The phrase “choose your battles” must be one that the contributors over at The Wall Street Journal haven’t been recommended to practice recently. What a vital phrase it is considering the lack of real substance coming from those who govern the country these days. With so much to criticize the new administration for and its constant outpour of “fake news”, this week The Journal decided to sharpen their horns and ready their fingers to point at Pewdiepie (Felix Kjellberg), a Swedish gamer, comedian, and YouTuber. But he’s not just any basement-dwelling, Playstation playing comedian. He’s arguably YouTube’s biggest star and an asset to the company and the YouTuber community. So when an article that claimed to prove Felix’s anti-semitic nature was published by the WSJ, Pewdiepie’s career became the central topic of interest for several online news outlets. He was dropped by Maker, a network owned by Disney, and YouTube canceled the second season of his show, “Scare Pewdiepie.”
The decisions that these companies decided to take challenged Felix’s brand of dark humor. But Disney disavowing Pewdiepie delivers a taste of bitter irony. Walt Disney was a “hideous anti-semite”, as Meryl Streep once put it. His association with Pro-Nazi organizations is evident, yet we still celebrate his name and his work. Is it because we would shatter if we actually acknowledged that the beloved corporation that gave us The Little Mermaid, also boasts the name of a bigot? Perhaps.
Felix ultimately understood that those companies felt pressure to drop him.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to publish this “news” and question the “anti-semitism” present in some of Pewdiepie’s clearly humorous videos, but it seems to be one of the softest when criticizing the current administration, an administration that left out the recognition of Jews in a statement made about the Holocaust on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of the WSJ, suggested to his employees that if they wanted to “work at an organization with a more oppositional stance toward the administration” they “could find a job elsewhere.”
Donald J. Trump is the (so-called) president of the United States of America, and Felix Kjellberg is a YouTuber. To hold both of them to the same standard might be understandable, but to hold the YouTuber at a higher standard than the POTUS (so-called, that is) is irresponsible. When quantity supersedes quality for news outlets like the WSJ, morality is shredded as hastily as a bad rough draft.
Coincidentally, Felix’s recent videos have focused on his own repulsion of “clickbait” titles and headlines. He responded to the turmoil by creating a video vilifying the Wall Street Journal and recognizing that his humor may not have been the most appropriate at the time. Immediately, writers began drawing comparisons between Trump’s spiteful war on the media and Pewdiepie’s statements concerning the WSJ.
Uncle Ben once said “With great power comes great responsibility.” The WSJ isn’t an arachnid themed superhero facing off with a green tycoon villain (although an orange one certainly comes to mind and the WSJ is doing a bigly job assisting his agenda), but both Felix and the WSJ might benefit from the words of the great Ben Parker.
Defamation is real. Context is real. Setting fire to someone’s character without context is disgusting.
Felix issued this statement on his Tumblr,
“just to clear some things up…
It came to my attention yesterday that some have been pointing to my videos and saying that I am giving credibility to the anti-Semitic movement, and my fans are part of it as well for watching. I don’t want to cite the sources because I don’t want to give them any more attention.
This originated from a video I made a couple of weeks ago. I was trying to show how crazy the modern world is, specifically some of the services available online. I picked something that seemed absurd to me—That people on Fiverr would say anything for 5 dollars.
I think it’s important to say something and I want to make one thing clear: I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes.
I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive.
As laughable as it is to believe that I might actually endorse these people, to anyone unsure on my standpoint regarding hate-based groups: No, I don’t support these people in any way.
Thanks for reading.”
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