A month after YouTube's biggest star uploaded a video containing the phrase "Death To All Jews", the service that once hosted that very content is distancing itself a bit from Felix Kjellberg.
Variety reports that YouTube has cancelled the second season of Scare Pewdiepie, the premium $11.99-a-month show that sought to scare Kjellberg IRL in elaborate, video game inspired ways. Additionally, YouTube will also remove Pewdiepie from "Google Preferred", which is an advertising service for "brand-safe" content (which Pewdiepie is most certainly not, even discounting the Nazi jokes).
Taken together, both of these repercussions will have some kind of effect on Pewdiepie's actual income, though he will still be able to monetise his videos through normal means on YouTube. In the past, Kjellberg has said that his normal income-per-view on YouTube is low because his brand of "edgy" humour also limits the advertisers that YouTube makes available to him. "My content is not necessarily family friendly, it's got a bunch of profanity," Kjellberg said.
YouTube's decision follows the news that Maker Studios, a division of Disney, also cut ties with Kjellberg over videos with anti-semetic jokes. The most infamous video had Kjellberg paying a pair of men to hold up a sign that said "Death To All Jews", though he has been known to reference Hitler and Nazis in plenty of other videos as well. It blew up to the point where Kjellberg started garnering support from real neo-Nazis.
Scare Pewdiepie season two was announced last year as a collaboration between the executive producers of The Walking Dead, as well as Maker Studios — the latter of which might explain the sudden cancellation. The first season is still available online. Many of the videos that sparked the Nazi controversy, however, are no longer available.
For his part, Kjellberg has insisted that he didn't intend his ongoing Nazi references to support anti-semitism. "I was trying to show how crazy the modern world is, specifically some of the services available online," Kjellberg wrote on Tumblr. "I picked something that seemed absurd to me — That people on Fiverr would say anything for 5 dollars."
Comments
jeez ppl need to lighten up
I don't get the joke. Should we have been laughing at the holocaust all along?
I like jokes, even Robin Williams out there offensive jokes, but this is not a joke. You can't say really bad stuff and then pretend it's a joke. Otherwise I can just say I'll torture your loved ones in front of you, and then get angry when you don't get my joke.
If Robin Williams is your idea of edgy, you are one sheltered MF.
Consider humour. Consider what makes something humorous. Consider subjectivity. Consider humour as an art form, and not something that has to adhere to your perception of what is and isn't "funny".
Robin Williams had some pretty damn cold humour at times.
Just a couple of examples off the top of my head (a couple of the longer ones I googled for accuracy)
"If you have an older relative living with you that has dementia, and the telemarketers are calling, put her on the phone with the telemarketers. It works! After two hours, she thinks she's talking to your long-lost cousin Carl, and the ******* telemarketers will NEVER call back again."
Good Morning Vietnam (most of his DJ lines were improv): "It's so hot I saw one of them dudes in orange robes burst into flames" - my grandparents had the soundtrack on cassette and I knew this joke about 10 years before I understood it.
"I was once on a German talk show, and this woman said to me, "Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?" And I said, "Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?""
"I have a GPS in my car. I was driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, I was halfway across, and all of a sudden the car went 'take a right turn.' What? No can do, HAL. Not that depressed, really." And the car went, 'Really, Robin? I saw Bicentennial Man.'
..and those are just the ones I can half-guarantee will pass Kotaku's ToS.
I think you've been watching Mork & Mindy, Aladdin, and some of his more family-friendly efforts... and maybe ignoring some of the best work of his life. Go pick up some of his live shows; you won't regret it.
You've clearly missed the context of Pewdiepie's "anti-Semitic" gag. He was seeing how low people would go to earn a buck. He made it quite clear that he was disturbed they actually did it. I see nothing wrong with such a joke if the person makes it clear they do not condone such actions. If we're going to be a nanny state then you will have little comedy because much of it revolves around offending others.
ironic normalization of nazism as a "social experiment is still normalization of nazism. Especially when most of your viewers aren't emotionally mature enough to realize that is what you are doing.
