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In a video on Sunday, Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg finally tackled the mass shootings against two mosques in New Zealand, killing over 50 people, and attracted an uncomfortable association with the popular YouTuber.
The New Zealand striker broadcast live filming and referred to the "Subscribe to PewDiePie" movement in the live stream. The meme is based on a battle between Kjellberg, YouTube's largest individual creator with more than 95 million subscribers, and T-Series, a Bollywood Indian studio, who competed for the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. Kjellberg tweeted about the connection at that time, calling the attack disgusting, but never treated it extensively on his YouTube channel. Kjellberg later made several other jokes about "Subscribe to PewDiePie", in a mostly facetious way, but many other creators have stepped back from the tragedy.
Kjellberg is now asking his subscribers to completely stop the meme and tackle the unpleasant consequences of the attack in New Zealand.
"To associate my name with something so vile, has affected me more than what I've left showing," says Kjellberg in the video. "I just did not want to answer it right now and I did not want to pay more attention to the terrorist. I did not want to talk about it because I did not think it had anything to do with me. To put it plainly, I did not want to hate winning.
"But it's clear to me now that the" Subscribe to PewDiePie "movement should have ended at that time."
After addressing "Subscribe to PewDiePie" and some of the hateful content evoked in the meme, including the destruction of a World War II memorial condemned by Kjellberg, Kjellberg also spoke of his struggle with T-Series. Kjellberg has done two dissertations on T-Series, a must-have in the YouTube community celebrated by its subscribers but condemned by critics. Even though Kjellberg has criticized the racist comments of his subscribers and fans about T-Series, he has already made several racist jokes in a video titled "Congratulations." Kjellberg also made a joke about the genocide in the video, citing multiple controversies that he had about anti-Semitic content.
Kjellberg acknowledged that, although he made the songs "in a funny and ironic joke", he offended and hurt people by his actions. In the end, the videos were considered so shocking that the High Court of India decided to prevent them from being seen in the country.
"They should not be taken seriously," said Kjellberg in the latest video. "This negative rhetoric is something I do not agree with at all, and I want it to stop, and be perfectly clear: no, I'm not racist. I do not support any form of racist comment or hatred towards anyone. "
Having one's name and community associated with acts of hate and terror is "so disgusting," said Kjellberg. He added that he did not want "all these heinous acts to dominate all these incredible things," like fundraising for charities in India and around the world. Kjellberg ends his video by asking that when his channel reaches 100 million subscribers, he does not want it to be seen as a defeat for another channel. He wants to keep it positive.
"This movement began with love and support, so let's finish it with that."
"Subscribe to PewDiePie" is one of the most striking examples of how quickly an innocent meme can snowball into something defined by the hateful acts of others. The joke may have started as a comment on a specific YouTube issue in the community – a fight between David and Goliath between one of the platform's most popular independent creators and a company – but this is more what he stands for. Kjelleberg's decision to use YouTube, his most important platform, to broadcast a message about the end of something he could no longer control, was inevitable.
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