but I also believe that there's a right way and not the best way to joke about things, and I love to push boundaries." Kjellberg stated that he loves to push boundaries and considers himself a "rookie comedian," and has "definitely made mistakes like this before," but that he considers situations like these to be learning experiences.

While Kjellberg acknowledged that he may have gone overboard with some of his jokes, he also offered a stern criticism of the media for, in his opinion, taking things out of context. Kjellberg stated that he doesn't believe he can joke about whatever he wants without consequences, but that the coverage of his videos was portrayed untruthfully. One example Kjellberg gave was a video in which he joked that the YouTube Heroes program seemed "basically like a nazi scheme," adding an included clip of a Hitler speech. He says that the coverage of that video didn't accurately portray what the video was about.

Another example was a video that Kjellberg said he made about how the media takes the things he does out of context, and said the report took the last part of that video, in which he dressed up in a soldier outfit and watched a Hitler speech, out of context. "They ignored the whole part about me talking about context and they took that part and put it out of context," he said.

He also called out reporting of a video of his game, in which other people created swastikas. In that video, entitled "Stop Doing This [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR8yHXpLQlA]," he appeared to be laughing but somewhat frustrated by the appearance of the swastikas. "Do you know how many f*cking hoops we have to go through to make sure the game won't be censored because people will make sh*t like this?" he said of one of the fan-made swastika creations. "Oh for f*ck's sake," he said of another one before passing over it.

Kjellberg said that he believes that the way the controversy has been reported on has been an attack on him in order to discredit him and limit his influence. "This form of cherry-picking just shows it so clearly to me."

Kjellberg appeared emotional towards the end of the video, at one point appearing to tear up while thanking everyone who has supported him.

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Zydrate

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This just in; Actions have consequences. Who knew?

I briefly viewed his Amnesia playthrough but got so tired of it three episodes in while he just screamed about barrels and some statuette he named Stefan. Seemed to be his only two jokes the entire time. Does he 'push boundaries'? Is that his thing?
Why is there so much talk of boundaries anyway? They're there for a reason.
 

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
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The TL:DR version;


And while i wont link to them directly, The Daily Stormer is having a fucking field day at Wall Street Journals expense;



Also this stream, its easily the best thing ive had the pleasure of tuning into all week so far;

 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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The guy is not funny. Go figure, what a surprising fuckin' twist. But he's also not an anti-Semite. He's actually a very decent guy with a shitty sense of humor. The stupidity of SJW's is what amazes me in all of this.
 

Battenberg

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I'm sorry but when you've been making content for as long as PDP with that level of success you can't call commissioning a sign that says "death to all jews" a 'learning experience', even a 12 year old making their first YT video would know better than that. It's also ridiculous to act like you're being ganged up on unfairly when literally anyone with his level of fame (and also as young an audience) would 100% get the exact same attention from the media. If all he wanted to do was "show how crazy the world is, specifically some of the services available online" he could easily have picked an equally absurd message that had no connotations with hate speech but he chose not to.

I was always under the impression Felix was a decent guy despite not being into the content he makes but trying to play the victim here is not on imo. He brought this on himself and it's good to see big companies like Google and Disney sending a clear message this kind of behaviour should not and will not be tolerated or ignored.
 

Katherine Kerensky

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Mar 27, 2009
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Yeah, the media is pretty fucking shit nowadays, and will happily take anything out of context to generate a shit storm and more views. And no one really deserves to be demonised for something taken out of context to seem like something else entirely. The media (or news, or whatever you want to call it) needs to stop being a steaming pile of sensationalist shit.
 

Vern

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So, he's basically saying he's sorry that people were offended. Not sorry for what he did, but sorry that people were offended. The inability to feel empathy is a hallmark trait of a sociopath. "I'm sorry that you can't see that what I did was great. I'm sorry that you lack the ability to see my intelligence."
 

hentropy

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Just wish this guy would go the way of Fred. Most of his loyal fanbase is 7 year olds, which is fine, but he should know most of his supporters are children and adjust accordingly. He's being paid what I can assume is an obscene amount of money to make funny noises for children, he's not Lenny Bruce.
 

