7 ms·

All I know about PewDiePie is that they are a YouTube user. What's the connection with terrorism and ransomware?

by dkdbejwi383 8y ago

lftl 8y ago
The Christchurch gunman name dropped PewDiePie at the start of his feed of the shooting.
- jquery 8y ago
  He also said Spyro 3 made him a fascist. The best thing to do is to ignore anything the shooter said and forget about him, and remember the victims.
  - happytoexplain 8y ago
    It would be naive to pretend the connection between the shooter and Spyro is as random and meaningless as the connection between PewDiePie and white nationalist/alt-right trolling. I'm absolutely not blaming PewDiePie in any way for things that crowd does, even if they give a religious-terrorist-style pledge to him before they commit murder as a "joke", but I do think he is somewhat at fault for their attraction to him.
    - jquery 8y ago
      >I do think he is somewhat at fault for their attraction to him. Please elaborate, what would you have PewDiePie do differently?
- snovv_crash 8y ago
  I feel like YouTubers are the next "bad influence", a position held in the past by marijuana, video games, rock 'n roll, heavy metal and communism. The funny thing is that the ones complaining are the same ones who's generation was accused of listening to bad influence music like SOAD, Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, all of whom were blamed for shootings in the past because the perps happened to listen to them.
zegl 8y ago
There is none. Felix is popular, "Subscribe to PewDiePie" is a big meme. People like to trash talk others I guess?
- tombert 8y ago
  The recent New Zealand shooter mentioned PewDiePie, and while I don't know if PewDiePie is directly racist, he was subscribed to a ton of fear-mongering idiots on Twitter until immediately after the shooting. EDIT: Just to make it clear, I'm not saying that Felix is responsible for the actions of his fan, just that it makes sense that people would latch on to the potential that he might be a douchebag.
- jquery 8y ago
  Pewdiepie has become clickbait. Articles written about him are typically very poor quality and poorly researched, nor do they take into account the fact he has 80+ million subscribers. That is a LOT of subscribers and if you go looking for bad behavior, you're going to find it. It's ridiculous I have to say it, but Pewdiepie is no more responsible for terrorism or white nationalism than Doom was for Columbine. In fact I'd say he's less culpable. We've been through this before with videogames, now we're going through it with memes. The older generation always thinks the younger generation is up to no good and their form of entertainment is "corrupting" them. Before videogames it was movies, and before that it was "rock and roll". And so on.
  - tombert 8y ago
    Taken to the extreme, your argument could be "No one has ever influenced anyone ever for any reason". Yes, studies indicate that violent video game do not increase violence, but this doesn't inherently imply that rhetoric cannot be effective. There are plenty of examples throughout history of fear-mongering around race. Are you going to suggest that Hitler wasn't at all responsible for uniting a large percentage of the German people against the Jews? Are you going to suggest that Charles Manson shouldn't be held responsible for anything he started by his bizarre attempt at a race-war? Are you going to claim that bad behavior cannot become normalized if enough influential people do it? I don't think PewDiePie is responsible for the actions of his fans, because as you said, with 80 million people, you're going to get some awful humans in the mix. I just didn't agree with your reasoning.
wetpaws 8y ago
High profile person who attracts way too much unwanted attention.
JohnTHaller 8y ago
"Subscribe to PewDiePie" has been adopted by white supremacists. Part of it is due to the 'fight' to get to 100m between PewDiePie (the 'white') and T-Series (the 'browns'). Part of it is also because PewDiePie has or has been accused of retweeting, posting, promoting, etc views, channels, and memes that are racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, etc.
- cheez 8y ago
  Everything you disagree with isn't white supremacists. Mostly white edgy teenagers who are just edgy.
  - happytoexplain 8y ago
    I don't think the parent post made any kind of assertion that sounds like what you're accusing him of.
    - cheez 8y ago
      White supremacists also use highways. This is the level of logic I think is applied here.
      - cannonedhamster 8y ago
        White supremacists don't typically claim to drive particular roads before going on a shooting spree that kills 50 people. They also don't advocate their ISP when doing ransomware. Pewdiepie has said some controversial statements, that whether intentional or not has attracted a fan base of white supremacists. Nothing he has said has been as controversial or impactful as it would be if a head of state said something similar, however for better or worse he has inspired them whether he wanted to or not.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        8y ago
darkpuma 8y ago
Just people piggybacking off his fame, and the media's eagerness to rebroadcast their claimed association to him if it makes him look bad, thus making this attention seeking tactic effective. The more it happens, the more the media is willing to cover it, meaning it will happen even more. What would you call this, a Virtueless Cycle?
RugnirViking 8y ago
Pretty much nothing to do with the actual guy; he's become something of a symbol in certain circles of the internet as something to fight for - people who are seeking something to do with their lives. The guy himself was a gaming youtuber but nowadays mostly makes relatively simple comedy videos reviewing memes. He's hosted people such as elon musk on his show, and really isn't all that controversial or bad himself. He's the most subscribed youtuber at the time of writing, and a long drawn-out campaign by several people has been made to keep him there, mostly without his guidance or really, much of his participation. Mostly because he has become something of a figurehead for the time where the internet was based around individuals sharing things - this happened because the next highest channel who will inevitably pass him at some point are a large corporation. As a result, many twenty-somethings who grew up on an internet of blogging and viral videos made by random people like them are having a sort of kickback against what they see as the growing influence of corporations on the internet's culture. Naturally, there is nothing that is against manufactured pop culture taking over the internet than places like 4chan with their rhetoric about 'normies' and 'npcs', and they already have a sort of apocalyptic outlook on the world and culture of anything goes, it breeds certain kinds of people like this. Now pewdiepie himself has done things that haven't helped his cause, but it's difficult to spin this situation and say it's his doing.
- fellellor 8y ago
  >long drawn-out campaign by several people has been made to keep him there, mostly without his guidance or really, much of his participation. I'd say he actively participates in that campaign. Also, he did nothing to discourage fans who came up with that printer hack, which though seemingly innocuous, is still a hack.
  - RugnirViking 8y ago
    Yeah I put these down to my last sentence: "he's done some things that haven't helped his cause, but its hard to say that its entirely his doing"
rogual 8y ago
Maybe the same as that between football hooligans and actual footballers? No real link, just a Schelling point for dumbassery.
nemothekid 8y ago
PewDiePie is a the currently the most subscribed YouTuber. He started off making gaming videos (LetsPlay, reviews), but has since really "retired" from that and occasionally makes comedy style vlogs. He likely has a very large and diverse fanbase, all of whom are probably coming into age now (Someone who watched PewDiePie at age 13 when he became the most popular YouTuber in 2013, would be 19 now). Around sometime last year, PewDiePie came under a string of bad publicity which linked him to Nazi's and an incident where he called someone a nggr when he died in a video game. He has since "apologized" and tried to make things right, but whats done is done. My hypothesis is, due to his "persecution" PewDiePie is now very popular as an alt-right martyr - he can't fully come out and say he's full on white supremacist because of the media boogeyman, but, to his supporters, he's clearly on their side (whether he is or not, I don't know, and it's irrelevant). As a result he gets a lot of lip service from a lot of notorious individual (regardless if he wants it), due to his nature as a meme in these communities. Again, I'm not pretending to know where PewDiePie lies in all this, and he could very well be supporting or indifferent to this whole thing. However I do believe this whole thing might be larger than him at this point.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

