Pewdiepie vs. T-Series

^^Pretty much that. It's a tragedy, but Pewdiepie himself wasn't at all responsible for their actions. If things get out of hand in here following this then action will be taken. Until then—discuss away!

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I mean, personally I think pewdiepie does have some form of social responsibility because he's done stuff like link to far-right personalities before in his videos saying he didn't vet them and apologizing, but when you have that kind of reach and impact you should conduct yourself, your brand, and your messaging responsibly.

No I don't think PewDiePie is directly responsible for the shooting, but I do think that his whole subscribe to pewdiepie movement has been latched on to by a bunch of far-right extremists as part of their whole joke/troll/whatever you want to call it. And he hasn't rebuffed them or called them out for it. I mean, just the other day you had UKIP, the UK Independence Party, which is a right-wing party that's wholly responsible for the propagation of misinformation about Brexit, tweet out that true "Patriots subscribe to PewDiePie!" Why in the world would UKIP, amidst all their rhetoric about keeping England for the English only, be telling people to go and sub to a Swedish Youtuber? Like what?

I think PewDiePie is guilty (not legally guilty) of negligence towards his branding and outreach. Yes, he did say how horrified he was that someone was using his name during this terrorist attack, but you don't have to go very far to see all these other groups participating in his message. At any point before this, he could have disavowed these groups. So he's either okay with some of the ideas extremists are espousing or he's totally unaware of these groups using his message as part of their extremist branding. But somehow, he's always let off the hook and never held accountable for his actions or inaction. It's ok, he's only got 83 million people following his words and deeds.



And this isn't even getting into some of the people he follows on Twitter, or the idea that some can read the whole PewDiePie vs T-Series debate as "white culture" vs "brown culture". Maybe he didn't think of it that way, but I know some extremist groups think of it like that.

I saw the video, and no he did not, but he did make quite a few meme references in that (on top of having that Serbian meme song and Gas Gas Gas play in his car as he was driving). But yeah, it isn't PDP's fault (and it certainly isn't this thread's fault) that the shooting happened, the guy was just crazy and wanted to make some references to social media for the sake of seeming more outrageous and garnering more attention.


E: Actually now that I think about it, it was in his manifesto that he mentioned Fortnite (not the video), but in that case he was pretty much making fun of it, not supporting it like he did to Pewds.

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That manifesto was pretty much the ramblings of a psycho filled with shitposting. I honestly can't take it seriously when he says a Spyro game taught him "ethno-nationalism."

Far-right, as well as "alt-right" is an extremely meaningless and arbitrary term at this point. It gets used to describe even moderately conservative opinions to paint people who are mostly just center right such as myself as extremists to sway independents away from any form of conservative thought, or to shame those who hold such thoughts into silence. Essentially the MSM uses it to smear people as "wrongthinkers". When people like Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro (LOL!) get labelled "alt-right" or "far-right" you know there's something afoot.

As such, what you're suggesting is silly, because all it takes is a smear campaign by the media on any one of Pewd's affiliates to character assassinate him as guilty by association. No one can read the future to see how what they say or who they speak with might be twisted out of context to hurt them.



Lmao you just said it yourself, it's obviously a joke/meme, it's nothing to take seriously.



Dude what. Okay, here's the problem with "disavowal": it never satisfies anyone, especially not your enemies. If anything, it only gets weaponized further to smear whomever is being called to disavow.

An example: when David Duke, the leader of the KKK, endorsed Trump. Both Trump and Pence came out and disavowed him, obviously. But then after Trump disavows him, what kind of stories do you think the media ran? It was crap like "Trump Hesitates to Call out Duke", "Trump's Delayed Disavowal of David Duke: What's he Hiding?" Even more so with that whole Charlottesville debacle.

They just find something else to harp on, always. The timing was "too late." If Trump made the disavowal IMMEDIATELY after Duke's endorsement, then it would have been something along the lines of "Trump was TOO quick to disavow Duke, he must be guilty of something!" Completely Kafkaesque.

