Anti-Semitic shout out: PewDiePie responds by attacking The Verge

NOTE: For all latest, breaking news related to PewDiePie, other YouTubers, and Youtube in general, head here.

Update (December 12):

While the anti-Semitic shout out controversy fire isn’t doused yet, something else from PewDiePie’s video is now making headlines: the comment Felix made on SonicFox’s acceptance speech at the 2018 Game Awards for winning the Best Esports Player. Details here.

Original story follows:

After PewDiePie’s shout out to channel E;R – which it turned out has videos with hateful and anti-Semitic content – created a huge controversy, the Swedish Youtuber has responded to the whole episode in their latest edition titled “PewDiePie’s biggest Oopsie.”

He starts off by acknowledging that the channel apparently has “hidden and not so hidden” Nazi references in videos, and then goes on to say “obviously, if I would have noticed that, I would not have given the shout out”.

As for the reason here’s what Felix said:

not because I have a problem with Nazi references being offensive in themselves, but because I said publicly a year and a half ago that I was gonna distance myself from Nazi jokes and that kind of stuff

Further, he again acknowledges the channel as Nazi references saying ” I see them now,” while adding unless you pay close attention or have deeper knowledge, you’ll not be able to understand these references.

It’s worth mentioning that the video he pointed out – death note, saying he “really really enjoyed” it – while giving the shout out also contains such controversial stuff.

PewDiePie has been involved in similar controversies in the past, especially last year, due to which the channel was excluded from YouTube Rewind 2017. He was even missing from Rewind 2018 as well.

Coming back to the response video, presumably referring to him being called Nazi several times in the past, he said:

The irony here is that I am supposed to be the god damn Nazi, but I don’t know about any of these references

Then he focused his attention on to The Verge, the first major tech publication which highlighted this anti-Semitic channel shout out. While reading their news, he first pointed out that post his shout out, the channel gained 12,000 views, not 150,000.

It’s not 150,000 subscribers, but 12,000 subscribers. The Verge, a big news publication, made this silly mistake

Probably, he was reading the very initial version of the story as The Verge made a correction to this number soon after their story was published. Anyway, continuing with his attack on The Verge, he said:

The Verge, a tech company, can’t even show you how to build a computer properly (while pointing to a video from the publication) it’s laughable

Then towards the end of his response PewDiePie said I do have a responsibility, especially with my past, but said the current outrage is just for the sake of it and is aimed as “getting clicks with negative attention associated with my name,” while calling this whole episode a “shame campaign to smear his name.”

Finally, he said reference to E;R has been removed from the video, adding they will keep giving shout out to new channels in future but with more care. “May be I can ask The Verge for help,” he said.

Here’s the video:

https://youtu.be/ph8M_8sVOEA

Follow @PiunikaWeb

PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.