Forbes reports:
Felix Kjellberg (PewDiePie) has posted nine videos featuring anti-Semetic [sic] comments or Nazi imagery, the Wall Street Journal reports. These include a video of men paid by Kjellberg to hold up a sign reading "Death to All Jews" (Kjellberg later referred to this as a joke gone too far) and another with a man dressed as Jesus who says, "Hitler did nothing wrong." Multiple other videos feature swastikas, while another includes photos of Hitler, with Kjellberg wearing a "Make America Great Again" cap. The Nazism has expanded to audio: In a January 14 video he played the Nazi Party anthem, and in a February 5 video he features a "Sieg Heil" voiceover.
PewDiePie has taken down three of the nine videos in question.... "I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes," he wrote. "I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary." He did not, however, go so far as to apologize for the videos.... "I think there’s a difference between a joke and actual like, f*ck, death to all Jews," he said, once again without actually apologizing...
Posts
33 comments:
Any news about apologies is fake news.
It's the apology narrative, about failing to follow some other narrative.
Just let the guy be an unpleasant fellow or whatever he is.
Hey, PewDiePie:
You make Wilbur watch 15 seconds of an obnoxious commercial, Wilbur ain't watching the ad or your stinkin' video.
Nah. It's all bullshit unless they go after the biggest Jew-hater of them all: Mel Brooks.
He should claim he is a BDS advocate. He'd then be super-edgy.
I don't dislike PewDiePie. His content tends to annoy me, but plenty seem to like it so it's no skin off my back. I doubt he's anti-Semitic and I seriously doubt he's pro-Trump in any way, shape, or form.
His schtick seems to be being honest about the world around him and that includes the existence of a tendency to favor the old messages of Anti-Semitism. Which is why the Jews need a Nation State that dares to defend them from it.
His chosen moniker annoys me. The fact he's either bad at jokes or a terrible person are just more strikes against him.
My son likes him and says no f-ing way PDP is anti-semetic. Big reason PDP is so popular is that he would never genuflect/give even a week apology in response to culture warriors. "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. " Read his whole statement; no apology, no "I'm sorry if..." Just, heh if you're really that stupid, that's not what I think.
Not typical reaction you would expect from most popular web-based celebrity on the planet. That's the real story here, and another clue as to why Trump won.
"that includes the existence of a tendency to favor the old messages of Anti-Semitism." So, how many of the people who would be cruelly denied entry from the sad 7 by DJT would disagree with those messages? What percentage of the population in the sad 7 would disagree? Pew 2011: "Ratings for Jews are uniformly low in the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed – in all seven of these nations, less than 10% have a positive opinion of Jews. Indeed, outside of Indonesia, less than 5% offer a positive opinion." These are the attitudes lefties want to import into the West.
Fin de siecle or avant garde... I can't decide. He's Swedish, from Göthenburg, so it might be the former. Hard to tell from afar.
Can you say "Kjellberg"?
(There is no "k" sound.)
Never heard of this guy before, but when the WSJ quotes the Southern Poverty Law Center I know this is "FAKE NEWS".
Who is the person and why do we care?
And nice tie in to trump with the MAGA hat.
So another Trump must be a Nazi McCarthyesque story...
"Who is the person and why do we care?"
He is the person with by far the most YouTube subscribers — over 50 million.
That's more than twice the number of followers that President Trump has on Twitter.
1st rule of trolling: never explain
2d rule: never apologize
3d rule: When the trolling gets hard, troll harder!
PewDiePie fails miserably. Troll card revoked.
I guess the YouTube users in my household are a different demographic. I've never heard of him and instead have to try to limit the watching of strange adults who play with kids' toys and talk in silly voices.
Ahem, one of "my friends" is a subscriber and has made me watch a few of his videos. The guy is not an anti-Semite. The point of the whole fiver thing was to get other people to say terrible things for a few bucks and get a laugh because they did it. I'm sorry, but having Jesus say "Hitler did nothing wrong" is fucking hilarious.
If... "my friend" were to guess where he was at on the political spectrum, I'd say he actually would be very close to Althouse. Moderate-ish with some views more right and some more left. He's definitely pro-gamergate, but not enough to make a big deal about it or come out officially.
He's made fun of lefties and has burned a Trump piñata for a laugh. If there's anything he hates it's people who have no sense of humor.
Who is the person and why do we care?
He makes millions a year on YouTube. He's not exactly anonymous. Did one of Conan O'Brien's Clueless Gamer skits with him.
If... "my friend" were to guess where he was at on the political spectrum, I'd say he actually would be very close to Althouse. Moderate-ish with some views more right and some more left. He's definitely pro-gamergate, but not enough to make a big deal about it or come out officially.
Yeah. From what little I know of him, he definitely isn't terribly right wing nor terribly racial. He doesn't seem to be terribly political at all, which might be a big part of the appeal.
I'm sitting here wondering why Milo Yiannopoulos and PewDiePie were ever popular in the first place.
