Hey guys, it's PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW—
As I'm sure... heh heh...
a lot of you are aware,
I make millions of dollars making videos for the internet.
And the reason why you know this is because that's all the media's ever acknowledged me for.
For some reason, they don't report on the inherent worth and value
of my internet videos where I pretend to be scared by video games.
In 2013 someone wrote an article about what it might mean that I'm the most popular thing on YouTube,
and because I'm a healthy person, based on that one article,
I concluded that the entire media hates me and also just the concept of internet personalities.
I'm just one guy.
There's no producer. There's no writer.
Please ignore the script I wrote for this video
that you can fucking see in the reflection
the entire goddamn time,
and that I'm clearly reading from.
The media never comes to me for my side of the story,
except all the times they do and I turn them down.
And I have no other platform in which to get my message across.
I want to address the biggest issue first, which would be the, uh, "guys holding up the sign" thing.
I'm saying it like that because it's much easier to take my side when you forget that the sign said
"death to all Jews".
I'm going to try not to mention that's what the sign said.
I'm just going to call it "the sign thing" from now on.
A lot of people really liked the video,
and some people didn't.
You know, some people just think it's really funny when you write "death to all Jews" on a sign.
It's... it makes a really good point about how you shouldn't say it, but I said it. It's funny!
But a lot of people think anti-Semitism is wrong,
and it's bad to normalize hate speech by turning it into a spectacle for fun and attention.
Uh...
But, you know, both, maybe both sides have a bit of a point here? Y'know?
I'm very sorry for the words that I used.
I'm going to use the phrase "the words that I used" because, once again,
I'm reticent to remind people that the words were
"death to all Jews".
I admit that the joke went too far.
I believe that you can joke about anything, and that means that you definitely should,
especially if you're a gaming YouTuber with a large fanbase of tweens.
It turns out there's a right way and a wrong way to pay someone
to call for the extermination of the entire Jewish people.
I found out one of the wrong ways this time. Maybe I'll get it right next time!
I admit that my joke was very easy to misinterpret,
and how dare the media misinterpret me! They're trying to make me look bad by—
The list is huge! They've reported the things I said and did...
We can all agree that the people in this situation who fucked up
are the journalists who watched the things that I made
and reported on the things that happened in them.
I hereby call upon my fans to boycott the Wall Street Journal!
Please, my core demographic:
consider purchasing a different economics broadsheet in the future.
We need to stop the Wall Street Journal and all other forms of pitiful, hateful, bile-spewing clickbait.
Clickbait is awful.
Purposefully using a catchy, attention-getting headline so people read your work?
Wouldn't it be awful to live in a world that normalized people
doing obnoxious, over-the-top things for attention so they could make money?
Wouldn't that be fucking terrible! WOULDN'T IT?! WOULDN'T IT?! WOULDN'T IT?!
Just one tiny...
multiple slip-ups,
and then all the media had to do was report on it!
Almost as if that's their job!
Now, you could say that a world where you can pay poor people to do almost anything because they're desperate and need the money
has far deeper problems than the risks that will happen to a rich person if he actually pays people to do it.
And you could say that maybe we should take deadly seriously the actual fascists and Nazis
emerging from the woodwork to defend me and the concept of ironic racism.
But you're forgetting that none of that affected me!
Apart from the fact I'm fighting the realization that a literal child can do what I do,
I was doing just fine. I'm fucking rich!
But not as rich as I could have been...
And that's the real problem, isn't it?
I'd... I'd got my hair done well,
and I'd learned to smile, and wink, and do the brofist.
And I'd apologized for all the rape jokes.
I was ready to be the face of the internet...
and then that clickbait, 39 times Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism outlet
smeared me by reporting the things I said!
Luckily, the real faces of free-thinking rational media had my back.
If they hang out long enough on YouTube livestreams,
they'll surely eventually crowdsource a solution to the problem of people thinking racism is wrong.
This incredibly intense overreaction to journalists reporting on things popular people say
can't possibly backfire and make us look like tiny babies!
And what am I supposed to do about this slander? How am I supposed to defend my image?
All I have is more money than most people will ever fucking see, 53 million subscribers,
and journalists asking me to give my side constantly, which I refuse to do!
I'm almost as downtrodden as those poor Indian people who were so desperate
they were willing to write racial indecencies on a sign for five dollars,
BUT I KNOW WHAT THE REAL OPPRESSION IS HERE.
J.K. Rowling even called me a fascist!
Well, she didn't. She made a pithy comment about the proliferation of ironic fascism for the sake of edginess,
but I don't need to read and parse the words properly!
WHO AM I, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL?!
Personally, I think "THEY"— that's right, "THEY", all of the bad people—
are the ones normalizing hatred, because I'm sure everyone hates me
AND I'M NOT PARANOID!!!
Instead of focusing on my show getting canceled, why don't we focus on some real issues?
I'm not going to say what those are, but hopefully it doesn't involve wondering why Nazis love my videos so much.
I'm still here, Wall Street Journal.
You tried to destroy me, but you failed...
which is what you were trying to do, apparently?
I'd like to say a very special thanks to everyone in the YouTube community for
coming out of the woodwork to vocally support me so people would click on their videos for money.
