PewDiePie's alt-right links are impossible to ignore



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YouTuber PewDiePie, age 29, is not responsible for the shooting of New Zealand . We should not blame the apparent neo-Nazi and Islamophobic fate that shot at two mosques last week.

However, such tragedies do not exist in a vacuum. It is crucial to discuss why, during the appalling spread of his attack, the alleged New Zealand gunman Brenton Tarrant gleefully encouraged viewers to "s". subscribe to PewDiePie ". and anti-Semitism, there would be nothing to talk about it, but it does. So, let's talk about it.

PewDiePie, born Felix Kjellberg, is an influential figure to more than 90 million subscribers. His followers venerate him with all the cult fervor of the modern stan culture, even going to disfigured war memorials and hacking the website of the Wall Street Journal to promote his channel . While PewDiePie has since encouraged his fans to do nothing illegal he and his content hold a worrisome power over his followers. It's not all games and memes either – the content is often problematic. Here is a brief overview of PewDiePie's worst bigotry attacks.

  • He incorporated anti-Semitic themes and images in of his videos which one called for the death of all Jewish people.
  • He says the word -N during a live broadcast of games.
  • He frequently made non-badist comments even going as far as victim-blame .
  • His controversial title against rival T of the YouTube series included racist verses mocking their skin. color ("I'm a blue-eyed white dragon while you're only a black magician") and language ("Your language seems to come from a rap mumble community" »»).
  • He approved EsemicolonR [19659002] YouTuber virulent, anti-Semitic, homophobic and badist.
  • He collaborated with Ben Shapiro who ruled that the English departments of American universities were "brainwashing centers for the militant homobadual movement"; a used the anti-Semitic trope of the "devilish Jew"; posted a video on Columbus Day describing Aboriginal peoples as cannibals; stated that the Arab peoples "like to bombard shit and live in open sewers"; and spoke against the trans community several times .
  • He defended the book of Jordan Peterson . (Peterson strongly opposes legislation protecting expression and gender identity, dismissed the existence of female oppression, Islamophobia and White Privilege, and made a number of derogatory comments about "identity politics" and oppression.)
  • He allegedly followed several controversial figures. on Twitter, many of which have been criticized for their perfectly right (or right-wing extremist) and otherwise racist language. (YouTuber JonTron, for example, has made white nationalistic comments about race and immigration, Stefan Molyneux is a white supremacist who actively promotes eugenics, the Canadian white nationalist quite upright, Lauren Southern, was banned in the United Kingdom for aggressive Islamophobia, Paul Joseph Watson go to Infowars.)

crush an egg over this head pic.twitter.com/m8TFmEsiQq

– goku (@ gokunaruto3000) March 17, 2019

Almost all of these scandals have met with unapologetic excuses, most of which involve a repetition of "I was joking". Nevertheless, jokes are a form of normalization. PewDiePie's continued insistence on shedding light on violent white supremacy sends a very specific message to his subscribers: mbad genocide is fun, oppression is unimportant and even neo-Nazis can argue big arguments.

PewDiePie uses his platform to bomb a man. The impressionable younger generation with the pillars of the right right is not only irresponsible, it is dangerous. Occasional bigotry leads to violent hatred; people have died because of hatred that PewDiePie mocks and promotes and validates. The slow and steady dehumanization of marginalized groups through ironic humor is one of the most insidious and pervasive forms of radicalization we face today.

The New Zealand shooter did not shoot twice because of a single YouTuber. He did not shout to PewDiePie to recognize him as a source of inspiration; he referred to a meme who was sure to distract and dismay the Internet in the face of an indescribable act of terrorism. But it is no coincidence that the Nazis are attracted to PewDiePie: his insistence on fanatical jokes (which frames the rhetoric of neo-Nazism as entertaining) and on bringing radical right-wing characters to light makes his welcoming place for this population.

Nazis and occasional racists have definitely found their home country on YouTube, but they do not hurry to every corner of the platform. PewDiePie must make them feel that they are not welcome by re-examining how he handles marginalized identities on his channel. It is time that he condemns all the forms of bigotry that he called "jokes" – no more excuses or weak excuses, but a decisive sentence and the actions to follow. .

Bug: PewDiePie is currently only following the K-pop BTS group on Twitter

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