14 DAY TRIAL // PewDiePie has just lost his Disney contract after posting several anti-Semitic clips over the past couple of months.
YouTube’s greatest self-made star, PewDiePie, has some 53.1 million subscribers, which makes him the leader of the charts by far. Each of his videos is viewed by millions, which, in turn, has made him millions over the years.
PewDiePie is now part of the original content network put together by YouTube, namely YouTube Red, and has even managed to get affiliated with Disney’s Maker Studios brand. However, Felix Kjellberg, as this is his real name, has managed to lose the latter contract after the Wall Street Journal wrote about him posting nine videos with anti-Semitic messages or featuring Nazi-related images.
Three videos were published last month and have since been removed from the channel, including one skit where PewDiePie paid a group of men to hold up a sign reading “Death to All Jews.” Another video featured a clip of a man dressed in Jesus garb saying that Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong.
PewDiePie explains himself
Kjellberg has defended his actions, saying that he did nothing wrong mostly because he wanted to prove a point - that people will do anything for money. He used a freelance job site to find people to play in all these videos featuring offensive content, and this was his way of showing some of the things people would do for a little cash.
“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,” Kjellberg wrote on his Tumblr blog.
He goes on to add that he does not support any kind of hateful attitude. He does admit, however, that the jokes he made were ultimately offensive even though his platform isn’t one for any serious political commentary.
Maker Studio, which Disney bought about three years ago, said that they would end their association with the YouTube star regardless of his apologies. “Although Felix has created a following by being provocative and irreverent, he clearly went too far in this case, and the resulting videos are inappropriate,” a spokesperson said on the matter.
For its part, YouTube has not removed any of PewDiePie’s videos on its own volition and only blocked ads in one of them.
Ultimately, however, while the collaboration between PewDiePie and Maker Studios may have been nice, PewDiePie has been making videos for many years and has done just fine without their help, and he’s clearly making enough money as is.