Did you all forget when he attacked Google for prioritizing women and minorities over him in their partner/ranking algos?
Never heard about it before and trying to google it only brings up the recent news.
Alright I stand corrected, heâs more of a piece of shit than I thought. Although I wonder if on some level itâs extreme immaturity, or actual racism.
The guy is 27 years old he just acts like a child. He knows what he is saying.
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I donât know, Iâve come into contact with this perception many times so far. Sure a person can be immature and not know that mocking or separating a group off because of an inconsequential difference is offensive. However this should be realised before you hit ~12 years of age at a max.
Anybody older than this has unfortunately been raised in a racist household and accepted that the worldview their parents, leaders and teachers preach is correct.
If a person older than ~12 is made aware of the inappropriateness of the comments and doesnât adjust theyâre just human trash.
I was raised to respect elders but many people regardless of age, wealth or education are utter trash.
"PewDiePie is a symptom of a majority illness, but because he accidentally got rich, we seem content to let the buck stop with him. His downfall feels anti-capitalist, it feels nonconformist, it makes us feel all the things we love to feel when trying to prove weâre better than. But the truth is that the soil this stuff grows in is the reality of our country and world, and we will go on encouraging this behavior, and these thoughts, until they bear their fruit.
The reason for that is terrible, and quite simple: because the whiny self-importance and self-indulgence of white male rage â from Gamergate to Anonymous, WikiLeaks to the Fappening, all the proliferating forms of alt-right confusion and rage you couldnât possibly discern from that of even the least radical right â is so repugnant that itâs nearly impossible to see through. But we wonât heal, and they wonât heal, if we donât try. Their pain is pathetic, but watch how it spreads."
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Kjellberg is clearly straight-up wrong when he says this is âan attack by the media to try and discredit me, to try and decrease my influence and my economic worthâ. However, I think the media coverage of him has been far from irreproachable, in a way that could have serious consequences.
Iâm inclined to take the guy at his word when he says that
You might make an argument that Kjellberg is a âstraight-up racistâ, and I think that argument is not entirely without support, but none of the articles Iâve seen have really made a solid case for it.
On the other hand, there most definitely is a case to be made in that these kinds of âjokesâ act to normalize hate speech, and that this kind of thing can lead to serious social malaise; I think the Buzzfeed piece that jabrams007 just linked makes this case pretty well. In particular, I think this point is important:
In addition to failing to get to the crux of the issue, some of the coverage is unfair or misguided in a way that could be seriously counterproductive. You can kind of understand where Kjellberg is coming from in being upset by the media; see, for example, the previous headline of the Wired article Ikatono linked earlier; the title being
âPewDiePie Was Always Kinda RacistâBut Now Heâs a Hero to Nazisâ
Also, look at this quote from the article:
Clearly if Kjellberg had, entirely by his own initiative, decided to use an image of Leslie Jones in place of Harambe, that would indeed be pretty terrible and a strong sign of racism. However, from the video, thatâs quite a misleading description of what happened. Apparently the image of Leslie Jones came up as a result of his typing âwhat if Harambe was aliveâ into Microsoftâs Project Murphy; presumably Project Murphyâs association between the two was the result of last yearâs harassment campaign against Leslie. Sure, you can argue that the description is still factually correct, since he did indeed ârepeatedly use an image of actress Leslie Jones to depict Harambeâ, as he chose to include those images in the video. But there is also a big difference between the natural reading of the text and what it purports to describe, so the description is unequivocally and seriously misleading.
Apart from the obvious harms that can come from media bias as a general phenomenon, in this case it also lends credence to the alt-right narrative that the mainstream media is simply âfake newsâ. Clearly this doesnât matter for someone who has already fully bought into this narrative, but as the Buzzfeed article highlights there are plenty who havenât but could easily be susceptible to it.
When you vilify someone like PewDiePie you are essentially drawing a boundary and attempting to force some of these people to take sides in a battle for hearts and minds, and when some of that coverage is unfair or biased youâre also giving the other side serious ammunition in that battle. When you consider the fact that PewDiePie has upwards of 53 million subscribers, itâs also clear that the stakes in this battle are quite high.
So yeah, Iâm all for a discussion on the potential harms that can result from normalizing hate speech, but itâs also a discussion where nuance and careful deliberation is of the utmost importance. This is the kind of shit that can backfire hard, and has already done so in the past.
