YouTube, we need to have a talk. It’s been nearly two weeks since Felix Kjellberg — better known as PewDiePie, the single most subscribed personality in YouTube’s history — was dropped by Disney’s Maker Studios over jokes that were perceived as anti-semitic, following an investigation by the Wall Street Journal. To defend Kjellberg, a hashtag was deployed over the weekend to spin the narrative, created by Carl Benjamin — AKA Sargon of Akkad.
Using social media campaign platform Thunderclap, Benjamin and his alleged 13,000 supporters all tweeted at 7AM AEDT on Sunday:
Dear Mainstream Media: Jokes are not evidence of bigotry, you morons. We won’t let you #GasTheJokes
Let’s dissect a bit, shall we?
First, this campaign conflates all of media. Then, it argues that “jokes are not evidence of bigotry”. Except the heart of the argument was never whether or not Kjellberg was himself a bigot — merely that his content featured references and imagery that bigots seemed increasingly attracted to, and as a result Disney decided to sever business ties. Finally, it ends on the odious hashtag #GasTheJokes — a pretty bold reference to the mass killing of Jews and other marginalised groups at the hands of the Nazis.
The gambit is simple: If “the mainstream media” crows at a hashtag that mockingly references genocide, it’s evidence it’s run by oversensitive snowflakes who just can’t take a (deeply anti-semitic) joke. What a perfect way to distance YouTubers from allegations of anti-semitism.
Read the article on Gizmodo.