Let's brofist.
Also, I'm really sorry about the rape jokes, okay?
Can we please just forget about this and go back to loving me again?
♪♪
♪♪ [PLAYING THROUGH LAPTOP SPEAKERS]
[MUSIC STOPS]
Alright, I recognize that this video might offend some people.
I recontextualized some of the stuff that Pew said, added a couple of things he didn't say, and of course,
I, uh, titled the video "PewDiePie Is A Nazi."
So while I've got you here, I just thought I'd defend myself by saying...
It was just a joke.
Y'know, like those things PewDiePie does?
Surely, in the name of freedom of speech and expression
and being able to joke about anything—nothing is off-limits—surely, I can jokingly say
"PewDiePie is a Nazi"? Right?
And while I'm being super obvious about what the point is of this video,
I do think it's a little bit disingenuous for Felix to imply that the Wall Street Journal put Disney in a corner
and forced them to sever ties with him.
Disney are a, you know, big company?
They can make their own decisions in life.
And they're also a little bit afraid of looking like anti-Semites,
because it's bad to do that, and also they have a history of maybe
making a couple of mistakes on that front, and they kind of got to correct that.
No, I think Disney severed their ties with him because they...
saw what he was doing, and thought about it, using critical thinking.
If I recall, a similar thing happened with Levi's, where they saw that PewDiePie was making a bunch of rape jokes,
and they stopped wanting to advertise on his videos. That's a business decision. That's not repression or censorship.
That's a company saying, "hey, maybe we shouldn't advertise on this guy's page.
Maybe it makes us look bad." That's just a business decision.
Disney have something of a reputation to protect. They make films that are usually for almost all ages; they make Star Wars now.
I'm pretty sure at no point in a Star Wars film does a character
pay someone to hold up a sign saying "death to all Wookies,"
or at least if they do, they turn out to be the bad guy, or in the midst of a massive nervous breakdown,
in which case, I am really sorry, Felix.
It's pretty clear from how the discussion is unfolding on YouTube that the real problem isn't some impending corporate monopoly.
[OFFSCREEN NOISE]
Sorry, there's a train.
The actual monopoly is inherent in how the discussion is being had.
For example, look at the treatment jacksepticeye, another gaming YouTuber,
is getting for daring to say that he thinks maybe Felix got some things wrong.
Jack is a fan of Felix. The two have known each other for a very long time. He very clearly looks up to him.
And he made some fairly light criticism.
But the internet is calling him a backstabber.
Like, the most subscribed person on YouTube can't even be mildly criticized by someone who admits they look up to him
without them being accused of backstabbing him, and a massive shouting match emerging between their respective fan bases.
And from what I can gather, that's the real problem here.
Comedy on YouTube, as well as most forms of discussion, can't really develop beyond a fairly juvenile stage
because it's impossible to provide a nuanced critique without being regarded as a threat.
Supposed attempts to defend freedom of speech have ended being defenses of the most popular person's speech
from other people's speech, because they're using it to criticize them.
In place of fighting for some actual freedom or some genuine discussion,
people are basically arguing for a pseudo-populism in which the most subscribed person has to be right because he has the most.
In the words of Keemstar— and I actually wrote this down when I saw it because it was ridiculous—
He then goes on to say:
Already decided he's innocent,
because of likes.
I certainly hope it goes without saying at this point that the idea that a person can't be wrong
because a lot of people clicked a like button on their favorite gaming YouTuber
is a really bad idea for speech and discussion.
Freedom of speech is a very important thing and it should be defended from people who seek to limit it.
For example, actual literal fascists.
But who in this equation needs defending the most: the guy with the most subscribers and the farthest reach on the fucking platform,
or the smaller people who actually dare to criticize him and are being treated like dog shit for it?
Somehow, I think this video with a bunch of dumb jokes in it, and a couple of bits of light criticism where
jacksepticeye says he thinks Felix got some things wrong, are somehow more revolting
than a video of someone paying people to hold up a sign saying "death to all Jews".
Doesn't something seem wrong about that?
Just in case it wasn't obvious, no, I don't think Felix is actually a Nazi.
Which, admittedly, is a pretty low bar.
But then again, I have quite a lot of experience with Swedish fascists,
so maybe I just know what they look like.
I didn't think the Wall Street Journal thought he was either, though. I've read their article.
They just pointed out that he relies on one joke too often, and that's because
when people criticize him for overusing jokes, or relying on sloppy joke editing as a crutch,
people jump down their throat and call them a backstabber.
The structure of YouTube doesn't just hurt people who happen to not be as popular as PewDiePie and have different opinions.
It also is bad for PewDiePie, because his comedy can't evolve, because people can't criticize him without being called backstabbers,
so they don't bother.
Unless we actually raise the discourse by treating everyone in the equation better,
especially the people who criticize PewDiePie and have less of an audience,
then we're going to keep encountering this same problem over and over again, because nothing will actually change.
Also, I really have to reiterate: I don't think Felix is a Nazi. Now I've said it, you can't sue me.
♪♪
Thank you very much to all my patrons, for helping to validate this dumb garbage that I make.
In addition to the names scrolling past the screen right now, I'd especially like to thank:
[READING NAMES]
DON'T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE
