The Shady Side Of PewDiePie

Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, better known as "PewDiePie," rose to prominence through his abundance of Let's Play videos, later becoming the first individual YouTuber to hit 100 million subscribers. Since starting the channel in 2010 and making over 4,000 videos, Felix has amassed nearly 25 billion views on the platform. Over the years, he's leveraged his high view counts to secure lucrative brand deals, making him one of the platform's top earners.

Though the YouTuber has not shared exact figures, he's revealed to his audience that he is a multi-millionaire thanks to YouTube. Money Nation estimated his net worth had reached about $90 million in 2016 when PewDiePie had less than half of the 100 million subscribers his channel currently boasts. Estimations of his net worth vary wildly, with outlets such as Business Insider listing his net worth as a more conservative $25 million.

With popularity comes inevitable controversy. In Felix's case, many, many controversies. With multiple allegations of anti-Semitism, sexism, and racism, PewDiePie's channel is no stranger to internet drama.

When playing around with the Tobii Eye Tracker, Felix asked his fans to send him videos to watch during a livestream. His fans ended up sending in an overwhelming amount of content featuring women in compromising positions, revealing shots, and so forth. At one point, Felix asks, "If a girl dresses like that, she wants you to look right? Am I crazy for thinking that? I'm not some sort of a misogynistic?" Additionally, he refers to some women as "Twitch thots" throughout the stream.

One compilation featured Twitch Streamer Alinity Divine, who filed a copyright claim on his video. Felix responded with a video criticizing Alinity for filing the claim, asserting she was faking offense for money. "You're just playing games with the shortest skirt ever, that's our fault for looking at it in any sexual way, right? ... I know you don't portray yourself to be the smartest person, but I know you're not that dumb to not be aware of what you're doing," said Felix.

After the video's release, members of PewDiePie's fanbase ruthlessly attacked Alinity online. Vice's Samantha Cole claims the views of women expressed by Felix allegedly provoked his fans into bullying and intimidating a woman with a less substantial following, further normalizing sexism in the online gaming community.

Felix has accused members of the media of attacking and misrepresenting him on multiple occasions. One of these situations arose after The Wall Street Journal posted the article highlighting PewDiePie videos that supposedly contained anti-Semitic or Nazi imagery.

According to The New York Times Magazine, PewDiePie fans sifted through the online histories of The Wall Street Journal reporters for anything they could use against them. PewDiePie then featured what his supporters had found in a video, including insulting jokes made by one reporter years prior on Twitter. An explosion of harassment and death threats levied against a specific journalist who had criticized Felix followed. Things got so bad that the The Wall Street Journal offered to find the reporter a safe place to stay outside of their house to avoid the flood of threatening messages.

The Wall Street Journal allegedly took another hit from Felix's supporters in the midst of the T-series vs. PewDiePie subscriber war when the publication's website was hacked. The hackers issued a fake apology for "misrepresenting PewDiePie." Additionally, the false statement asserted the publication would support PewDiePie in his feud against T-Series and ended by pushing readers to subscribe to PewDiePie's YouTube channel. The Wall Street Journal took down the post, which Felix pointed out on Twitter saying, "lol they deleted it, WSJ is still on angery list."

Just before opening fire on two mosques during Friday prayers on March 15, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand, a gunman livestreamed on social media and said, "Remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie." The statement referenced the "Subscribe to PewDiePie" meme; however, when mentioned by a far-right radical who killed over 50 people, the seemingly lighthearted meme took on a more sinister tone. 

Many wondered why Felix Kjellberg was on this person's radar. Upon learning of the shooting, Felix expressed condolences for the victims and stated, "I feel absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person."

Following the shooting, an influx of think pieces, articles, and videos popped up, speculating why the shooter chose to reference PewDiePie. Some, like National Observer's Caroline Orr, have suggested the jokes and remarks widely covered throughout Felix's YouTube career may have helped to radicalize the shooter towards violence.

As pointed out by Rolling Stone, others, including The New York Times' Charlie Warzel, believe the massacre was "engineered for maximum virality." Referencing PewDiePie was a surefire way to drum up attention for the incident and to leverage his (then) 50 million person strong audience to spread the shooter's message, whether they agreed with it or not. In this case, the thought is that by including the Swedish YouTuber's name, journalists would be more likely to talk about the shooting and try to understand why the shooter made mention of him, thus gaining the shooting more coverage.

Felix has a massive online following. As a result, it's not surprising that fans might recognize him on the street, even while travelling internationally. Unfortunately, being internet famous has some drawbacks, most notably the invasion of privacy and personal space.

In a video showing his trip to Singapore, you can see fans screaming, converging around the creator, and even chasing him. Felix also states in the vlog of his anniversary trip to Kuala Lumpur that some fans were tracking his movements through Instagram posts, making him feel "hunted."

While it is understandable that Felix is stressed by the inappropriate actions of some of his over-the-top fans, he's received some flack for the supposed generalizations he's made about his Asian followers. "If you go to countries like Malaysia and Singapore, people are very hectic and scream-ish and crazy, and they lose their minds when they see you ... I love meeting fans, don't get me wrong, but I also want people to just treat me normally as well," said Felix in a video describing the encounters.

After these remarks garnered some negative attention, Felix clarified they were intended as a comparison of fan culture in different regions, and apologized, saying: "I'm sorry if I was a little harsh to you, Singapore and Malaysia ... Just to be clear. Sorry!"

It's no secret that the Chinese government is pretty strict when it comes to criticism of the party and its leaders. While The Great Firewall limits what those living in China can say and create, it also censors the web traffic imported into China. This has had a significant effect on various creative industries, which are often forced to pander to Chinese censorship in place of creative freedom and freedom of speech.

In one of his videos, Felix discussed the growing tensions between Hong Kong and China, showing various memes depicting China's President Xi in an unfavorable light. Shortly after the video's release, Felix released another video alleging he had been banned in China and that searching his name on Chinese websites will turn up no results. This seemed to draw some attention as various news outlets began reporting that PewDiePie had been banned in China. However, it seems this may not actually be the case.

According to BBC, some content, such as a Baidu-run PewDiePie forum, had been made unavailable, but there was no evidence to suggest the Chinese government was responsible for its removal. Instead, it is more likely that the forum took precautions by distancing itself from Felix's content. Additionally, BBC reports that searching PewDiePie's name on sites like iQiyi and Tencent Video will still bring up many results. These statements conflict with PewDiePie's own claims, leaving the situation unclear.