(I just typed that; and then I read each of the preceding comments on this page. Because I stopped myself to question whether I am a social-media outlier. I see that I am not an outlier. But with millions of viewers, the fans of "PDP" -- because everything gets abbreviated in 21st century social media -- are certainly not outliers either.
Can anybody tell me what I have missed, by being blissfully unaware of Milo and PDP?
I am not kidding here; before reading this post within the last couple of minutes, I had never once even heard of PDP.
Ann Althouse said...He is the person with by far the most YouTube subscribers — over 50 million.
I know who he is but have never watched him. The appeal of watching marginally-funny YT "celebs" play video games or just dick around is entirely lost on me even though I'm aware it's a massively popular form of entertainment. PDP apparently pulls $7M/year or so!
The Co-Optitude episodes with Felicia & Ryon (sister & brother) can be very funny, but they're relatively short. I tried watching one of those extended gaming sessions and got bored pretty quickly. It's a thing, though.
Well, looks like it's just Markiplier and DanTDM for me from here on out. ; )
I've never understood the appeal of watching other people play video games on YouTube. (which is how this guy got started)
My nephew on the other hand, loves him.
I was willing to give him a pass, but after his comment about how ironic it was that Jews were fucking over Jesus again, it seems like he's got very deep antipathy towards Jews. In that light the funniness of getting some natives to put up a sign saying death to the Jews isn't really so funny. They are just dupes saying what he wishes he could say.
I watched this guy a couple of years ago and thought he was charming but now he's older and this is serious business and his content isn't so light.
"youtube's biggest star"
WTF?
Damn, Mel Brooks is still alive and kicking! He's 90 years old - I'd love to hear what he has to say about this increase in Nazi humor.
AH - here he is: http://people.com/royals/mel-brooks-meets-prince-william-comedys-job-is-to-say-the-truth-in-the-kings-ear/
“Comedy’s job is to say the truth in the king’s ear,” the 90-year-old comic told PEOPLE at the BAFTA awards in London on Sunday. “I think comedy is too PC.” YOU GO MEL!
Question: is Mel Brooks still receiving income via his movie "The Producers" which includes the "Springtime for Hitler" musical? And if so how long will this go on when SJW's find out about it?
Amazon is selling "Hogan's Heroes" as well - oh noes.
Quite obviously satire, but that doesn't mean Disney has an obligation to foot the bill.
If the sign would have been "Death to America" he could have made millions on that humour, because most Iranians chant that and don't even know what it means.
Instead he chose to go back to the 1930's humour, which doesn't play well.
Once again the Antidefamation League is conducting itself right out of the SJW playbook. Here's ADL associate director Jonathan Vick: "“Just putting it out there brings it more and more into the mainstream. It’s an especially poor choice on Pewdiepie’s part in a time when, remarkably, people are having very real discussions on how to deal with a resurgence in real-world nazism."
Surely this incident will be recorded the next time the ADL needs to do a fundraiser and whip up baseless fears about nazism or "the new anti-Semitism." Although in terms of the ADL, I think it would have to be the "new new new anti-semitism."
Jews will still be looking for danger from the right as the left loads them onto cattle cars.
Never heard of the guy and don't see why "Death to the Jews" is funny.
But I have this picture of all the Althouse commenters being given five items such as an arrow head, a piece of ancient opalescent glass, a nautilus shell, a trilobite, a water rounded stone and told to arrange them on the beach sand. The same things would rearrange over and over to convey whole mentalities and, to an extent, group mentalities, just as facts do every day. So I guess "Death to the Jews" could be funny to a Millennial mentality whereas wearing a tie could be scary enough to make it a Halloween costume to a Millennial and the opposite if you come from the Fifties. All part of the rich pageant, somehow.
PS. Is Garage gone? Or is he here also hiding out and muffled-up like Inga in her sock puppet hijab?
For all I know he might be a raging anti-Semite, or even and anti-Dentite, but I'm not going to be convinced by a heavily edited video that cites the SPLC.
I am completely disgusted by the resurgence of anti-Semitism.
It didn't used to be this bad, did it? This is at least the second anti Semitic story I've heard this week, after the "punch a Zionist" guy. Is this just outrage culture amplifying a few weirdos?
It feels like you used to be able to go years without encountering anti Semitism. I went to a heavily Jewish high school, and I don't think I encountered any the entire time.
Somehow the Internet turned nasty in the last few years.
@wildswan:
Never heard of the guy and don't see why "Death to the Jews" is funny.
The phrase itself was never meant to be funny. There is a service will people will charge small prices to do various odd jobs. A couple of men were hired to display a banner with a message on it, and he purposely chose an over-the-top phrase to see if the people would actually go through with writing it.
@Zach:
It feels like you used to be able to go years without encountering anti Semitism.
What do you mean "encountered?" Do you mean personally experienced or simply heard about it? I don't think there is much serious anti-Semitism in the US, certainly not a lot of the nonsense peddled by the ADL or similar groups. Hell, in Pew research polls, Americans generally have the highest regard for Jews, higher even then Catholics or Evangelical Christians.
This is just tedious idiocy. Anti-semitic? My burro! Never heard this babbler before and if I am lucky I never will again.
Post a Comment