All I know about PewDiePie is that they are a YouTube user. What's the connection with terrorism and ransomware?

lftl 8y ago

The Christchurch gunman name dropped PewDiePie at the start of his feed of the shooting.

jquery 8y ago
He also said Spyro 3 made him a fascist. The best thing to do is to ignore anything the shooter said and forget about him, and remember the victims.
- happytoexplain 8y ago
  It would be naive to pretend the connection between the shooter and Spyro is as random and meaningless as the connection between PewDiePie and white nationalist/alt-right trolling. I'm absolutely not blaming PewDiePie in any way for things that crowd does, even if they give a religious-terrorist-style pledge to him before they commit murder as a "joke", but I do think he is somewhat at fault for their attraction to him.
  - jquery 8y ago
    >I do think he is somewhat at fault for their attraction to him. Please elaborate, what would you have PewDiePie do differently?
snovv_crash 8y ago
I feel like YouTubers are the next "bad influence", a position held in the past by marijuana, video games, rock 'n roll, heavy metal and communism. The funny thing is that the ones complaining are the same ones who's generation was accused of listening to bad influence music like SOAD, Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, all of whom were blamed for shootings in the past because the perps happened to listen to them.

zegl 8y ago

There is none. Felix is popular, "Subscribe to PewDiePie" is a big meme. People like to trash talk others I guess?

tombert 8y ago
The recent New Zealand shooter mentioned PewDiePie, and while I don't know if PewDiePie is directly racist, he was subscribed to a ton of fear-mongering idiots on Twitter until immediately after the shooting. EDIT: Just to make it clear, I'm not saying that Felix is responsible for the actions of his fan, just that it makes sense that people would latch on to the potential that he might be a douchebag.
jquery 8y ago
Pewdiepie has become clickbait. Articles written about him are typically very poor quality and poorly researched, nor do they take into account the fact he has 80+ million subscribers. That is a LOT of subscribers and if you go looking for bad behavior, you're going to find it. It's ridiculous I have to say it, but Pewdiepie is no more responsible for terrorism or white nationalism than Doom was for Columbine. In fact I'd say he's less culpable. We've been through this before with videogames, now we're going through it with memes. The older generation always thinks the younger generation is up to no good and their form of entertainment is "corrupting" them. Before videogames it was movies, and before that it was "rock and roll". And so on.
- tombert 8y ago
  Taken to the extreme, your argument could be "No one has ever influenced anyone ever for any reason". Yes, studies indicate that violent video game do not increase violence, but this doesn't inherently imply that rhetoric cannot be effective. There are plenty of examples throughout history of fear-mongering around race. Are you going to suggest that Hitler wasn't at all responsible for uniting a large percentage of the German people against the Jews? Are you going to suggest that Charles Manson shouldn't be held responsible for anything he started by his bizarre attempt at a race-war? Are you going to claim that bad behavior cannot become normalized if enough influential people do it? I don't think PewDiePie is responsible for the actions of his fans, because as you said, with 80 million people, you're going to get some awful humans in the mix. I just didn't agree with your reasoning.

wetpaws 8y ago

High profile person who attracts way too much unwanted attention.

