PewDiePie is one of the biggest YouTubers ever. He makes mountains of money off of let's plays and vlogs, he is really influential on his young viewer base, and he has one of the highest subscriber counts in the history of the social media platform.
It seems however, he's gotten into some hot water after making an offensive, anti-Semitic video which was intended to come off as a joke. The video featured two Indian men holding a sign that read "DEATH TO ALL JEWS". PewDiePie went as far as hiring the two non-English speaking men just to make the video. Where's the joke exactly? We have no idea. The video has since been removed but Disney (owners of Maker Studios, the company PewDiePie works for) have dropped PewDiePie.
“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,” A spokeswoman for Maker Studios told WSJ.
Since August, the popular YouTuber has posted a whopping 9 anti-Semitic videos, one of which features a man dressed as Jesus saying "Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong." The two Indian men who made the video were banned from the freelancing site PewDiePie hired them on and have issued an apology video stating they didn't understand the context of the video due to the language barrier.
PewDiePie issued the following statement on his Tumblr:
“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.”
“I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive.”
“As laughable as it is to believe that I might actually endorse these people, to anyone unsure on my standpoint regarding hate-based groups: No, I don’t support these people in any way.”
A number of neo-nazi websites like Daily Stormer supported PewDiePie's offensive videos and one even went as far to label themselves as PewDiePie's #1 fan site. Although PewDiePie says he didn't mean anything by it (regardless if he means it), it's hard to defend him in the political climate of the world right now. This decision from Disney probably won't hurt him too much as other companies are probably knocking down his door to sign a contract with him.
[Kotaku]