It would be the same exact deal here. Even if Pewds had made some sort of disavowal, you'd be lodging some other arbitrary complaint about it right now instead. Absolutely 100% guaranteed.

Why do I say that? Because you've already written him off as "guilty" and only look at things from the perspective. Your post reeks of it. Your mind is already made up and at this point you're only using confirmation bias to support your pre-determined conclusions.


Art, ideas, they're both universal. No one can control who ends up liking their content, or who uses it to spread a warped message, especially under the domain of free speech. Put yourself in his shoes. If someone took your words and ideas and twisted them to support an agenda that completely contravenes yours, would you feel as though that was really on you? You have zero control over what others do, after all. And if everyone was demonizing you over how other people chose to falsely interpret your message, what would you do? You could spend all your time apologizing, disavowing until you're blue in the face, but it would never be enough, people will still attack you on your supposed affiliations with the people you have nothing to do with.


ALLLLL this to say though, don't really care about the issue in OP. It just seems inevitable with the proliferation of technology and internet access across the globe that a country with a massive population like India would eventually make a more dominant presence on the internet, and that includes YouTube. We'd probably have seen the same with China already if their internet wasn't so heavily censored and monitored. I don't even care about Pewds content at all really, I just hate hate hate the slimy, underhanded tactics from the MSM that are used to smear and demonize him and how some people just eat it up wholesale.

I mean, I didn't like the guy from the beginning, back when he was making his name known as the guy who can't stop screaming at horror games and saying rape as the punchline to most of his jokes. This was back way before any sort of controversy like the one we're discussing ever came up. And yes he's changed his style of humor since then and I've even watched a couple unrelated vlogs from him about the state of youtube, but at the time when I first saw him those were the kinds of content he was putting out and it left a really bad first impression. So I'm not really interested in watching his continued content.

And I was mistaken, he's linked to anti-semitic videos in the past, this last December being the most recent when he promoted some videos from the channel E;R. But then there's other stuff like using racial slurs on stream, performing a Nazi salute in a video or hiring some freelancers to hold up signs with the words "Death to All Jews" on it that just really, really sours me on him. He says his stuff is all under the guise of satire, but is it really that funny? What's funny about a "Death to All Jews" sign? :\

Alt-right definitely isn't a meaningless term. Look it up.

Many people are disappointed that a lot of right-wing people don't really try to distance themself from them. Because why is this that fucking hard to distance themself from literal nazis and white supremacist? They tend to call out them only when they are pressured real hard. And it's often insincere and paired with criticising the other side. But what other fucking side? The "other side" doesn't do such fucked up shit and spew literal hate than then transforms into real-world violence. The "alt-left" term invented by Trump like a lot of other stuff said by this person is such an utter bullshit I'm fucking sick that there are still people that eat up his shit words. Literally fucking 5 minutes of research, but the world is full of dumbasses it seems. In the age of such misinformation and hate propaganda it's really sad that so many are so spineless and naive and are going to defend such shit as "satire". Big corporations like YouTube should really step up with punishing removing such harmful shit to show that this is not acceptable at all. But they really care about the money and manipulating people with their algorithms to keep them engaged, directing them to content without opposing opinions (look up information bubble) and made by already popular boosted-up by said algorithms channels/people/bots so they get the maximum revenue. They could use their fucking goddamn power for good for once.

The "alt-right" has always had a loose and subjective definition. Here's what Google says:

"an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content."

Again, that's kind of vague, and is up to a very subjective interpretation to consider what's "extreme" and "controversial". The bolded part however is definitely true - I was on the ground floor when "alt-right" came into circulation and even though it lacked a concrete definition, it was denoted by a rejection of the GOP in favor of a new face for right-wing politics, one that ditches traditionally neo-con values like religious fundamentalism or proxy warfare in the Middle East. A right-wing package made to be more palatable to the average, centrist American. Most of these people, myself included, resent the current GOP.

