This post is also on SaesDeHonos.com
Oh boy, here we go again. Youtube's most subscribed channel/person called PewDiePie has been the center of attention and not in a good way. Once again.
Before we start talking about this incident, this is what happened.
WARNING! The video clip is UNCENSORED
Is PewDiePie a racist?
The fact is that pretty much nobody of us knows the truth, not many people know him personally. That means that we can only judge him by his actions. I've been following PewDiePie for a pretty long time now and personally, I haven't gotten the impression that he would be a racist. I can understand why people would assume that'd be the case though, but again, we don't really know the truth.
I think that pretty much everyone agrees that using racial slurs is bad. Well... Actually that's not the case since there are surprisingly many people that are pretty vocal about defending that on various social media platforms.
I'm not addressing the issues of racial slurs, power of words, offending people etc. in this one, those are topics that deserve their own posts. I'll be discussing about those things some time later.
The situation
It's important to remember that when you're a public figure and especially when you're as big as PewDiePie, you're constantly under surveillance. The industry, companies and the society all have their eyes on you, so you naturally need to control and think about your behavior more than you would need to as a regular person.
Imagine if a Hollywood actor would drop the N-word (on social media or in public space, doesn't matter). That would cause a huge uproar among people. Youtube and being a Youtuber isn't really that different.
After the incident, PewDiePie has uploaded a short video response about this and you can watch it HERE.
I personally believe his apology to be sincere. The apology doesn't undo what's happened, but at least it seems that he understands the situation he's in and that he needs to step up his game until something much worse is going to happen, possibly putting his whole career is danger.
Obviously words aren't enough since PewDiePie has been in the negative spotlight before and it seems that it hasn't been waking him up enough.
We need to remember that PewDiePie is pretty much the cover-boy of Youtube, being the most subscribed channel at the moment. Whenever people search for Youtube, PewDiePie is one of the first people that shows up. This means that he presents the platform in a major way and his actions do reflect on the brand image of Youtube.
"With great power comes great responsibility"
As cliché as that quote is, it's still valid. Because PewDiePie's actions can have a big impact on Youtube's image, it will also affect everyone who is uploading content on the platform. Ad revenue is the main source of income for Youtubers and when companies pull their ads from Youtube, people's income is going to naturally suffer because of that.
Nobody is going to force him to care about other people, but these kind of controversies have a negative effect for almost everyone, including PewDiePie. It's pretty much just shooting your own foot with a shotgun.
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