So we shouldn't poke fun at terrorists because we would be normalising terrorism?! We shouldn't poke fun at the KKK because that would be normalising white supremacists?! Where do you draw the line and who draws the line? And you have the balls to call his viewers not "emotionally mature enough"! I think you need to need to be a bit more mature about this issue and not be offended by every little ploy that hurts your sensitivities.
oh I know the context he was trying for, its hardly rocket science or deep or original but his chosen subject to prove his point was woeful. beyond woeful. its not that I think he is condoning the subjects but merely completely oblivious to sensitivity of it. This is an open nerve of history. It doesnt matter if you think it is okay, it is just not funny, not clever, not thought-provoking. Let alone original.
some things should be off comedy's radar, like this, if you are a genius like Mel Brooks with his cultural background and experience sure. Less so if you are a youtuber who thinks he is being clever.
See i dont find that offensive, go ahead and torture them they torture people with their existence anyway.... just like certain you tubers amirite?
Wow, Robin Williams? Offensive jokes? Really?
Were you born before WWII by any chance?
Maybe instead of telling everyone to lighten you could educate why this is such a huge issue across the whole entire world and has been for 70 odd years (or the 2000 odd years Jews have been dealing with crap).
Oh course all that requires far more than six cliched words. But also a lot of history books, - a conscience and some empathy
Im not saying I find it funny. But it's not like he is actually saying or supporting this message. He's just a bit of an idiot. But wasn't he always?
Last edited 15/02/17 9:34 amHe gave them money to do it. If that's not support I don't know what is.
being an idiot about the Holocaust? it doesnt make him a idiot, merely pathetic and frankly narrow-minded.
Has pewdiepie ever made jokes about neo-nazies? I stop watching his videos awhile ago, just out of boredom mindyou. Just interesting if he has made any ongoing jokes about neo-nazies
You don't have to like his "joke", but I'm so fucking sick of people whinging about things they don't like and trying to have them cancelled.
Its piss weak in every possible way.
My belief in comedy is that nothing is off the table. The exception is maybe degrading a race of people who were facing extermination due to a psychopath causing a holocaust. Make fun of them, sure! Joking about killing them, so so stupid
He made a huge mistake, really dumb
Nobody is trying to get his stuff cancelled (as reported here anyway). His sponsors are making that choice on their own, and it seems like a smart one.
Thank you. AFAIA, "the media", or at least Kotaku, didn't even report on anything until after Disney made their initial decision.
Both Disney and Google are private entities, they can decide who they wish to deal with. There's no "freedom of speech" in this situation. Besides, isn't this what the anti-PC people have wanted all along - private companies making their own decisions?
Usually comics that say that, do so to a set audience (paying audience) in a set venue (theatre, with maybe a edited DVD release with ESRB ratings)...
Streaming and youtube threw that all out the window...so now the content makers have to understand they no longer sit behind these natural filters...
It wasn't even a joke. He is no different to tell people who insult someone and then add a nervous laugh to pretend it's a joke.
Here's the thing, it's not people whinging. It's Disney. A company. A company that's famously mocked for the anti-semetic beliefs of it's founder. They're not whinging, they're distancing themselves.
Last edited 15/02/17 9:28 amYou're getting your wires crossed and lumping a ton of stuff together in a way that makes the problem that irritates you seem much worse than it actually is.
Except Walt wasn't an anti-Semite, that's urban myth. But otherwise I agree.
Yeah people really just took that 'fact' about Walt at face value. He was a dick, sure. He wasn't an anti-Semite though. Weird one...
True, but it is something they deal with constantly.
well if you know he wasn't one, why post it? why not edit and remove it from your post? it is ridiculous mentions like in this post this that help it continue to another generation of morons. The more people see rubbish the more they think it IS true. People in this era really need to think about not posting obvious falsehoods especially when they know it is a falsehood. Just to prove their point.
He's not saying that it's true though? Just that they have to deal with that falsehood as though it were true. "Perception is reality" and all that.
You're right, people are forgetting that Disney is a business. It has an image to uphold, and has every right to distance itself from talent that could tarnish that image.
they are only famously mock for that by absolute morons, who know one part of the story and not in its larger context. Truth is a little more grey and complicated. And taken completely out of its historical setting.
