this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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In the past, he was a gaming streamer. During many of his streams, his actions and words strongly suggested that he was racist and/or a Nazi. At least once, he was called out for using the n-word (with the hard r). He has never expressed any remorse.
Because of that, many people consider him to be the gateway of the alt-right pipeline. Essentially, children are attracted to his channel for the gaming content, and over time, they are influenced by his behavior to be increasingly accepting of racist and/or alt-right content (after which the YouTube algorithm will then feed them increasingly extremist content)
Since at least several years ago, he retired from his channel, started a family, and moved to Japan (not necessarily in that order). It's entirely unclear if he's changed his mind about any of his previous behaviors, and in the absence of any indicators of change, many people take the stance that he probably still is a racist/Nazi
This is a ridiculous stance. A lot of people say stupid stuff on the internet and then mature and move on. A lot of us have the privilege of people (the entire world) not remembering what we said. I don’t think it’s right that he impressed on his viewers that those words are acceptable, but that doesn’t make him a nazi or racist in public or private. That dilutes the word further when there isn’t enough evidence to even suggest it’s true, ignores the fact that most of us are prejudiced more than we’d admit, and causes people to just ignore us when we aren’t making a reactionary standpoint on a real issue. I have never been a PewDiePie viewer nor do I think his content is interesting nor his move to Linux, but I hate to see Lemmy pinning him on a wall as if he’s responsible for an entire generation becoming radicalized with alt-right. I would blame Big Tech and algorithms.
Has he apologized or acknowledged that what he did was wrong? If not, then I would assume that he still holds these views.
You're missing the point. It's likely that he never held those views to begin with. He was just a kid doing and saying what he could to get reactions from people. Clearly it worked, 'cause we're still talking about it.
A tangent, if I may: it's important that entertainers be allowed to joke about things society deems offensive. It allows us to process such ostensibly offensive content in safe environments, to shine a light on the absurdity of such negative ideas. We laugh at nazi jokes not because we agree with naziism, but because they're so wildly divorced from reality and our own views as to be absurd to even consider.
Thank you! :3
Correction, he's apologized for and expressed remorse multiple times but stopped apologizing after a subset of people completely outside of any potential audience of anyone related to the internet wouldn't let it go.
Many people that discovered the internet later in life and believe that people are once and always evil no matter what still think he's racist/a Nazi. We call those people the web 3.0 people and they're why reddit was ruined, why Tumblr got the rep it did, and why we don't listen liberals on matters of inclusion anymore.
TIL you can do whatever horrible shit you want to people unless they are part of your "target audience"
...what do you think he did? Can you name the victims or the crimes?
Yeah, I was an edgy teenager back in the day too. It wasn’t alright then and it’s not alright now.
This comment is spot on, yet the downvote hive goes on...
It would be entirely another thing if he still did ironic racist jokes after that; but he apologised multiple times and haven't done anything remotely similar to their past actions; which for me speaks the loudest about it. He moved on, y'all should too.
Any turd can make an apology. Let me know when he does something to fix the damage he caused.
Damage? No matter how you feel about the man personally damage is absolutely not the word I'd use. And in the first place what do you want him to do?
What articulable damage did he cause by doing what every single person in voice chat circa 2005 did?
Helping to make it acceptable, laying the footwork for shit like Gamergate, and helping funnel young men to the alt right.
At least he has an army to defend him. That's what all rich people that never suffer consequences could ever hope for.
All of those events were after gamergate.. and it was already acceptable which was the problem.
And I'm not defending him, I'm correcting the timeline for you ridiculous people. You newcomers to the internet genuinely have no idea what the pre-iphone internet was like, especially gaming communities. PewDiePie was always on the safer child friendly side.
If we forget what progress has been made and demonize everyone that has corrected their mistakes were just stuck with you people. And you people just suck. You're not actually inclusive, you're not actually offensive, you just confirm to whatever you think will not get you in trouble. Aka the original meaning of politically correct; being nice on the surface without meaning any of it.
I've been using the internet since 56k modems was the only option, chud
You are definitely defending him, and those that act like him. You're saying it's okay to be a shit person as long as you apologize while changing nothing. Go take a hard look in the mirror.
Except he did change his content, has made more contributions to charity than you have, and has done more than what's asked.
And I can guarantee your first website interaction was Facebook based on your beliefs. Nothing he did was outrageous, the actions were misplaced in time by ten years. Should he have been more mature? Sure. But no one that grew up on the internet would find his humor shocking or really any more offensive than south Park.
In your eyes as long as someone makes a mistake their evil for life, well let's execute everyone over 20 then. We all know what forums were like. We all know what voice chats were like.
Fun fact, people can change their beliefs over time. Something you should understand if you truly believe PewdiePie has meaningfully changed.
How has he corrected his mistakes?