It's starting to seem like the platform known as YouTube is a witchhunt at this point. For those who aren't in the know, the most subscribed YouTube channel of all time, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (better known by his username, PewDiePie), recently got his channel temporarily banned and lost a lot of deals with big companies due to a controversial statement his made, as exposed by the Wall Street Journal. What are my opinions on this? Well, I have a lot of things to say.
First of all, I'm not the biggest fan of PewDiePie's channel. I have a load of respect for him, though. He's very loyal to his fans and seems like an all-around respectable person. A few months ago, one of his videos popped up in my recommended videos section on YouTube. The title of the video was "I'VE DISCOVERED THE GREATEST THING ONLINE YET...". With such a hyperbole of a title, it caught my attention. I decided to sit down and watch it. In the video, he discussed a website called Fiverr, in which people submit ads where you can pay them to do something. It's mainly meant for making advertisements. It's a very odd website, with content raging from a channel in which you can pay someone to write anything on a chalkboard, a man dressed up as Jesus who will say whatever you want him to, and a pair of kids in the jungle who act out a skit and then hold up a sign with whatever text you want.
PewDiePie decided to go around the site and goof off. It was a pretty funny video. However, at one point, he did something that caught my attention in a negative way. You're able to make people write or say WHATEVER you want, and he used this in a not-so-wise way. He paid the aforementioned kids in the jungle to hold up a sign that read "DEATH TO ALL JEWS". He didn't expect them to actually do it, so he was shocked. It was in bad taste, but it was clearly a joke, and didn't reflect any of his views.
A few weeks later, I found a story on the Wall Street Journal accusing Felix of being a Nazi. As a result, he lost his deals with Disney, YouTubeRed, and even had his channel shut down for 3 days. I was confused until I saw what exactly the accusations were from. I realized that they mentioned the video that I had seen, and I was shocked. It was then that I realized that they were going out of their way to falsely accuse him by taking a tasteless joke out of context.
Now, I do NOT support anti-semitism in any way, shape, or form. I don't stand for prejudice, and I'd go out of my way to stand against it. But if a well-trusted newspaper is writing articles falsely accusing an innocent YouTube channel of being a Nazi, I personally think that's BS. Not only did they take a joke out of context, but they took screenshots from his other videos and used them as further "evidence". They took a picture of him putting his hand in the air, and they pretended it was a Nazi salute. After the accusations, Felix dressed up in a Hitler outfit and acted like a stereotypical Nazi just to make fun of how ridiculous the accusations were. Of course, WSJ used this as well.
Maybe it was a tasteless joke. Maybe he was immature for saying that kind of stuff. But if PewDiePie is getting in so much hot water for a joke that doesn't represent his views in any way, then explain why Filthy Frank isn't getting any slander. FilthyFrankTV is an uber-controversial YouTube channel created by Joji Miller, which involves a character by the name of Filthy Frank, who goes on various rants, tangents, and adventures. His videos are EXTREMELY controversial due to Joji's vulgar sense of humor and some of the incredibly edgy things he says. However, his channel is clearly a joke, and his statements are meant to make fun of people who actually have those prejudiced views. His entire channel is dedicated to what PewDiePie did, so explain why he's not in any trouble. I'll tell you why: attention.
Wall Street Journal knew that if they targeted a popular channel it would get far more buzz. Filthy Frank has about 5,000,000 subscribers at the moment. Meanwhile, PewDiePie has about 54,000,000. They aimed for the bigger target to cause more of a stir. This simply proves that YouTube is turning into one big witchhunt where you can't live without being accused of the most ridiculous things, because drama is what's popular nowadays.
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