Last edited 15/02/17 2:58 pmRegardless of how I personally feel about his content, Disney/Maker and YouTube dropping support of him out of brand consciousness is their decision and I support their right to make it.
Ignorance is not an excuse.
"You have no right to live amongst us as Jews"
"You have no right to live amongst us"
"You have no right to live"
It's fkn morons like this guy that hide behind ignorance that's bringing back the secular zealots and fanning a new wave of Nazism.
fk this guy
Yeah exactly. I'm not even sure what is joke was really meant to be, and I have no problem with dark jokes. If it had just been that one though I sure his sponsors would have given him a slap on the wrists, but it sounds like an ongoing problem so totally understandable reaction.
I think that is the problem with the reporting around these. It wasn't a 'joke' as such, it was an example meant to point out the absurdity of the way the world is now, that you could get people to do even the most insane things for a 'fiver'
(https://www.fiverr.com/)
So he chose something that 'no-one' would do, like write and hold up an extremely offensive sign and have it published for the world to see.
It was an exercise in showing the weirdness and insanity of the interconnected world, how people will do anything for a few bucks, or for a bit of 'fame'. Like 'surely no one would do *this* for 5 bucks.
So it wasn't a dark joke, but a comment on the craziness of the world today, and particularly the online world. Reporters referring to these as ongoing 'Nazi jokes' paints a different, and skewed picture of what the segments were trying to achieve.
Now I'm not saying it was a great idea, or executed well, but it was meant to be in the vein of The Chaser or similar, where they show how nuts things are by showing an extreme, it may not have hit that mark, but it deifintely wasn't ongoing 'Nazi Jokes' and the journos are being lazy or disingenuous describing it as such.
*Disclaimer: I don't get Pewdiepie at all, my older kids watch his video game playthroughs, and I struggle to see why he is popular, but I don't like it when the media/internet outrage train jumps on someone and everyone can't wait to join in.
But there's hundreds of things he could of asked people to put on signs that were inappropriate. If holocaust references is the height of your edgy comedy, probably time to take up a new job by.
True, but than the internet hate train will be in full force cause he made a 'joke' about [insert anything here].....
Nazi/holocaust references are easy because they are probably the best example of a historical event that should be universally condemned. The good thing about using a Nazi reference is that 99% of humans on Earth knows about the holocaust unlike any other topics.
So if someone wants to show how low people can go for money, there aren't better references than the Nazis.
P.S. I am not a PDP fan. Just saying I would have done something similar if I was to show how far people will go for money or fame.
There's a giant difference between Chaser and PDP. For a start Chaser aren't whingy crybabies, they love to roast whingy crybabies like PDP.
PDP makes mega millions every year, and has a cry whenever something happens to slightly reduce his income, like when game companies get sick of him profiting off their hard work.
jokes are supposed to have punchlines.
Normalising nazism in your fanbase is not a punchline.
You realise anyone can make a reductive argument about a joke right?
Yo mama jokes are obviously callous insults about being shameful of one's family.
The chicken crosses the road and nobody gives a shit a live animal is in danger.
Can't say less of him is a bad thing imho.
Oh, yeah, because you know, PewDiePie is the only one to make antisemitic jokes at the moment. I mean, Hitler and gassing Jews are practically memes at this point (why, I'll never know). Goddamn, people need to lighten up.
Yeah, I'm with you there. I'm really sick of the memes about hitler and jews. It's not fucking funny. How many people were killed? Just because it was 70 years ago doesn't mean it's funny now. It's not. It was a terrible time in history and when I see people joking about it, I just think they're the most ignorant kind of person that there is.
I don't really see these kind of memes often, can't remember the last time I saw one. Most of the Jewish jokes I see nowdays are just like generic badly written family guy style ones about them being good with money or in the entertainment industry.
I also keep accidentally reporting myself instead of editing my comments.
Last edited 15/02/17 9:37 amI see them all the time on 9GAG.
Comedy is tragedy + time
It's one of those meta joke things that takes a particular reading to even imply the joke:
- Gassing jews = not funny.