But since the elites fear a new wave of populism dethroning them, they've of course obfuscated the term by dubbing it as neo-Nazism, white supremacism, etc. in order to scare people away. Those groups definitely exist but they're a minority made out to be a bigger boogie-man in the media than they actually are.

However, this is straying from the point. The reason I know that "alt-right" is a meaningless term is because it gets lobbed around SO MUCH against so many different people that it has actually lost all meaning, much in the way of the word "literally". If we're going by the left-biased charge of "alt-right" meaning "extreme conservatism" then it makes no sense for people like Jordan Peterson and Sargon of Akkad to get labeled as "alt-right", as they have been by the media and blue ticks on twitter, when they both identify as liberal. And if you go by the "white nationalist" definition then it makes no sense for someone like Ben Shapiro who has also been labeled as "alt-right" considering he is Jewish.

"Alt-right" and "far-right" are arbitrary, boogie-man terms. It's just a code for "wrongthink" that gets lobbed around waaay too much.



Again, this is my point from the last post: no amount of disavowal will ever be enough. EVER. You are showing exactly why right now too. "They don't disavow!" "Okay, they disavowed but THEY WERE PRESSURED SO IT DOESN'T COUNT IT'S INSINCERE". I'll say it again, disavowing satisfies nobody, ESPECIALLY not your enemies.


The more you disavow the more strongly you link your ideology to those you are trying to distance yourself from, too, since you have to keep bringing them up constantly when you present your views.

Furthermore, I can tell you exactly why I don't like the "white nationalists" amongst the right-wing, but does that really even matter to you? You'll just keep on lumping average, everyday Americans who lean right, like myself, in with them.



Dude, you have had organizations such as BLM and Antifa that have gone around throwing riots, destroying property, and assaulting people. There are plenty of videos out there of Antifa's cowardly attacks, the bike lock professor being the most notable example that jumps to mind. In Dallas, Texas, near where I grew up, a black supremacist shot a bunch of white cops out of racism. That's not to say there haven't been peaceful protests by these groups but their record of violence is well-documented and you'd have to be willfully ignorant to not see it - either that, or you think it's justified, but I'm going to give your character the benefit of the doubt on that one.

So then, is it fair for me to expect every left-leaning person to disavow Antifa with their every breath? Or should I just understand that a subset of people might not be representative of the whole? Why does that courtesy not get extended to right-wing people?



What you're advocating for is the direct censorship by unaccountable tech giants of opposing viewpoints, which IMO if you ask me is at best misguided, and at worst, straight up evil. Free speech should be protected at all costs, even unsavory positions that you don't agree with, because otherwise you might find yourself at the receiving end of censorship if you don't go along with the agenda of those in power.



I think you are projecting on this one very bad. You just literally called for the censorship of opposing viewpoints, then criticize others for not listening to opposing viewpoints? That's some straight up hypocrisy, no joke. Very seriously consider that what you said here might actually apply to you.




Yeah, again, this mindset of "the greater good" is a very dangerous way of thinking, since it's so subjective and you yourself could be targeted if those in power so chose if you don't have the liberties in place to protect yourself.

Maybe I overreacted a bit, but take a quick look at 4chan's /pol/ or some of the alt-right subreddits. It's so sickening and this sort of content definitely isn't worth protecting or defending. Also freedom of speech doesn't apply to websites. And it doesn't protect people from consequences of their words. Youtube for example already takes down a lot of videos and punishes some channels for the most trivial shit, but when the shadiest channels generate the most revenue, they usually won't bother and turn a blind eye to them. And remember that who is popular is largely influenced by Youtube itself and its algorithms, so it's not like they don't control it already, if you are going by the censorship argument.

Back to pewdiepie, when first, white supremacist websites applaud him for making millions of viewers comfortable with racist ideas and then a terrorist with these views mention his name, it is his moral responsibility to distance himself from it as far as he can. Especially when he has so much influence over people, many of them young.