JohnTHaller 8y ago

"Subscribe to PewDiePie" has been adopted by white supremacists. Part of it is due to the 'fight' to get to 100m between PewDiePie (the 'white') and T-Series (the 'browns'). Part of it is also because PewDiePie has or has been accused of retweeting, posting, promoting, etc views, channels, and memes that are racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, etc.

cheez 8y ago
Everything you disagree with isn't white supremacists. Mostly white edgy teenagers who are just edgy.
- happytoexplain 8y ago
  I don't think the parent post made any kind of assertion that sounds like what you're accusing him of.
  - cheez 8y ago
    White supremacists also use highways. This is the level of logic I think is applied here.
    - cannonedhamster 8y ago
      White supremacists don't typically claim to drive particular roads before going on a shooting spree that kills 50 people. They also don't advocate their ISP when doing ransomware. Pewdiepie has said some controversial statements, that whether intentional or not has attracted a fan base of white supremacists. Nothing he has said has been as controversial or impactful as it would be if a head of state said something similar, however for better or worse he has inspired them whether he wanted to or not.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - 8y ago

darkpuma 8y ago

Just people piggybacking off his fame, and the media's eagerness to rebroadcast their claimed association to him if it makes him look bad, thus making this attention seeking tactic effective. The more it happens, the more the media is willing to cover it, meaning it will happen even more. What would you call this, a Virtueless Cycle?

RugnirViking 8y ago

Pretty much nothing to do with the actual guy; he's become something of a symbol in certain circles of the internet as something to fight for - people who are seeking something to do with their lives. The guy himself was a gaming youtuber but nowadays mostly makes relatively simple comedy videos reviewing memes. He's hosted people such as elon musk on his show, and really isn't all that controversial or bad himself. He's the most subscribed youtuber at the time of writing, and a long drawn-out campaign by several people has been made to keep him there, mostly without his guidance or really, much of his participation. Mostly because he has become something of a figurehead for the time where the internet was based around individuals sharing things - this happened because the next highest channel who will inevitably pass him at some point are a large corporation. As a result, many twenty-somethings who grew up on an internet of blogging and viral videos made by random people like them are having a sort of kickback against what they see as the growing influence of corporations on the internet's culture. Naturally, there is nothing that is against manufactured pop culture taking over the internet than places like 4chan with their rhetoric about 'normies' and 'npcs', and they already have a sort of apocalyptic outlook on the world and culture of anything goes, it breeds certain kinds of people like this. Now pewdiepie himself has done things that haven't helped his cause, but it's difficult to spin this situation and say it's his doing.

fellellor 8y ago
>long drawn-out campaign by several people has been made to keep him there, mostly without his guidance or really, much of his participation. I'd say he actively participates in that campaign. Also, he did nothing to discourage fans who came up with that printer hack, which though seemingly innocuous, is still a hack.
- RugnirViking 8y ago
  Yeah I put these down to my last sentence: "he's done some things that haven't helped his cause, but its hard to say that its entirely his doing"

rogual 8y ago

Maybe the same as that between football hooligans and actual footballers? No real link, just a Schelling point for dumbassery.

nemothekid 8y ago

PewDiePie is a the currently the most subscribed YouTuber. He started off making gaming videos (LetsPlay, reviews), but has since really "retired" from that and occasionally makes comedy style vlogs. He likely has a very large and diverse fanbase, all of whom are probably coming into age now (Someone who watched PewDiePie at age 13 when he became the most popular YouTuber in 2013, would be 19 now). Around sometime last year, PewDiePie came under a string of bad publicity which linked him to Nazi's and an incident where he called someone a nggr when he died in a video game. He has since "apologized" and tried to make things right, but whats done is done. My hypothesis is, due to his "persecution" PewDiePie is now very popular as an alt-right martyr - he can't fully come out and say he's full on white supremacist because of the media boogeyman, but, to his supporters, he's clearly on their side (whether he is or not, I don't know, and it's irrelevant). As a result he gets a lot of lip service from a lot of notorious individual (regardless if he wants it), due to his nature as a meme in these communities. Again, I'm not pretending to know where PewDiePie lies in all this, and he could very well be supporting or indifferent to this whole thing. However I do believe this whole thing might be larger than him at this point.

deleted 8y ago

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