Pewdiepie as an Influence for White Supremacy

[langster]

You really need to shut the feck up, same goes for your pals that keep pushing tedious arguments in predictable CE thread.

Wow! I'm shocked mate. You are one of the Caf's most respected, polite, articulate and tolerant posters and have been reduced to personal attacks and aggressive posting because clearly you have just had enough of the bullshit. Well said, maybe you should be more abrasive more often

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

White Isis

 

[Ødegaard]

What do you mean?

Edit: For the record, I think having a discussion around how his content negatively impacts the culture online and works for the far right is a valid discussion and view to have. I just think it's going a bit far to be certain in any way that he is a consciously active part of their movement or "group-thinking".

I mean that people seem to think too much about who subs to who on twitter or youtube. It can be done over one interesting video and then forgotten. I also mean that people who are influenced by the mainstream media will have a construed dislike for most things on youtube as a platform due to the many hit-pieces that have been done in the past. Mainstream media lose out on ad-revenue to "influencers" and a platform they have to share with random asshats who will call them out when they make a mistake. Naturally media will blow up anything negative in order to deal with their competition (whether they are quality or not, they are used as sources to navigate the different stances news channels take).

People also seem to think youtubers don't do anything (overstatement, naturally) good, because it's not really reported on.

Youtube, the internet and especially the meme-culture has it's own language of what is serious & what is a joke. While I'm not one who understands it well myself, it's quite simply not logical to take a entertainer who use childish humor like Pewdiepie/Felix & put him or others like him on the same pedestal as 4-chan or 8-chan simply because they have parts of their humor or style of humor overlapping.

Felix for example, from the little I've known, has had both fair criticism (n-word on stream, which he did not try to defend and told the fans who defended him to stop as he was in the wrong & more stupid shit he has done) & unfair criticism/hit pieces (vox & wallstreet journal has been part of it from my memory).

The sub2pewdiepie meme or whatever we can call it wasn't started by him, but his community when they noticed that T-Series would take over as the biggest channel, and he ran with it because they found it fun. The maniac in New Zealand using it to "poke fun" is just another troll from a horrible human being with insane views. Felix cannot be held responsible for that, it would be like blaming God for crusaders or terrorists claiming to do shit in God's name, or telling actual muslims or christians that because things were done "in gods name" that was horrible and that they believe in god that they share the blame and responsibility.
Felix has gone out and told his fans time and time again in videos that he does not want them to hack things or do extreme things like carve in sub2pewdiepie into a building. He knows he will get flack for it, but beyond that he cannot micromanage his fanbase.

The manifesto from the guy in New Zealand was also, from what I've read through others comments (as in, I've not read the text myself) is reported as heavily diluted with meme/jokes/sarcasm and needs someone who has a lot of experience with the different stories to discern what should be overlooked as rambling for the sake of rambling and what should be seen as the guys actual views and reasonings.

As mentioned before, I don't really get these things myself, but from my perspective there seems to be those who are in it, those who understand it's there and don't get it and those who don't get it and take it all seriously. Sorry if this ended up being explained badly, my mind is not exactly doing well these days in getting things properly put forward. I hope it answers your question in a way that you at least can understand where my point is.

 

[Eyepopper]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Oh that's absolutely the reason.

I mean, if he hadn't name checked him I doubt anyone would've even noticed someone walking into a mosque with an arsenal and massacring a load of innocent people.

 

[Henrik Larsson]

Thanks for ruining the fact that I didn't know who the feck this guy is

 

[syrian_scholes]

Edit: For the record, I think having a discussion around how his content negatively impacts the culture online and works for the far right is a valid discussion and view to have. I just think it's going a bit far to be certain in any way that he is a consciously active part of their movement or "group-thinking".

I mean that people seem to think too much about who subs to who on twitter or youtube. It can be done over one interesting video and then forgotten. I also mean that people who are influenced by the mainstream media will have a construed dislike for most things on youtube as a platform due to the many hit-pieces that have been done in the past. Mainstream media lose out on ad-revenue to "influencers" and a platform they have to share with random asshats who will call them out when they make a mistake. Naturally media will blow up anything negative in order to deal with their competition (whether they are quality or not, they are used as sources to navigate the different stances news channels take).

