PewDiePie is Nazi-Adjacent
The popular YouTuber is back on his bullshit, and here’s why that’s a bad thing.
For those out of the loop, PewDiePie, real name Felix Kjellberg, is one of the most-subscribed to YouTubers in the world, with just over 100 million subscribers. (For a long time he was the most subscribed to, holding the title from 2013 to 2019, until he was recently surpassed by the Indian record label T-Series). Felix rose to fame making Let’s Play videos, where viewers could watch him play video games like Minecraft and Amnesia, as well as daily lifestyle vlogs. In recent years he’s diversified his content somewhat, but there remains an emphasis on gaming.
In 2017, Felix became the center of a series of controversies — the first being when, in January 2017, he released a video where he used “Fiverr” (a website that allows people to buy and sell services for $5) to pay two men to hold up a sign that read “Death to All Jews.” The men in question later apologized for their actions, explaining that they didn’t know what the message meant.
Felix was widely condemned for this behavior, with various media outlets covering the story, and companies like Disney and Google severing ties with him, in part due to pressure from groups like the Anti-Defamation League. The Wall Street Journal released an article covering the controversy and detailing other instances where he’d used antisemitic rhetoric on his channel. Felix apologized for the incident, claiming that the video was never meant to be antisemitic and was supposed to showcase the ridiculous things you could do with money on the internet. After lying low for a bit, Felix drew media attention again when he used the n-word while live-streaming a video game. Again he apologized, promising to do better.
This takes us to 2018, when Felix began to compete with record label T-Series after it was projected that their Youtube channel would surpass PewDiePie. This led to the proliferation of the viral meme/hashtag/expression/whatever “Subscribe to PewDiePie,” which his followers would spam in the comments of other YouTubers’ videos, on Twitter, and anywhere that would allow it. While T-Series did eventually surpass PewDiePie to become the number one subscribed-to Youtube channel, the “Subscribe to PewDiePie” campaign was incredibly effective, taking him from 67 million subscribers in October 2018 to the 100 million he has today. (In December 2018, PewDiePie gained 6.6 million subscribers, compared to the 7 million he gained in all of 2017).
Unfortunately, the campaign also attracted much more unsavory attention — the meme was co-opted as a covert dogwhistle (a term that means using coded language that has a specific meaning to a small in-group) by various online alt-right groups (we’ll get back to that). That culminated in the Christchurch mosque shooter using the phrase in the livestream he published before committing the shooting. Felix, of course, immediately disavowed the shooter, saying he felt “absolutely sickened” by the event, and later went on to release a video titled “Ending the Subscribe to Pewdiepie Meme,” where he addressed the tragedy.
This brings us to the present. Upon hitting 100 million subscribers, Felix announced his plans to donate $50,000 to the ADL, in order to “put an end to all these alt-right” and antisemitic claims. In the initial announcement video posted on Sept. 10, he stated: “I made a lot of mistakes on the way, but I’ve grown. I feel like I have at least. I feel like I’ve finally come to terms with the responsibility I have as a creator.” This, to most, seemed like a reasonable and well-intentioned thing to do. The ADL, regardless of their less-than-great opinions on the Israel/Palestine conflict, is vociferously opposed to antisemitism, and a donation to them seemed like a decent start to reparations.
Felix’s fanbase immediately lost their entire shit.
The comment section for the video was flooded with people urging him to reconsider his decision, with conspiracy theories ranging from the idea that Felix was being pressured by the PC left, to arguments that he was being blackmailed or forced by the ADL, or even by more sinister groups… perhaps the secret New World Order? (The NWO is a popular far-right conspiracy/dogwhistle that alleges the world is being run in secret by a small group of globalist elites. The term has no basis in fact, and is often rooted in antisemitism.)
Online dissent grew until, two days after his initial announcement, Felix released a new video stating that he would no longer be donating the $50,000 to the ADL, and would be selecting a new charity — essentially capitulating to the pressure from his audience.
And therein lies the real issue here. Because, at the end of the day, do I think Felix Kjellberg is a Nazi? No. Do I think he’s an antisemite, a racist, or just a bad person? Also no. In all honesty, Felix himself is just a guy, with a huge platform, who likes to make YouTube videos and doesn’t make the best decisions all the time. So no, Felix isn’t a Nazi.
He is, however, Nazi-adjacent — because those fans drumming up NWO conspiracies? Those are Nazis (or white nationalists, or fascists, or whatever you want to call them). The Christchurch shooter? That guy is a Nazi. And it doesn’t end there — in December 2018, Felix made a video recommending a bunch of smaller channels, including the channel “E;R,” a channel that has repeatedly posted antisemitic and fascist rhetoric, such as referencing “The Jewish Question” and paraphrasing the white supremacist “14 words” slogan. Felix was also named explicitly in the open letter written by the Poway synagogue shooter.
While it’s likely that Felix is not specifically responsible for either of those examples — he’s stated that he was unaware of E;R’s content beyond one specific video, and the consensus regarding the Poway shooting seems to be that the shooter was intentionally trying to troll the mainstream media — that’s not the point. E;R gained 15,000 subscribers because of Felix. The Poway shooter, regardless of intent, knew that referencing PewDiePie would cause enough confusion to damage the left. The far-right knows how to play the game, and how to use the right-leaning tendencies of Felix’s audience to their advantage. In a thread on 4chan (an anonymous message board commonly used by white nationalists and their ilk), one user describes in detail how to best utilize the “Subscribe” meme.
That’s the issue. Some of Felix’s fans are racists, but not all of them. Some of Felix’s fans are Nazis, but not all of them. When he concedes to the ones who are on things like this ADL donation, he’s conceding to their beliefs as well. Because the people who were really opposed to him donating to the Anti-Defamation League weren’t opposed because of the ADL’s iffy stance on Palestine — they were opposed because they’re opposed to Jews, because they’re Nazis. And the percentage of PewDiePie fans who are Nazis, regardless of how small that percentage is, know how to use his concessions to their advantage.
This is all really emblematic of a much deeper issue, involving YouTube’s algorithms and online radicalization — if you watch a PewDiePie video, you are often offered a Ben Shapiro video next, which will, in turn, lead you to Steven Crowder, which will lead you to Lauren Southern, and so on, all the way down to WhitePowerUser1488XX, who’s a fake YouTuber I made up to make a point (we try not to platform real fascists here at NYU Local). Felix himself isn’t a bad guy — most of his content is surprisingly apolitical, it’s decently funny, and he seems like a fun personality to watch. But when you have 100 million subscribers (100 million. Jesus.), suddenly your responsibility to your community becomes much more crucial, and being a decent guy simply isn’t enough.
Spider-Man had it right all along — with great power comes great responsibility to not inadvertently pander to white supremacists. Felix seems like a good guy, but it doesn’t counteract the unintentional dogwhistling, the antisemitic rhetoric, the normalizing of racist and antisemitic “jokes,” and conceding to pressure from your Nazi fanbase (not to mention other, smaller things, like his endorsement of Jordan Peterson, a conservative professor and public speaker who has lots of bad and wrong opinions).
Being Nazi-adjacent isn’t Felix’s fault. It is, however, his responsibility to set the record straight, and he has yet to do so. This recent capitulation to his fanbase is a step in the wrong direction, and it remains to be seen where he’ll go from here. At least we can take some solace in the knowledge that in 30 years, when history books start to include sections about “the American Fascist Movement of 2016–2020,” they’ll have to include a footnote labeled “Subscribe to PewDiePie.”
