YouTube star Felix Kjellberg, known to tens of millions as PewDiePie, spent much of 2017 at war with the media. The conflict began with the loss of two major partnerships and ended with a long response video that blamed the press for his troubles. In that video, the most subscribed creator on the platform said the media was out to get him because he represented the new media economy and they were the old guard in decline. The argument was familiar in tone and structure, but it was also a misdirection.
PewDiePie did not lose his Disney and Google deals because journalists were jealous. He lost them because some of his videos contained anti-Semitic jokes. A prominent financial news outlet approached Disney while reporting on those jokes, and Disney made a swift decision to end its relationship with the YouTuber. Google then canceled his YouTube Red show and removed him from its preferred advertiser program. The outlet asked questions; the corporations made the choices.
From Let’s Plays to Corporate Partnerships
PewDiePie rose to fame in the early 2010s with Let’s Play videos, a format in which gamers record themselves playing video games and provide commentary. He developed an exaggerated, high-energy persona that made him stand out in a sea of similar channels. His subscriber count grew at a staggering pace, and by 2016 he was one of the most recognizable figures on the internet. With that visibility came corporate interest. Disney’s Maker Studios, a multi-channel network designed to help online creators monetize their content, signed him as a partner. YouTube also invested in him, giving him a premium series on YouTube Red.
The partnership made sense on paper. PewDiePie had millions of young fans, and brands wanted access to that audience. Disney, in particular, had spent years trying to understand digital talent and saw Maker Studios as a bridge between traditional entertainment and the online world. For PewDiePie, the deals provided a level of legitimacy and financial security that few online creators had achieved. In 2016, he reportedly earned $15 million from his channel, merchandise, and other ventures, a figure that made headlines because it demonstrated the commercial power of independent online content.
What Triggered the Break
That success made PewDiePie a news subject, but it also placed him under a microscope. The financial outlet that eventually reported on his offensive videos had contacted Disney for comment after compiling examples of anti-Semitic humor from PewDiePie’s channels. Some of the examples involved Nazi imagery used as an attempt to criticize media outlets for taking things out of context. One example was harder to defend: a video in which PewDiePie used the freelance service Fiverr to pay two men to hold up a sign reading “Death to All Jews.” PewDiePie later said he regretted the joke and removed the video, but the damage was done.
Disney did not wait for the story to be published. The company informed the outlet that it had cut ties with PewDiePie, and that decision became the news. Google followed by canceling the YouTube Red series and dropping him from preferred advertising. The sequence matters because PewDiePie and many of his fans framed the story as a media attack. But the media did not cancel his contracts. The companies that had the most to lose by continuing to associate with him made that call.
PewDiePie’s Response: Blame the Messenger
In his response video, PewDiePie acknowledged that some of his jokes had used inappropriate language and went too far. That admission, however, was only a small part of the video. The rest was a broad assault on the media. He accused the financial outlet of taking his jokes out of context and said the press had always had it out for him. He also complained about coverage of his income, noting that articles about his earnings ignored the millions he had raised for charity.
That complaint is understandable in one sense. Many creators feel that traditional media only writes about them when there’s a scandal or a sensational dollar figure. But PewDiePie’s income has always been a legitimate story. A 26-year-old YouTuber making $15 million a year is a business story, a cultural story, and a window into a new industry that most readers do not understand. It is not inherently an insult. Nor is it true that mainstream outlets ignore his charity work; coverage of his philanthropic efforts has existed alongside the income reports. The problem is that the income reports generate more clicks, which is true for almost any celebrity story.
The Real Center of Power
The most revealing part of PewDiePie’s response was what he did not say. He did not direct his anger at Disney or Google, the two corporate giants that chose to walk away from him. That choice is easy to understand. Fighting Disney and Google could have destroyed his career. Google controls the platform where he built his audience, and a direct confrontation could lead to demonetization or worse. Attacking the media, by contrast, is safe. It plays to his fanbase and allows him to cast himself as an outsider fighting a powerful establishment.
But this framing collapses under scrutiny. The media is not in competition with PewDiePie. A financial newspaper does not fear a YouTuber who plays video games. Traditional gaming outlets do not lose readers because someone uploaded a Let’s Play video. The real competition is between YouTube and broadcast television, which is why a company like Disney tried to partner with PewDiePie in the first place. The outlet that reported the story was not trying to assassinate him; it was simply doing what news organizations do when they learn that a major celebrity has posted anti-Semitic content.
A Familiar Political Echo
It was impossible to watch PewDiePie’s response without thinking about Donald Trump. Trump had spent months attacking the press as the enemy of the people, and his supporters embraced the idea that any negative coverage was proof of media bias. PewDiePie’s message was less combative, but the structure was the same: the media is the aggressor, the accusations are unfair, and the real victim is the person under attack.
There are obvious differences. PewDiePie is not the president of the United States. He has shown regret for some of his jokes, and there is little evidence that he actually believes the hateful things in his content. Trump, by contrast, has rarely apologized and has continued to battle with the press from the White House. Yet the similarity in defensive strategy matters. Both men have built followings that are willing to dismiss critical coverage as fake news or as an attempt by the mainstream to silence them. Both have also faced situations where white supremacist outlets praised them, and both eventually denounced that support. In PewDiePie’s case, his denunciation came after the story broke, but it was enough to distinguish him from the worst possible interpretation.
The deeper issue is that legitimate questions are being turned into exaggerated accusations. When a news outlet asks whether a corporation should keep paying a creator who used anti-Semitic humor, that is not the same as calling that creator a Nazi. The question is about corporate responsibility and the influence of a person with millions of young followers. Defenders, however, hear the question as a declaration of war and respond by attacking the messenger. The same pattern appears in politics. Asking why a campaign spoke with foreign officials is not the same as claiming the candidate is treasonous, but many supporters refuse to accept that distinction.
Where That Leaves PewDiePie
PewDiePie has been slandered online. Any internet celebrity of his size has been accused of many things, some of them absurd. Some media outlets have also dismissed him as annoying or as a symbol of cultural decline, which misses the point of why his audience finds him appealing. But those offenses do not mean every critical article is an attack. This particular scandal was always about two things: the jokes he made and the decisions that Disney and Google made in response. The media was a conduit, not the cause.
The lesson for PewDiePie is one that many celebrities learn too late. Once a person reaches a certain level of fame, their jokes are no longer just jokes. They are statements made to an audience that includes children, and they carry consequences. A corporation paying a creator millions of dollars has the right to decide that those consequences are unacceptable. Blaming the journalist who reported the story is an evasion of responsibility, and it leaves the actual decision-makers untouched.
What happens next depends on PewDiePie. He could continue to cultivate a victim narrative and align himself with the anti-political-correctness movement that has been growing in online spaces. That path would be profitable and popular among a certain segment of his audience, but it would also make him a useful symbol for forces he has said he does not support. Alternatively, he could take the lesson, clean up his content, and acknowledge that the people who ended those deals were his partners, not his enemies. He has already shown that he can raise money for good causes and entertain millions of people. Whether he can do that without anti-Semitic jokes is not a difficult question. It is the only question that matters.
Source:Forbes News