People also seem to think youtubers don't do anything (overstatement, naturally) good, because it's not really reported on.

Youtube, the internet and especially the meme-culture has it's own language of what is serious & what is a joke. While I'm not one who understands it well myself, it's quite simply not logical to take a entertainer who use childish humor like Pewdiepie/Felix & put him or others like him on the same pedestal as 4-chan or 8-chan simply because they have parts of their humor or style of humor overlapping.

Felix for example, from the little I've known, has had both fair criticism (n-word on stream, which he did not try to defend and told the fans who defended him to stop as he was in the wrong & more stupid shit he has done) & unfair criticism/hit pieces (vox & wallstreet journal has been part of it from my memory).

The sub2pewdiepie meme or whatever we can call it wasn't started by him, but his community when they noticed that T-Series would take over as the biggest channel, and he ran with it because they found it fun. The maniac in New Zealand using it to "poke fun" is just another troll from a horrible human being with insane views. Felix cannot be held responsible for that, it would be like blaming God for crusaders or terrorists claiming to do shit in God's name, or telling actual muslims or christians that because things were done "in gods name" that was horrible and that they believe in god that they share the blame and responsibility.
Felix has gone out and told his fans time and time again in videos that he does not want them to hack things or do extreme things like carve in sub2pewdiepie into a building. He knows he will get flack for it, but beyond that he cannot micromanage his fanbase.

The manifesto from the guy in New Zealand was also, from what I've read through others comments (as in, I've not read the text myself) is reported as heavily diluted with meme/jokes/sarcasm and needs someone who has a lot of experience with the different stories to discern what should be overlooked as rambling for the sake of rambling and what should be seen as the guys actual views and reasonings.

As mentioned before, I don't really get these things myself, but from my perspective there seems to be those who are in it, those who understand it's there and don't get it and those who don't get it and take it all seriously. Sorry if this ended up being explained badly, my mind is not exactly doing well these days in getting things properly put forward. I hope it answers your question in a way that you at least can understand where my point is.

See the thing is every person interpret those things differently, it's very subjective, the question wasn't is Felix a Nazi, because honestly I don't think so, the question is because he is reaching millions and millions of people, some of those people are taking his content very seriously and thus using it to normalize their agenda, thus making him complicit because he does these things carelessly.

And now that his fans defended him in masses even his "apology" videos are attacks on media and not taking seriously, saying things like "I made an oopsie".

 

[Eboue]

I used to think of squishy as the guy who wanted to go to war with Spain over Gibraltar but now hes just the pewdiepie fanboy who reads stormfront.

 

[Ødegaard]

See the thing is every person interpret those things differently, it's very subjective, the question wasn't is Felix a Nazi, because honestly I don't think so, the question is because he is reaching millions and millions of people, some of those people are taking his content very seriously and thus using it to normalize their agenda, thus making him complicit because he does these things carelessly.

And now that his fans defended him in masses even his "apology" videos are attacks on media and not taking seriously, saying things like "I made an oopsie".

See, your comments are fair, but the problem is that a lot of comments (not necessarily on here) goes towards questioning if he belongs with them. As mentioned in my post I think questioning his effect is perfectly within reason. Hell, I even agree that he should take some responsibility. I just find it hard to see how he is supposed to do that in a more effective way than he already is without alienating his income - because let's face it, very few people would ruin a fantastic financial career.

But to answer your post a bit more, I think those who take his content super-serious are already down the rabbit-hole to some extent and need to get a kick in the ass by a parental figure or at least someone they respect and help to better understand the world and how they negatively affect peoples lives by being shit-kids on the internet or in real life. Him stopping his youtube career wouldn't make them not find other channels to explore their ideas with likeminded people.

 

[Attila]

https://www.vox.com/2018/12/13/1813...-links-to-white-supremacist-alt-right-redpill

 

[RedTiger]

From what I gather, it's the neo-Nazis at Daily Stormer that refer to him as /ourguy/...

I am so insulated.

 

[Attila]

Tweet

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[hobbers]

some of those people are taking his content very seriously and thus using it to normalize their agenda, thus making him complicit because he does these things carelessly.

