Blog Post #9

PewDiePie

PweDiePie is a Swedish born comedian who uses Youtube to produce videos about him playing and making fun of video games. PewDiePie name has been in the public eye for the past 5–10 years and his topic of internet trolling. Internet trolling is a common occurrence while on the wide web but when a celebrity with such internet and social media influence, namely in the age bracket of 13 to 18, trolls with anti-semitic and other racially inappropriate comments will cause public uproar. Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg also know to his youtube followers and “PewDiePie” currently has over 57 million subscribers watching his videos all over the world. With that many subscribers wouldn’t you want to be portrayed as a good guy or someone who people can relate to, instead he uses racist comment and uses language that he really shouldn’t be using when his main audience are from ages 13–18. In the Article, Indie Dev Calls for Copyright Strikes Against PewDiePie After He Says N-Work On Stream it mentions, the jokes he used “Include jokes about Jewish people, ironically embracing Nazi references, and tussles with mainstream media” (Hernandez, 2017). He also uses the N-word, explaining that the community that plays the video game Battlegrounds scream the N-word before the match starts.

Many people explain that what he does is crazy because he is making millions of dollars for sitting behind his computer and making videos of him playing and making fun of these games. Sean Vanaman wrote on twitter, “I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make” (Hernandez, 2017). I would feel the same way because people are behind the scenes working their butt off to make a video game as great as they can and make nowhere near the money PewDiePie makes for sitting at home making fun of their work. I think it is incredible for someone to make that much money for making videos of them playing a game with a voice over.

In conclusion I think what streamers like PewDiePie could make a big impact on viewers because of their age group and if he’s going to keep doing what he’s doing he should start making a positive impact and start using better language.