Last edited 15/02/17 9:46 am- You would really go so far to say gassing jews is a joke and we all know that you don't joke about that = 'Oh man you surprised me with joking about that. We all get it you're so funny man, right?'
You can really make jokes about anything. I guess part of a joke's purpose is to lessen the horror of certain subject matter, or even act as a coping/survival mechanism.
I mean, Jews laughed at their own situations in concentration camps. Some of the jokes I've read are awfully dark, but you can appreciate why they were made and the effect they had.
See: https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/conference/2004/55.pdf
but they were actual jokes, not just a horrific statement of genocide.
Any creepy stalker who has sent Pewdiepie a death threat can now claim it was a joke.
But the context of this was clearly making it a joke whether you find it funny or not. It's not the same thing as that at all.
That's the strange level we're at now, especially on the internet. Trolls are actually attempting to make people upset, so when I see one obviously trying I laugh at their antics, not in support of their actions but simply because absurdity of their efforts. This is now a recognised activity, trolling has become a meme. Being able to make jokes covers a wide spectrum of trying to understand the mind of the joker and the mind of the reader.
It's not helpful or useful, trying to guess every single time how serious someone being a dickhead is, and of course it's not without consequences (death threats need to be taken seriously) it's just going to be now.
What's the difference between a joke and a horrific statement of genocide?
...
The intent.
But these jokes aren't being made by survivors of concentration camps. They're being made by teenagers and twenty somethings. It started as a "ooh, look how edgy I am making a joke about this" and now it's become normalised. I mean it's not like i was alive in WW2, but I have enough self awareness to realise that a near genocide is not a laughing matter. Not in this way.
How could it not become normalised though? Those survivors still made jokes we could share laughter in and those teenagers are still here trying to impress their peers. It's fair to chastise their attitudes but it'll still worm it's way in over time. I could joke all day about Ghengis Khan or the battle of 1066 or the French Revolution and I'd be lucky to criticised for it.
True, the the difference is noone is still alive who can remember the spanish inquisition, or the french revolution. That's not the case with ww2.
For the record I feel the same for all the nuking japan jokes too. It was the worst terrorist attack in human history. Not funny.
Correct, there needs to be tact. I simply understand that humour isn't going to keep within these bounds. John Cleese once explained the difference between seriousness and solemnity: you can make humour while understanding the seriousness of something, while if you're being solemn, you'll refrain from doing so. (I'm paraphrasing)
Something like nuking Japan is irrevocably a serious thing, but we can choose to treat it solemnly out of respect. However it is also possible to joke about it while never refuting it as a serious historical and horrible event. Put simply: I'll always treat this topic with tact and know it's importance, but I never want to feel guilty for laughing at a joke about it or claim that you can't joke about it.
The trouble is that the people taking offense are NOT holocaust survivors. They are, by and large, taking offense by proxy. Just like a lot of the people who 'take offense' at racist jokes are not of the race being mocked. I find it difficult to take any such 'outrage' seriously. It is confected virtue signaling at its worst.
I don't know what confected virtue signalling means, but are you saying that I'm taking offence by proxy?
I've seen a lot of these jokes and I legitimately don't think it's funny. I think it's immature and stupid. I didn't need the media to tell me to be outraged. I mean, I'm not outraged, I just think it's lame.
I can't really talk about it anymore because I'll sound like I have an axe to grind and I don't. I hear what you're saying, but I personally think it's not JUST those people as you describe. But pls tell me what confected virtue signalling means. Sound complicated.
I think you need to empathise to find the humour when you yourself see none.
One doesnt need to be a survivor to be offended. this event was 2000 odd years in the making, anyone with half an interest in history, geography, language, religion (various) and culture can begin to understand the impact. This event is an open wound in history that will take generations upon hundreds of years to be normalised. The world wars changed the very foundation of our English-based class society, it change the very fabric of Europe both physically STILL (yes you can still walk through bombed out villages and huge artillery holes), culture, especially in terms of borders, wealth, the list goes on.