But what in his thousands upon thousands of hours of (brain-numbing shite) content is there that normalises any aberrant agendas like eco-fascist white supremacy?

He's not 4chan in youtube-filter-friendly form. He's literally nothing more than a moron who likes making stupid noises while playing popular games.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Most of the tweets you posted are completely innocuous and clearly sarcasm aimed at people who have labelled him a Nazi or a representative of the far right. He's poking fun at himself, as he is perfectly entitled to do, and it doesn't mean he has ties to white supremacy. He's just an immature youtuber who tried his hand at dark comedy on the wrong kind of platform, that's what the 'death to the jews' sign was, a really stupid joke that backfired, it's not proof he's a white supremacist.

Also, he gave props to somebody because they did an interesting video on some anime, he also shouted out like 60 odd other small channels because he enjoyed some of their content. He clearly didn't actually know that one of the content creators had some dodgy material, and as soon as he found out he deleted it and explained the situation.

99% of his content is the safest shit out there. There are far riskier content creators all over youtube who don't get anywhere near the attention because they don't have his subscriber base. He's not some spokesperson for the far right and has never expressed political views at all as far as I'm aware, making a couple of edgy jokes again doesn't mean you have ties to white supremacy. It makes you immature, which he was and he's admitted that.

Holding him as somehow responsible for the actions of the christchurch shooter (which I'm guessing is what prompted this thread?) is ludicrous, he mentioned him because pewdiepie is the biggest youtuber and his entire motive was to cause controversy, he also blurted out a bunch of shit about spyro and fortnite.

But yeah, let's hold him up as the devil because it's great to have a big scapegoat.

You seem to be a big fan.

 

[Wumminator]

Of course it’s his fault.

He paid someone signs that said “gas all Jews” and has used the Nazi salute multiple time on his shows.

Here is a paragraph that sums up his “humour” from The Guardian.

“
His ironic tone means he rarely says anything explicitly offensive. But the themes and memes that recur in his videos are consistent: images of famous African-Americans (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Barack Obama) captioned with the wrong names; a meme to which the punchline is “respecting women”; African voices sampled and replayed in incongruous situations; recitations of English language posts on Indian Facebook.”



Of course some may call it “internet culture” I’d just say it’s a massive knobhead enabling alt right views in a new generation.

There’s a reason the alt right love him so much.

 

[langster]

I'd celebrate if this man was gunned down tomorrow. He is responsible for these deaths and should probably be arrested, he's a disgusting human being and the fact he's out here radicalising young children (he calls his fans 9 year olds, so I presume that's their average age) makes me sick to the stomach.

The guy is a cnut for sure, but he's not responsible for these deaths at all and he's certainly not radicalising children.

Seriously have a word with yourself and calm down.

 

[Charles Miller]

The problem with those neo nazis, racists and eugenists these days is that vast majority have no courage to show their true collors. You see what they want to say, they almost do it but they can't. Instead of defending that excuse of a human being it would be more honest just saying: "i know he is exposing millions of kids to dangerous eugenists like Stefan Molineux but i agree with this because i'm a fellow racist too". So in this case decent people can avoid you.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

who is boogie

who are any of these people

Every 4 months I read from the caf that this Pewdee chap is the biggest YouTuber, a completely moron but somewhat entertaining/interesting, or some shit like that. Feck knows why people find idiocy interesting.

 

[Raees]

Still no closer to figuring what and who a pewdopie is. Showing my age.

 

[Sky1981]

I'm not a pewdiepie fans. But when you attributed a 49 death toll shooting to a youtube game streamer something is very wrong.

People should look at the broader picture on what's causing this terrorist groups. Proxy wars, arms funneling, americans bombing ants nest all over the world, economical, culture, geopolitics etc. He doesnt becomes a lone gunman because of pewdiepie, he's the byproduct of something very fundamentally wrong in our society.

It's like you're having a cancer and you're blaming the lobster you eat yesterday.

 

[Ducklegs]

Its like witch hunting, you make the evidence for conviction broad enough and vague enough, anybody you want can be a witch.

