PewDiePie Apologizes For Snapping At Fans
During a livestream in which he played the recently-released Ghost of Tsushima, PewDiePie made the mistake of sharing his screen as he booted up the game. For just a few moments, people viewing the broadcast got to see PewDiePie's PSN ID. This led to a deluge of messages from people who watched the moment live and seized their chance to talk to their favorite YouTuber. It also led to some anger from the streamer himself, and later on, the kind of apology video that only PewDiePie could produce.
Though PewDiePie has removed footage of the ensuing blow-up from his official upload, evidence of the leak and the streamer's reaction can still be seen in a clip saved by YouTube channel Ulla Britta. As Pewds attempted to take in the one of the game's lush cinematics, which he called "epic," he received one message after another in his PlayStation inbox. At first, Pewds thought he'd earned an achievement somehow, but he quickly realized what was happening. As the messages poured in, one pop-up after another appeared on his screen, interrupting the flow of the game.
"F—k off, I don't care," PewDiePie responded, before giving up and exiting the game to go to his inbox. He added, "I hate you all so much. You ruin all fun, I hope you get banned. Why do I even get notifications?"
The messages continued to come in, with some of them being shout-outs to the YouTuber and others being spam and other silly messages. It was easy to see the tension growing as Pewds sifted through one message after another.
He snapped, "F—k off ... oh my god, you're so annoying. I hate you so much." Apparently realizing that he couldn't close all of the messages as they continued pouring in, he chuckled and sat back.
"F**king children," he said. "What, I show my account for two seconds, and this is what you did? ... Way to ruin everything. You ruin everything. I hate you." After briefly attempting again to close out his messages so he could switch off his notifications, he asked, "Do you guys have no friends? is that the issue?"
In other words, Pewds' fans seemed to have pushed him a little farther than normal. Once he managed to get his messages closed and notifications turned off, he once again told the people spamming him to "f—k off," adding, "We're not friends."
After a few moments, Pewds got back into playing Ghost of Tsushima and apologized for blowing up at his viewers. However, he apparently wanted to make it very clear that he was indeed sorry. In a comment pinned to the upload of this stream, he told his viewers that things had "kinda just boiled over" and that he wanted to apologize. This wasn't the last time that PewDiePie addressed the situation, either.
On July 19, PewDiePie uploaded a video titled "Apology (for real this time)," in which he again addressed the blow-up from a few days prior. In typical PewDiePie fashion, however, he used the video as an opportunity to continue a running gag from an earlier video. He poured eyedrops into his eyes to simulate tears, just like he did in the previous week's video that satirized YouTuber apology videos.
Despite the jokes up front, PewDiePie did offer a seemingly sincere apology for the things he said during his Ghost of Tsushima broadcast. He explained, "I kind of snapped yesterday at the livestream towards my fans, and I didn't like how I did that ... I hate being interrupted, especially if I'm ready to do something, and I kind of just told people to 'f—k off' and I'm sorry."
PewDiePie added that none of his fans had really made a big deal out of the situation to his knowledge, but he still wanted to apologize. According to Pewds, he doesn't dislike interacting with fans. However, he felt like these particular interactions were more intrusive than he'd like, which triggered such a strong response from him. PewDiePie certainly isn't the first streamer to leak sensitive information. In fact, this isn't even the first time PewDiePie himself leaked his own info. It is notable, though, that PewDiePie apologized for his reaction to what his fans did. By doing so, he seemed to acknowledge that he was partially to blame for what happened.
PewDiePie has had plenty of feuds in the past, but typically has a strong relationship with his subscribers. The rest of the video was a typical PewDiePie upload, featuring meme reactions and general joking around with his viewers. In other words, it appears there are no hard feelings.