Ukomba

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He shouldn't have apologized at all. We all know apologies are just blood in the water to the perpetually offended. I'm sure there's already a comment on this page about it not being good enough. It's good to see other youtubers coming to his defense, like Armored Skeptic

 

bladestorm91

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It appears that some people in this thread are completely missing the point. It doesn't matter if you don't like him and/or don't like some or all of the humor in his shows, that's NOT the point here.

The point is that the mainstream media has done a smear job against him, because they didn't like his humor. They wanted to damage his reputation and cost him millions just because they didn't like something about him. THAT, is fucked up.

To try and ruin a guy when he has done nothing to deserve it, and doing so under the guise of journalism is completely disgusting and despicable.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Jan 20, 2010
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I side with PewDiePie.

Not because of his actions. (I like dark, offensive comedy fyi) but more for the fact that the Wall Street Journal did cherry puck portions of his videos to make it look like he was a Nazi Sympathizer. It should not be up to journalists to create outrage and then make money off of the outrage they started for clicks. Its sad to see that a lot of people are ignoring the fact that the WSJ sent the cherrypicked clips of PewDiePie jokes to his employers, who took action, then they reported on it.

There was no consumer outrage that caused this. It was moral busybodies manufacturing outrage in order to hurt someone who's kind of comedy they didn't like through Yellow Journalism. And its pathetic. You can find PewDiePie's joke offensive and have every right to but you should be more pissed off with the Press trying to be the arbiters of Social Justice for people who didn't get as mad as they did.


The thing is, PewDiePie didn't do anything more edgy than Hitler jokes done in South Park or Family Guy. Do we go back and get rid of a Bunch of Mel Brooks movies and Monty Python skits because 3 people at a web based newspaper that needs to force it readers to pay a sub fee got mad?
 

90sgamer

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It is a shame he felt the need to apologize to placate idiots. A joke--even a bad one--is not an endorsement. Anyone who does not understand that is a person not worth listening to.
 

American Tanker

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You'll never see me call myself a fan of Poods, but I'm so disillusioned at this point that I actively disbelieve everything the mainstream press says.
 

Sheo_Dagana

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Surprise! The more popular you are, the more likely you are to be targeted by the media for some easy-clicks, especially if you're the biggest YouTube LPer with TV deals and such coming through. I'm kind of surprised he didn't really think about that, but hey, when your main source of profit has been entertaining 12 year olds for the last several years I suppose it's hard to expect someone to mature.

On the other hand... I think it's absolute bullshit how the media has portrayed the situation. Context is important, and a lot of news these days just want a catchy headline to draw in the eyeballs. I remember when Sony did the same thing to James Rolfe over his impression of the Ghostbusters 2016 trailer, calling him a misogynist when it was clear to anyone that bothered to watch the video that the gender-flipped cast wasn't his beef.
 

Saltyk

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Sep 12, 2010
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Katherine Kerensky said:
Yeah, the media is pretty fucking shit nowadays, and will happily take anything out of context to generate a shit storm and more views. And no one really deserves to be demonised for something taken out of context to seem like something else entirely. The media (or news, or whatever you want to call it) needs to stop being a steaming pile of sensationalist shit.
Ain't that the truth. It seems like a decent percentage of every story I see is found out to be false later on. And let's not even start on some of the commenters and how they react to some stories. It is frankly shameful.

I gave this story the benefit of the doubt originally. But after looking into it, I now realize that this whole thing was a hit piece. I'm no fan of Pewdiepie (I don't think I have seen more than five minutes of his content) but this was wrong. He should probably sue them for slander and libel, if possible.
 

Deathfish15

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90sgamer said:
It is a shame he felt the need to apologize to placate idiots. A joke--even a bad one--is not an endorsement. Anyone who does not understand that is a person not worth listening to.
There are just somethings you don't joke about. I guarantee a white guy that says the "n word" in a joke would lose their job; some straight guy making a gay joke with the "f word" would also have their severance package handed to them. There are a million other ways to push the envelope of making a point without making at the expense of another group of people. That is what this is. His PUNCHLINE was at an expense. And he paid the price for that. End of story. Move on and stop defending him.

