[PowerPress]

PewDiePie Pulls Antisemitic Episode from YouTube

Antisemitism and YouTube stars are in the news. PewDiePie paid to stage the message “Death to all Jews” within in a sketch piece and Parker from Vehicle Virgins reported he was subjected to a large volume of anti-Jewish vitriol following the break-up with his apparent co-host Eddie.

A Global Culture Of Hate

The biggest news is after releasing an episode filled containing antisemitic comments PewDiePie (whose channel is synonymous with YouTube) has had his partnership status reduced by Google/YouTube, lost a show on YouTube Red (their premium subscriber offering) and his relationship with Disney’s Maker Studios terminated.

YouTube, Google and Disney acted fast (to their credit)

The offending post has been removed; I never saw it while it was up.

PewDiePie is the pre-eminent YouTube STAR with over 53 million subscribers.

In a story that has attracted Global attention (link), PewDiePie hired two guys in Indonesia via Fivver to hold up a sign that said “Death to Jews.” PewDiePie then reacted to the guys and the sign in his video. It was reported that he claimed to have been trying to put a spotlight on what is possible to do via Fivvr.

Fivvr which monitors all communications within it’s market. If true that Fivvr was used, then if there is blame here, certainly Fivvr deserves it’s share of it (for allowing that message to be sold).

The following video is contains Felix Kjellberg’s (PewDiePie) response to the media

 “I apologize for the words that I used as I know they offended people and I admit the joke itself went too far.” 04:24

“I acknowledge that I took things too far” 08:48

PewDiePie considers himself a “Rookie Comedian”

Felix mentions the Wall St. Journal reporting that in the last Six Months 9 of his videos have had antisemitic messages, charges he claims “are insane.”

Although PieDiePie does present comedic material, and often creates pieces with exaggerated drama — it seems he could have used a less offensive statement and still made his point. Although he over a million fans in the last few days he has released a video claiming this is because of a YouTube glitch.

While I think folks should have a lot of latitude when creating humor and social commentary, I am certainly angered and upset by what has been reported; it seems bigoted, hateful and not appropriate for the youthful demographic on YouTube.

Around the same time as this crisis with PewDiePie, Parker from Vehicle Virgins claims to have received a large number of antisemitic messages including some that wished, “his family had died in the Holocaust.”  It’s worth mentioning it here for several reasons including that given the rise in anti Jewish and Muslim threats – PewDiePie’s content (which I have not seen), seems to play into this culture of hate (no matter what his intent).

Why Did Parker Get Hate Messages?

The Vehicle Virgins channel (link) which I discussed in several previous episodes (including here) has had a failing out among the hosts Parker and Eddie. In classic he said/he said drama it’s not clear here who was at fault. It’s also not clear previously who owned the channel. Parker has asserted that the he created the channel years before he met Eddie.

Although Parker hosted most of the videos on the channel. The plurality of the name “virgins” and their sign-off...