Theres always got to be someone or something to blame for societys failings, if its not this guy its:

Computer games.
Rap music.
Films.
TV.
Disco.
Elvis.
The Beatles.
Books.
Religion.
Football.
Punk.
Etc etc etc.

Anything and everything that is popular absolutely has to be the root of all evil and cause of current day problems.

 

[Adisa]

Anyone with half a brain knows what pewdiepie is about

@SquishyMcSquish please stay on storm front

Never heard of him until yesterday.

 

[milemuncher777]

Still no closer to figuring what and who a pewdopie is. Showing my age.

Not surprising when one is only an expert in talking nonsense about Islam/Muslims all his life.

Though one positive about your lack of knowledge on the subject is that we’ve all been saved from trawling through your long shitposts which says absolutely nothing.

 

[Yagami]

who is boogie

who are any of these people

You need to YouTubes more, nub. I bet you've never even watched an AlphaOmegaSin gaming rant video, have you?!

 

[JPRouve]

Wow! I'm shocked mate. You are one of the Caf's most respected, polite, articulate and tolerant posters and have been reduced to personal attacks and aggressive posting because clearly you have just had enough of the bullshit. Well said, maybe you should be more abrasive more often

This.

But it's one of the cases where there is no point debating, pewdiepie's influence is a fact. For that particular question it doesn't even matter whether he is himself a white supremacist, he created contents that appeals to them and unite some of them.

 

[2mufc0]

Wow! I'm shocked mate. You are one of the Caf's most respected, polite, articulate and tolerant posters and have been reduced to personal attacks and aggressive posting because clearly you have just had enough of the bullshit. Well said, maybe you should be more abrasive more often

100%

This squishy guy should just come out and say what he really believes.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

This.

But it's one of the cases where there is no point debating, pewdiepie's influence is a fact. For that particular question it doesn't even matter whether he is himself a white supremacist, he created contents that appeals to them and unite some of them.

After reading this thread I agree with this take.

Its hard to discern what he actually believes but he certainly seems to throw the Alt Right a bone now and then because a faction of his followers are of that persuasion.

Someone mentioned that 1% of the world's population follow him so its safe to assume that he is attuned to the character of his audience quite sharply.

In turn he could act as a conduit to far right ideology, meaning the premise of the thread that's he's an influence for white supremacy is reasonable enough.

 

[ravi2]

You didn't name the "controversies" so I will - most content creators manage to steer clear of saying "kill all Jews", the n-word, and the 14 words. Nice coincidence - the shooter referenced the 14 words. Another nice one - P has a mutual partnership with Ben Shapiro, an inspiration for a previous mosque shooter. Another - P follows Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux, who spread the white genocide talking point that is the central, unironic political motivation of the shooter.

Wait... He follows Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux? Wtf - Those are real racists.

That changes things for me... feck that guy

 

[KirkDuyt]

How's this guy still relevant? Annoying twat.

He's like a religion. He even inspires terror attacks like religions do. Our modern day Jesus/Mohammed to rile up the illiterate masses.

 

[Phil Jones Face]

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I don't watch Pewdiepie, and I think a lot of people here probably don't either, but I don't think he is an influencer of white supremacists. I think we're perhaps guilty of being "out of touch" with a generation obsessed with trolling, memes, shitposting and being edgy. We have to be careful not to take everything at face value.

For example, in addition the terrorists Pewdiepie shoutout (which he knew would draw more attention and exposure and muddy the waters), he claimed in his manifesto that the video games Fortnite and Spyro the Dragon influenced him.

 

[Raees]

Not surprising when one is only an expert in talking nonsense about Islam/Muslims all his life.

Though one positive about your lack of knowledge on the subject is that we’ve all been saved from trawling through your long shitposts which says absolutely nothing.

So you’re a racist and an imbecile. Good combo.. wish I knew who you were too but literally cannot recall a single memorable post.

 

[MJJ]

So you’re a racist and an imbecile. Good combo.. wish I knew who you were too but cannot recall a single memorable post.

 

[VorZakone]

Any specific examples of PewDiePie's supposedly alt right-appealing content? I just thought he was a gamer nutter.

