In his latest video, Pewdiepie aka Felix Kjellberg urged everyone to end the ‘subscribe to Pewdiepie’ meme. He discussed the entire journey of this meme and how it started as something positive but got twisted along the way.
He addressed the Christchurch attack in New Zealand and how it affected him in more ways than he revealed in his videos.
Subscribe To Pewdiepie Meme Is No More
YouTube propelled the latest apology video from Pewdiepie into the trending section as soon as it was released. The video is around 4 minutes long and when it begins Felix makes it clear that it is not one of his usual uploads.
In the video, he mentioned all the love and support the ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’ meme generated. He went on to mention other YouTubers who did their best to keep Felix ahead in terms of subscribers against the Bollywood Studio T-series.
From hacking printers to print ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’ to buying up billboards, supporters of Pewdiepie have gone to great lengths to make sure he wins.
Halfway through the video acknowledges that the ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’ meme has lost its way. Some of his fans defaced the World War 2 memorial site with his meme, which he said made him sick. In order to apologize, he donated funds to fix the memorial site ravaged by his fans.
Later in the video, Pewdiepie denies his association with any form of hate group while condemning the Christchurch incident. Felix labeled the Christchurch attack as a “terrorist activity” and said that his support will always be with the families affected by the horrific tragedy.
Pewdiepie said that ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’ is slowly being molded into a race issue by political parties and fringe groups. Felix asserted that he isn’t associated with any of these groups and he supports no one who advocates hate against anyone, let alone minorities.
Furthermore, when he reaches 100 million, Pewdiepie doesn’t want to make this as ‘one channel beating another’. Instead, he wants to make his ‘100 million subscribers count’ an amalgam of everything positive that has come out of his campaign.
Pewdiepie And The Fringe
Things went south from Pewdiepie when a terrorist open fired on 50 people at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand while saying ‘Subscribe to Pewdiepie’. Fringe far-right groups have leeched off of Felix for some time now.
These hate groups usually hide under the banner of free-speech and unnecessary political correctness, topics on which Pewdiepie speaks often. However, Felix maintains a distinction between free-speech and hate-speech in his discussions. Other far-right YouTubers who anchor on his popularity don’t.
Felix’s joke sometimes does cross some boundaries, and his songs titled ‘Bitch Lasagna’ and ‘Congratulations’ were deemed too offensive by the Indian High Court. Authorities have called for a ban on Pewdiepie songs in India. Since that decision, Felix himself has blocked those videos on YouTube.
These songs were only intended to make fun of the T-series, with whom Pewdiepie is in subscriber-battle for quite some time. However, these songs didn’t sit well with a number of Indians. Thus, to make up for a poor joke, Pewdipie donated around Rs. 1.6 crores to the charity foundation C.R.Y. in order to show his support for orphan kids in India.
Pewdiepie’s career has always been a mixed bag of amazing feats and controversies. He was the first YouTuber to reach 50 million and was probably the first to donate $1 million to the charity. He has also come into the bad spotlight for making anti-Semitic jokes and also for saying the N-word.
Most of his jokes resemble an average guy having fun with his friends. The only difference is that he has millions of followers listening to that joke as well. An important difference which Pewdiepie has begun to understand. Maybe.