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On that note, I think this NYT article is probably the best Iâve seen on the topic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/magazine/youtubes-monster-pewdiepie-and-his-populist-revolt.html
The last paragraph is a pretty good illustration of my concerns on the matter:
I think its really just mostly immaturity in the form of 4chan humor and trying to be âedgy.â Like the whole âkill all the jewsâ thing was just to show how absurd it was that you could get people to say literally anything on fiver, but I still probably wouldnât have chosen that one. Him potentially normalizing racism kind of makes me think thatâs how the alt right started. People on /b/ make racist jokes all the time. How many of them arenât just saying racist things but actually hold those racist beliefs? Probably a far smaller amount, but that humor made it to /pol/ and a lot more of them went âyeah youâre rightâ and went down the white supremacy rabbit hole instead of making shitty jokes or going to a better website.
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When I was about 12, in German class, I decided to decorate my work book with the German flag. Looked good. On the back I started with the Nazi flag, swastika and all. I didnât really think what Inwas doing, just kinda doodling away.
Of course, I was told off by the teacher, and it was explained how inappropriate it was. I felt embarrassed, of course. But looking back, I can see I just wasnât thinking things through.
I was 12.
What I see with Piediepie and other like him is that he wasnât in an environment where someone could tell them off and make them feel shame at their first accidental or mindless racism. They do it online, with no consequences, or worse, in a forum where they are rewarded for being edgy.
I think it might be late for Pewdiepie, as at 27 he feels like an adult, and up until now he has been rewarded for his edginess and pushing buttons.
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Strangely enough, I had a very similar experience, down to the level of being in a German school, being near the age of 12, and doodling Nazi symbols in an exercise book. In my case a lot more background explanation is needed, though.
In my case it was because I was taken along on an extended trip my Dad took as a visiting lecturer at Universität Karlsruhe and for research collaboration with Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (both are now merged into the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology); I was probably something like 10 years old at the time.
Basically I was temporarily enrolled at a German school just to give me something interesting to do; I didnât really learn much due to the language barrier (apart from some of the language), but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. Pretty much the only two things I remember from the whole trip are:
-
While sitting in class for the first time I doodled swastikas in a grid ruled exercise book. Iâm pretty sure the only reason I did it was because they followed the lines and exhibited rotational symmetry, though.
I donât think anyone noticed or brought the issue uo in class, though; when I got home my parents explained the significance of the symbols (particularly given the context of being in Germany). The main thing I remember about the whole affair is being embarrassed, and particularly anxious about the possibility that someone noticed me drawing them. -
Seeing a Zigarettenautomat (cigarette vending machine) on the street pretty close to the school.
You might be right about PewDiePie, although I can think of other explanations why someone might appear to be lacking in some very basic aspects in their understanding of society. It might well be too late for PewDiePie now, especially given how he has reacted to the media and the fact that he just recently followed Sargon of Akkad on Twitter.
However, I think itâs not too late for many of the people who follow him and watch his videos. If PewDiePie starts going full âred pillâ (blech), I would rather he took as few of his viewers with him as possibleâŚ
I went to visit Gettysburg on a school trip in the 6th grade and came home with a confederate flag bandanna because I thought it was a cool looking flag and thought it was neat in the âalternate colorsâ sort of way. My dumb kid brain probably thought of it as like the alternate cover of a comic book.
I was completely ignorant. And nobody said shit to me about it, not even my parents. Someone spotted it tucked away in my room many years later, weâre talking late high school, and called it out. I realized it was stupid and symbolic and tossed it.
I didnât think about much more than myself up until I was 17/18. Not other people, not the world. Once I started growing up I realized things how shitty it was for my parents to not try to instill any sense of world view, and to not comment on things like your pre-teen buying confederate paraphernalia. Surprise, they voted for Trump.
I saw plenty of kids doodling swastikas when I was in middle/high school. Now while Iâm sure there were plenty of racists, I think most of them just thought it was a cool looking symbol.
Also, speaking of racism and field trips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PObvnI_U1qU
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So a lot more Youtubers are joining onto the âPewdiepie vs. Old Mediaâ debate and shunning those who donât have 100% support of him: http://kotaku.com/youtubers-are-getting-dragged-for-not-supporting-pewdie-1792646781
And Pewdiepie double downed on the hatred of the Wall Street Journal doing an expose on their âclickbaity, untrustworthyâ methods then linked his followers to follow two alt-right propaganda channels. This is a shit show.