PewDiePie is legitimately a terrible dude. I doubt he had anything to do with this particular thing going on, but he’s been called out a good twenty times or so for being basically indistinguishable from a legit Nazi.
The “Death to all Jews” sign thing, the sentence “Hitler did nothing wrong” on a sign held by Jesus in January of 2017, when pretty much everyone with a brain realized that shit was not funny, being buddy-buddy with people like Ben Shapiro and driving traffic to Sargon of Akkad, dropping slurs... oh and he says it’s just humor guys, there’s nothing antisemitic or racist about it, etc.
I understand your point, of course. I don’t think he’s consciously a white supremacist, but he’s been confronted many times about his bullshit, even lost Disney’s sponsorship over the Jews thing, and he has apologized publicly in that wishy washy half-assed fashion where he did nothing wrong but didn’t mean to hurt anyone anyway, then gone back to palling around with far right figures. Multiple times.
He’s been given the opportunity to learn and he dwells in ignorance. He doesn’t deserve anyone’s defense, IMO.
Going to disagree with you there, partly. I think we can both agree he is a moron, and has squandered second chances repeatedly. I doubt that he is consciously or unconsciously a white supremacist, but he has racial bias, the same ones I've seen throughout the gaming community.
He has been called out twice, and vox and wsj have gone out of their way to pin the labels of WS and racist on him.
Theres nothing that original about his personality, he very much represents that old toxic sense of humour that grew up on 4chan and SA, where rape jokes and the n word were considered funny. He also attracts that mentality of follower, and the more controversy about that, the more he attracts the far right type.
Take the sign thing, he thought it was hilarious to put the most offensive thing he can on a system open (advertise anything for 5 dollars) to abuse that way, it's infantile, not racist. I think if he had put up something more blatantly offensive, there wouldn't have been any controversy, it would have been clear that he is fucking with a stupid system.
The second example was he said the N-word on teamspeak, this is racist and scummy and embodies the worst aspects of online gaming and should be judged on that accordingly. It's not white supremacy though. However, in the resulting media frenzy, a platform was given to white supremacists to defend him over the controversy, people he didn't want defending him.
He is the epitome of the worst parts of gamer cultures, and there is a huge part of his fan base that appeals to, intertwined with gamergate and fueled by those two media blow ups I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of his followers are the same ones who harassed the female games journalists after that whole mess.
Saying he is pally with the far right though is exactly what I am describing about hanging labels this off him to suit a narrative. He has never spoken about Sargon other then to reference a video about starship troopers. Though Sargon repeatedly comments on him in defense against SJW's (something pwp has never said), he is the perfect cow for Sargon to Milk to spin a story of white men being disenfranchised and attacked by the media.
Shapiro contacted him through twitter, anyone who wants can see the exchange and fed into that same stupid sense of humor doing that meme review thing.
This behavior generates a cycle: People call him a racist, say he associates with racists, then racists come out in defense of him saying he is telling it like it, are empowered by it, are able to push the underdog narrative and end up shooting up temples.
Attack him, but attack him for the right reasons, or attack his putrid fanbase, but as along as that feeding of the far right goes on, its going to get worse not better.
If I ever see evidence to the contrary from him that these claims are true I would take all this back, but at the moment, it's just not there, I dont see it.
The reason I'm saying this is, and it's what worries me, is this is why trump won, and will win again. Giving the right icons by turning a whimpy apolitical bobbleheaded moron gamer who said the N word into a white supremacist racist is empowering the alt-right not dismantling them.