Then there was the Holocaust another whole level of impact. To those who were part of it, to those who found them, to those in the country that created it, to all of us still chilled to the bone by what occurred.
the reason why it still resonates especially now, because those of us smartest enough (well read enough) to see the rise of Fascism is once again on the move
if you were to walk the halls of Dachau or such a place, or walk across the still scar ridden beaches of Normandy, and just travel the length of Europe to see how far and how STILL those wars change the continent, you might take some of the outrage seriously. this is not some flash-in-a-pan "OMG X celebrity said Y about another". this is an open wound that in some senses should never be truly closed so it doesnt repeat. it is most defintely not only about those who suffered.
Last edited 15/02/17 5:00 pmYour justification seriously comes down to "everyone else is doing it so it must be okay"? Even if that stretch were somehow true, PDP isn't just one of "everyone else", he's a high profile content producer being sponsored and paid to produce a subscription video series.
Jim-Bob might be able to get away with saying stupid shit down at the pub because the audience is small and he's not representing anyone, but PDP is being paid to make content for millions of viewers, and the people paying him have every right to censure what he does with their money.
The main thing people should take away from this is how fun fiverr can be. Nothing like posting a video on your mates FB wall on their birthday of a weird dude pulling a picture your mate out of his underwear and singing happy birthday to them.
Well, he did say he was going to delete his channel. Seems to be a round-about way of getting there though.
Could it be between this and other toxic high profile pros getting 1000 year bans the Internet is trying to grow up?
I dream of the day...
Argh, the dichotomy - it burns! I often wonder how people are able to just erase all traces of opposing arguments from their minds. It'd be good if people followed a criteria for what is right and wrong instead of creating reductive, straw man and arguments based on assumptions that they clearly don't believe to be assumptions. Youtubers can rarely tell a constructed joke, it's usually just a variation of pointing and laughing. If you have this level of education and you try to make a joke about jews, it'll come out offensive and stupid. It's not just today, people would have been angry 20 years ago as well; it's just the people who got away with it actually told a constructed joke with a point, not a sign that just said some stuff with the vague notion that it was an "experiment". I have no problem believing he didn't mean it to be offensive but that's why educating yourself on your craft before tackling a controversial issue with it is at least kinda important.
I agree - and so do his sponsors (Disney) and Google apparently...
Taking whats "right v wrong" out of it, he has created some content that some of his big backers aren't happy with - commercially that was a dumb move...
I bet if you could get an honest answer from him (not questioning his integrity, just that it might be a PR answer) - I'm sure he regrets this...
It's a good point. He's a smart guy, he shouldn't be surprised when the 'it was just a prank bro!' defence doesn't cut it with a lot of people.
Good. If your humour is coming at the expense of someone else than you're a shit person anyway
All depends on whether you are punching up or punching down with comedy. If it's punching up then it's always fair game.
"Humor, when it’s directed at a person, takes away some of that person’s power. If the person is weak or vulnerable, it’s the exact opposite of compassion to laugh at that person – it’s cruelty.
But change the object of ridicule and it’s a completely different story. Humiliating people or organizations who are misusing their power is a potent way to lessen, or even stop, their oppressive behavior."
Good lord! It reads! So nice to meet you ;)
Well put (or copy / pasted) :)
Im not an asshole, I just paid people five dollars (and five minutes of youtube fame) to film themselves being assholes, so I can rake in thousands per video of me reacting to them.
Sorry, PDP that makes you an asshole.
Disney almost certainly has a "drop it as hard and fast as possible" policy with this specifically. They do not want any reminders that Walt Disney was kind of anti semitic and it coming back to hurt their modern image.
Whilst I get his message, Pewds has been on abit of a power trip for a while now, hes been posting whatever he likes without fear of repercussion and thats totally fine, it's obviously not going to be to everyone's taste but whatever thats life.
However this needed to happen, he and people who want to be like him now know that he is not invincible, there is no special treatment for being at the top and that you can't do whatever you like and at the expense of others.
Indeed, there are many cases like this happening across the gaming/internet/electronic world. We may finally be in an era of growth and maturity when it comes to communication.
Anyone watch the h3h3 vid about it?
https://youtu.be/JLNSiFrS3n4
Join the discussion!
Comment Voting
Up Votes
Down Votes
Only logged in users may vote for comments!
Please log in or register to gain access to this feature.
Get Permalink