Anti-Semitic jokes cause YouTube, Disney to distance themselves from PewDiePie
In the YouTube clip, a pair of South Asian men wearing costume loincloths held up a banner that read, “DEATH TO ALL JEWS.”
They danced and laughed, while in a separate screen the YouTuber named Felix Kjellberg (also known by his stage name PewDiePie) covered his mouth with his hands. “I don’t feel too proud of this, I’m not going to lie,” Kjellberg said in the Jan. 11 video, which had been viewed more than 6 million times before its removal.
Kjellberg, a 27-year-old Swedish comedian, had paid the men to hold up the sign. “I’m not anti-Semitic or whatever it’s called,” he said as he watched. “It was a funny meme, and I didn’t think it would work.”
Kjellberg is the most popular YouTube star on the planet. His videos have been viewed collectively more than 14 billion times. With such a massive audience came lucrative advertising and business deals, working with YouTube and the Walt Disney Co.
That was, until this week, when both YouTube and Disney ended their business ties with one of their most famous personalities.
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Perhaps many may not know who Pewdiepie is, but very many young folks do. It's okay for something to just not be funny.
First off with a name like Pewdiepie I would have to consider the smell associated with the name.
That alone is enough to not want to know who/what it is.
I have never heard of Pewdiepie, nor did I see the video, so it is hard to comment other than on what is in the article.
“I’m not anti-Semitic or whatever it’s called,” he said as he watched. “It was a funny meme, and I didn’t think it would work.”
This sentence seems to be self-contradictory. He says it was funny, and in the same sentence says "i didnt think it would work". Which is it?
"Death to all _____" is not funny as a basic principle, and particularly when the "all" is a specific group that has been the victim of historical mistreatment including state sponsored genocide.
Is there a particular problem with anti-semitism in Sweden? Maybe that would help to explain it.