Thought this was a pretty good video on the whole pewdiepie situation. While he's obviously not majorly to blame for the NZ shooting, figures like him do carry some amount of responsibility and should address potential extremist groups in their viewerbase accordingly.

Trust me I'm around them enough. r/cringeanarchy has been my favorite sub ever since the 2016 election, but ever since reddit has been on a huge banning spree of "wrongthink" subs such as r/milliondollarextreme, they've all congregated on the cringeanarchy and 99% of posts now are just complaining about "MuH Joos!!!". It's nauseating and annoying af but even so I don't think they should be censored.

The problem of censorship is that it's "out of sight, out of mind" but they never actually go away. Targets of censorship, pretty much no matter who they are, already feel marginalized and attacked, and acts of censorship only serve to confirm their beliefs. They either spread out, or keep festering in their own rage, silently, no place to vent. I think you would get a lot more radicals that way, ironically.

I agree that YouTube, and by extension Google, engages in some really BS business activities, and that's unfortunately been a problem for a long time.

However, in the day and age where the internet is becoming more and more of a utility rather than a commodity, I think it's important to keep free speech a central component. What if other utilities, like water, heat, gas, electric, etc. all decided to cut you off because of your opinions? What about banks? If they all suddenly decided to shun you because of your beliefs, would that really be "freedom"?

It's a bit of a precarious issue I'll admit, as I typically prefer small government to big government, but there needs to be a balance in place, because then it's either the government who will rule over you, or Big Business oligarchies. We're already seeing this with the Silicon Valley tech giants.




I tried watching a bit of it but the 30 minute length seems a bit excessive. The idea of memes leading to violence that I've gleamed from skimming the video and the comments is on the same level of video games leading to violence. Actually, no, it's a way dumber assertion.

People keep saying that he needs to distance himself from people like Tarrant. He. Has. He's on record of denouncing the terrorist. How much is required before his decriers are satisfied? It's a trick question, 'cause they never will be as I said in my last two posts. He could publicly castrate himself and convert to Islam and that still probably wouldn't sate his detractors.

Another thing that I haven't even thought to bring up is the fact that the whole Pewdiepie thing from the shooter is just one of many memes he used in his manifesto and in the shooting. It's a red herring, bait that he knew journalists and thousands of youtubers would eat it right up. People often look for a scapegoat to lay (even partial) blame on in the face of tragedies such as this, and it's a lot easier to latch onto a particular individual than it is an abstract and faceless concept like the "alt-right", and he threw it like a bone to a dog. If Pewds didn't exist he'd just have used the next biggest internet personality. He in no way committed the shooting out of devotion or genuine love to Pewdiepie, and I think that becomes pretty obvious if you look even for five minutes into his manifesto. The whole thing about Pewdiepie in regards to this shooting is incredibly tangential.

I think another reason Pewds is being targeted is precisely because of his large audience, people are trying to guilt and manipulate him in order to control him so he doesn't engage in anymore "wrongthink" that might be inconvenient to their agenda. It's actually pretty underhanded, in my opinion. Pewdiepie in no way asked for the attack to happen and to try to guilt him into publicly castrating himself is kind of twisted. It's all a concerted effort to rein him in and keep him controlled, and it's not new, they've been doing it for awhile. This just poured gas on the fire. The elites know he has a large following and that it can be used against them, hence all these attacks on him.

And keep in mind, I'm not even a fan of Pewdiepie - not my style of humor at all, so I hope my comments here don't get misconstrued as fanboyism. I can understand very fully well why people might not personally like him all that much and I'm not arguing that people should find his more controversial content funny. However, I very strongly disagree with the treatment he's been receiving by journalists and wannabe YouTubers who are just trying to use this tragedy to bolster their own image and popularity. I disagree fundamentally that he's responsible in anyway for the NZ shooting, just as no one is responsible for the actions of another individual.

