14 DAY TRIAL // Today is not a good day for 27-year-old Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie on YouTube, the man with the highest number of subscribers. After being cut off by Disney’s Maker Studio, YouTube has also announced it would be canceling the second season of PewDiePie’s reality show off YouTube Red.
Not only has YouTube decided to cancel the second season of Scare PewDiePie, but it also pulled his channel from the premium advertising program. This is all happening after it was revealed that the Swedish vlogger pulled a prank involving anti-Semitic slogans.
“We’ve decided to cancel the release of ‘Scare PewDiePie’ season 2, and we’re removing the PewDiePie channel from Google Preferred,” YouTube told Variety. Google Preferred is the company’s advertising program for selling content on YouTube. This shouldn’t be a surprise since ads had previously been pulled from at least one of the videos that are causing the Swede trouble.
As mentioned, this announcement comes just a few hours after Disney’s Maker Studios announced it was terminating its relationship with Kjellberg over the very same issue.
The videos in question are no longer available on the vlogger’s channel, and according to a post on his personal Tumblr blog, he simply wanted to show the world just what some people are willing to do for $5, after hiring people off a freelance platform. In one video, two shirtless men were holding up a sign reading “Death to All Jews.”
A history of controversial behavior
While it’s true that PewDiePie’s videos are generally full of curses and mature language, and his behavior can appear to be provocative and irreverent, this is taking things a bit too far.
Scare PewDiePie was renewed last June, although a premiere date had yet to be announced. The show was available on YouTube Red, the subscription service the company launched a while back.
It remains to be seen just how PewDiePie will take the news and how this whole thing will impact his bank account. Over the past several years, he’s already made millions with his videos, particularly thanks to his extensive subscriber base - over 53.1 million.