"A personal attack like this, to portray me as anti-Semitic, is doing no one a favor." -- Felix Kjellberg.
The Wall Street Journal has targeted and misrepresented YouTube star PewDiePie, claiming he is an anti-Semite and racist on Wednesday, February 15. Felix Kjellberg, his YouTube alias being PewDiePie, is a Swedish 27-year-old online comedian. His YouTube channel has
over 53 million subscribers, ranking him has one of the top content creators on the site.Linked above is the video the Wall Street Journal uploaded to accompany their article (you can't read the piece unless you have a subscription to their service). The video meticulously presents clips from Kjellberg's many uploads on YouTube, targeting specific moments where anti-semitism appears to be applied. From Adolf Hitler and Nazi references, to paying for "Death to all Jews" to be advertised on a freelancer website, the jump to conclusions commenced. After watching the video, it can be difficult to deny the assumptions against Kjellberg, when taken out of context. But what about the truth?
It's simple: The Wall Street Journal stylishly misrepresented the YouTuber by using outrage as their platform and clickbait as their... Well, bait.
Kjellberg is not racist, nor is he an anti-Semite.
In a recent video titled "My Response," Kjellberg explains his thoughts on the Wall Street Journal's article and the blast of attention he has received from other media after the publication. "If there's anything I've learned about the media from being a public figure, it's how they blatantly misrepresent people for their own personal gain -- even viciously attack people -- just to further themselves."
"I'm sorry for the words that I used, and I know they offended people. And I admit that the joke itself went too far... I would consider myself a rookie comedian, and I definitely made mistakes like this before, but it has always been a growing and learning experience for me..."
I want to bring the attention back to how the media represented Kjellberg. It is dangerous to take things out of context, such as his videos and humor, and label it. The Wall Street Journal found the perfect formula of stitching together Kjellberg's video clips and portrayed a whole new perspective to them. And anyone can do this, to any video, for any goal to claim any evidence for anything. It is not hard to do.
But when a big media company takes a big online name from a big site and slaps a big ol' mean label, it will spread like wildfire. Dishonest, manipulated, or unreliable factors will be buried in the knee-jerk emotional responses from the audience. Fact-checking and logical analysis is abandoned when a short video with flashy words and shocking out-of-context imagery is in their faces.
Were some of the jokes too far? Yes. And Kjellberg recognizes and apologizes for that.
Has he been misrepresented, even attacked, by the media? Yes. Is comedy sometimes misrepresented, even attacked, too? Yes.
Felix Kjellberg is not an anti-Semite.
The media is not always right. Or good.
