In a turn of events, Pewdiepie (also known as Felix Kjellberg) officially announced that he doesn’t want to be grouped with the neo-Nazis any further and will stop with the Nazi-related jokes, according to this video he posted on his official YouTube channel.
In a video titled “I guess this needs to be addressed,” Pewidepie says he wants nothing to do with the modern day Nazis.
“I made a joke about it [the Nazis in Charlottesville], I’m like ‘these guys clearly watched one too many Pewdiepie videos,” said Pewdiepie in reference to several tweets he made about the events this past weekend. “It’s a joke on my expense, but it sort of gave me my own perspective of like ‘Jesus Christ, I actually got grouped in with these people.'”
He also went on to clarify on his Twitter account that he doesn’t support hate groups of any kind. The self-deprecating joke that Pewdiepie originally posted on his Twitter account was that the neo-Nazis “watched too many Pewdiepie videos.” He later posted a tweet about a neo-Nazi that looked similar to him, saying that it “really doesn’t help my case.”
“So I thought now would be a good time as any to just say I want nothing to do with these people,” said Pewdiepie in the video. “I don’t think that anyone that watches me think I’m an actual Nazi, but I know a lot of people still might have doubt… Well, if for some reason Nazis think it’s great that I’m making these jokes, I don’t wanna give them the benefit, so I’m gonna stop doing that.”
Pewdiepie finishes off the video by announcing he will be away from YouTube for a few days to celebrate his anniversary with his long-time girlfriend Marzia, and that he feels very happy with himself and rediscovered his love for competitive gaming. He says that he is most happy about his different approach to YouTube, in comparison to his previous years on the platform.
If you don’t know, Pewdiepie came under heavy scrutiny earlier this year by several publications accusing him of being anti-Semitic. He later clarified that the jokes he makes on his YouTube channel were just jokes, but was still dropped from his MCM (multi-channel network) Maker Studios. This is likely due to Disney recently buying the studio in order to reach a wider, internet-based audience.
Many believe that this event may have been an early beginning to the YouTube adpocalyspe, where many advertisers warned YouTube that they will no longer be doing business with them unless they tighten up regulations on the content that gets uploaded to YouTube. As a result, YouTube has become noticeably stricter with what videos they will put advertisements in front of, causing many YouTubers to question the integrity of YouTube.
With the events that happened at Charlottesville this weekend (the neo-Nazi marches, counter-protestors being run over and one killed by a white supremacist), I think that stopping (or at least taking a break) from the crude humor may be the best idea for Pewdiepie going forward. I don’t personally think that Pewdiepie is a Nazi, but for those who may not understand (younger audiences) that his jokes are just jokes, he might open a door for people to look into it (which isn’t particularly a bad thing, but with all the events happening, people could be looking into this stuff for the wrong reasons).
Also, similar to why President Donald Trump was condemned after taking back an original statement on Nazism and said that the violence at Charlottesville came from (both sides), any further jokes Pewdiepie makes about Nazis could be used as fuel to the fire and have the neo-Nazis feel that what they are doing is acceptable.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.