Your defense of this attitude is the same kind of sickening defense of now President Trump's anti-homosexual VP, his ignorant cabinet picks, and his constant action without forethought. It is everything that is wrong with society because it speaks that intolerance can be tolerated because "we don't take it seriously!". Well wake the fuck up and take it seriously, because it seriously is damaging this country. It seriously is an undertone for members like those of the KKK. It seriously is uneducated, backwards thinking that needs to be called out and not tolerated.
 

Makabriel

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Dude.. if you have Disney backing you, you don't use stuff like that. No matter how much context you have in the video. Professional suicide.
 

TelosSupreme

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Battenberg said:
I was always under the impression Felix was a decent guy despite not being into the content he makes but trying to play the victim here is not on imo. He brought this on himself and it's good to see big companies like Google and Disney sending a clear message this kind of behaviour should not and will not be tolerated or ignored.
Deathfish15 said:
90sgamer said:
It is a shame he felt the need to apologize to placate idiots. A joke--even a bad one--is not an endorsement. Anyone who does not understand that is a person not worth listening to.
There are just somethings you don't joke about. I guarantee a white guy that says the "n word" in a joke would lose their job; some straight guy making a gay joke with the "f word" would also have their severance package handed to them. There are a million other ways to push the envelope of making a point without making at the expense of another group of people. That is what this is. His PUNCHLINE was at an expense. And he paid the price for that. End of story. Move on and stop defending him.

Your defense of this attitude is the same kind of sickening defense of now President Trump's anti-homosexual VP, his ignorant cabinet picks, and his constant action without forethought. It is everything that is wrong with society because it speaks that intolerance can be tolerated because "we don't take it seriously!". Well wake the fuck up and take it seriously, because it seriously is damaging this country. It seriously is an undertone for members like those of the KKK. It seriously is uneducated, backwards thinking that needs to be called out and not tolerated.
No. It's this kind of attitude that leads to groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis rising to prominence. Just like any prohibition, the more you try to take something away from someone, the more they'll want to have it. When somebody is called a racist/sexist/homophobe/bigot day-in and day-out without any reason or evidence, and they are silenced any time they try to defend themselves, can you really be shocked when they retaliate with the opposite extreme?

Humor is meant to push boundaries, to make awful things more palatable so we can get over them. You can't dictate how everyone else should feel about something just because it offends your personal sensibilities.

Which is exactly what the Wall Street Journal did. They weren't reporting news or fighting for justice. They specifically wrote a hit-piece to smear PewDiePie's reputation. Whether it's out of jealousy for him being 110% more relevant than they are or because of a personal agenda, that doesn't matter. Nobody likes a moral busybody, and popular YouTubers all over are calling the media out for this.

Besides, if this kind of shit isn't okay, why is it okay for Netflix to produce a show called "Dear White People" written by a guy who has made blatantly racist, anti-white remarks on Twitter? Or does it not count because the target is white people?

You don't get to pick and choose. Either all of it is okay, or none of it is okay.
 

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
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Mar 8, 2011
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*sigh* It has occurred to me that I bet we have a whole new generation of "anti-SJW's" due to all the kids who worship him who will now continue to assume all media "except those that agree with them" are false and bad.

He did better than Trump by actually saying hate groups are bad, but he really is just echoing Trump's ignorant childish personality here. A spoiled rich guy bitching about "evil media" for calling out the terrible shit they say.
 

The Enquirer

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Apr 10, 2013
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The joke was in poor taste but he definitely isn't a bad person. When everyone was doing that Ice Bucket Challenge thing to raise money and awareness for ALS he actually explained what ALS was, which I thought was actually a really cool thing to do when everyone else was trying to go bigger and more ridiculous with the ice bucket stuff.

Not a fan of his humor but as a person he's a really, really good guy.