YouTube star PewDiePie has released an impassioned, 10-minute diatribe in which he blames the mainstream media for cherry-picking parts of his videos to make him look like an antisemite.
On Tuesday, the Walt Disney Company and Google severed ties with the 27-year-old YouTuber, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, after the Wall Street Journal highlighted the fact that he’d posted several videos featuring antisemitic or neo-Nazi “jokes”, including one where he paid two men to hold a “Death to All Jews” sign. Another video features a man dressed as Jesus saying: “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Kjellberg, who rose to internet fame making videos about video games, is angry that the Wall Street Journal referred to his antisemitic “jokes” as “posts”.
“They take that and use it out of context to portray me as a Nazi,” he said.
“I am sorry for the words I used as I know that offended people, and I admit that the joke itself went too far. I like to push boundaries, but I would consider myself a rookie comedian,” he said.
Kjellberg blames the Journal, rather than his comments, for the breakdown of his two biggest brand relationships, saying they took the out-of-context antisemitic “jokes” to Disney and YouTube “obviously cornering them and forcing them to sever their ties with me”.
Kjellberg claims that the Wall Street Journal purposefully skewed his words because it and other mainstream media outlets feel threatened by him.
“Old-school media does not like internet personalities because they are scared of us. We have so much influence and such a large voice, and I don’t think they understand that,” he said.
The story, he said, “was an attack towards me by the media to try and discredit me, decrease my influence”.
The videos in question have made PewDiePie popular with neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, which has run a series of articles about the YouTuber, describing him as “our guy”.
“He could be doing all this only to cause a stir things up and get free publicity,” wrote the Daily Stormer.
“Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, since the effect is the same; it normalizes Nazism, and marginalizes our enemies.”
Responding to the support from neo-Nazis, Kjellberg said: “I do not support the hateful groups in any way.”
Kjellberg, who has more than 53 million subscribers on YouTube, explained that his relationship with mainstream media has soured over the years as he has become more successful.
“They blatantly represent people for their personal gain, they even viciously attack people just to further themselves,” he said.
He doesn’t like the fact that reports focus on how much he earns (estimated to be more than $12m in 2016).
“The money is all I’ve ever been acknowledged for. I literally raise millions of dollars for charities. That’s rarely ever spoken about,” he said.
He said that he has started to fight back against the mainstream media but “the more I punch back, the more I get back”.
He concluded his video on Thursday with a message to the Wall Street Journal: “I’m still here, I’m still making videos. Nice try, Wall Street Journal. Try again, motherfuckers!”