I think it's intellectually dishonest in a lot of ways, too. Flip the script, a Muslim commits a terror attack against Westerners (no shortage of those, either). The rhetoric is often then that the attacker is a "lone wolf" and that the attack doesn't implicate an entire group of people. It's the fault of the attacker and the attacker alone - we can't blame the ideology or his community. That rhetoric doesn't seem to apply here at all. And it's not even a fair comparison, really. There are passages directly codified into Islam's Quran and Hadiths that specifically allow and call for the violence against non-believers, on top of other subversive tactics. That's a lot closer linked to Islamism than Pewdiepie is to white nationalism.

But I'm not deflecting here - what happened was a tragedy, and to carry an attack on a group of unarmed people is despicable. However this idea that Pewdiepie bears some responsibility is utterly ridiculous, and I think people who say that are just looking for an outlet for their rage, one that was conveniently placed by the shooter who wanted to create more division and discord in society, which he definitely got.

Anyway, sorry if this post seems more rambly than the others, it's past 3 A.M. and my brain is fried at this point after trying to sort out all of my thoughts.

Maybe the idea wouldn't seem so ridiculous to you if you'd actually watched the video. In any case, I disagree with your point entirely, acting like the idea is on the same level as saying that video games cause violence is quite a simplified and frankly wrong view. Memes in essence serve as jokes, the idea is that racist/bigoted memes are viewed as ironic and "just a joke" but then at some point you start to actually start going "hey, but this actually has a point". Jokes sort of serve as a way to tip your toes in, a step on the ladder to more bigoted views. The video explains this in detail, maybe actually watch it before calling it stupid.

Yes, he has. However he still fails to address the parts of his community that hold the same beliefs as the shooter. Assuming that people won't take him seriously if he does address them is not an excuse to not even try, that's a defeatist attitude.

Of course not, that's not the point anyone is making. Nuance is a thing. The shooter was obviously heavily influenced by internet culture (he openly admits this in the manifesto and it seems to be one of the few actual genuine things he says). Considering that it doesn't seem far fetched to give internet culture and by extension the parts of it that harbor (or at least tolerate) the specific ideology the shooter had part of the blame.

What does this even mean, addressing harmful ideology in your viewerbase is the same as castrating yourself now??

Now this is interesting, are you implying his fans may be dangerous after all?

Disregarding someone's points not because of their merit but because you presume that they are made solely in order to bolster an individual's popularity seems like you just don't want to consider them to be honest.

Are you sure nobody's even partly responsible for anyone else's actions? If I were to actively radicalize someone until they murdered someone and they wouldn't have done it without me radicalizing them first am I not partly to blame for the murder?

You must be absolutely kidding me. The terrorist being called a "lone wolf" is literally what happens any time a white supremacist commits an act of terrorism, it's islamic terrorists that are often made out to accurately represent all muslims, not the other way around.

For the idea that he may bear some responsibility see above. Stating that people are just saying it because they wanna "rage" is another reductive statement attempting to undermine the merit of points made due to the circumstances they are made in.

I would like to add that the terrorist was strongly influenced by the conspiracy theory of The Great Replacement. Such conspiracy theories (and there are a lot of them, some more harmful than others) have so much visibility and following in the age of internet that it's absurd. You are talking so much about censorship, but haven't you thought that some of the harmful ideas propagated their way into mainstream though means like memes and algorithms that only care about engaging content, not truthful content? Think stuff like flat-earth but way more harmful. Or anti-vax. And thanks to these influencers and algorithms and other social and internet-related phenomena it's so easy to fall into these rabbit holes. Just watch some anti-SJW vs SJW stuff and see how long until Youtube recommends or autoplays some fearmongering videos based on conspiracy theories like the ones that scared the terrorist into doing this with no regrets. Because yes, he was also a coward and an irrational one. Or just simply go search for some memes, stumble into 4chan and discover /pol/. Or even reddit and that type of subs.

Regarding PDP, while I certainly don't consider him the main person to blame or something like that, he can be a sort of gateway into this content. And while that isn't entirely his fault (as it also partly falls on Youtube and other parties), he should certainly be more aware of it and realise his responsibility.

I think T-Series has already surpassed.

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