 

[MJJ]

Any specific examples of PewDiePie's supposedly alt right-appealing content? I just thought he was a gamer nutter.

Read the thread maybe

 

[Dave89]

So you’re a racist and an imbecile. Good combo.. wish I knew who you were too but literally cannot recall a single memorable post.

Oof.

Anyway, back on topic, calls people "ni**ers", pays others to call for a holocaust, but it's all "just a joke bruh". Moronic defence of a moronic twat. I'm just waiting for "Pew The Pie, nobody who speaks German could be evil" defence.

 

[Vidyoyo]

Doubt. He 'gets' internet culture insofar as knowing that being an edgy attention-seeker gets you more clicks, which results in him getting more money. I don't believe he believes in extreme right-wing views except what leads to greater revenue through his content.

End of the day, the guy is a walking business. He is literally the epitome of what a ten-man digital marketing agency do on a daily basis. And he's not a corporate business either so it's not in his remit to appear nice as it doesn't affect his brand, which I genuinely think confuses people.

Regardless, it's a pretty weird world when a guy like PewDiePie is so rich and famous. The barriers for fame and glory have really lowered as speed of communications has increased in the Internet age. Consider that he's famous for playing games, being handsome and making stupid noises, not advancing colonisation of Mars.

 

[Bojan11]

I still don’t get how people can defend him over the n word incident. He had a thousand other words he could have used, but he chose that particular word to curse at someone.

 

[Keefy18]

What a sad, pathetic state the world is in taking political advice from some uneducated bell end on YT!

 

[NinjaFletch]

Doubt. He 'gets' internet culture insofar as knowing that being an edgy attention-seeker gets you more clicks, which results in him getting more money. I don't believe he believes in extreme right-wing views except what leads to greater revenue through his content.

The guy is a walking business, he is literally the epitome of what a ten-man digital marketing agency do on a daily basis. And he's not a corporate business either so it's not in his remit to appear nice as it doesn't affect his brand, which I genuinely think confuses people

Regardless, it's a pretty weird world when a guy like PewDiePie is so rich and famous. The barriers for fame and glory have lowered as speed of communications has increased in the Internet age. Consider that he's famous for playing games, being handsome and making stupid noises.

I might have gone off-topic here but I think people should start by assessing his motivation.

Alright, so my assessment of his motivations is that he's either a racist white supremacist who hides behind the thin veneer of 'it's jut a joke bro; it's just internet culture hahaha' whilst screaming stuff like 'Hitler did nothing wrong', or he's a person who is not one of those things, but is perfectly happy to engage with, court and joke around with those that are for clicks and in so doing has helped (amongst other people) to catapult their abhorrent views on to a global stage.

Frankly, I can't see that the second one is a particularly great defence.

 

[SilentWitness]

It says a lot about the industry that none of them have took a step back and reverted support for him throughout all his controversies, let alone now see how despite him playing off all his incidents as being 'woke' or 'meme-y', they're bloody damaging when you're the biggest profile on a platform and have the ability to influence people who are easily brainwashed and looking for an identity to follow whatever it is. Ironically the biggest person on YT that hasn't really supported him is KSI who has been plagued by his own controversies while acting like a bellend.

It's astonishing that the people who follow and support him can't see that even if he does have Shapiro in one of his videos as an attempt to take the piss out of him, he's giving him this massive platform that will enable people to go and view his content and potentially grow their own uneasy ideologies.

Pewdiepie isn't the cause of these things, but he's an enabler to some of the ideoligies that these horrible people follow and there's a line between so called 'comedy' and that.

 

[JPRouve]

Alright, so my assessment of his motivations is that he's either a racist white supremacist who hides behind the thin veneer of 'it's jut a joke bro; it's just internet culture hahaha' whilst screaming stuff like 'Hitler did nothing wrong', or he's a person who is not one of those things, but is perfectly happy to engage with, court and joke around with those that are for clicks and in so doing has helped (amongst other people) to catapult their abhorrent views on to a global stage.

Frankly, I can't see that the second one is a particularly great defence.

Exactly, there are two options. He either shares alt right views or he uses these views to make money. Both options means that to some degrees he influences the alt-right