Pewdiepie's movement comes to an end
Pewdiepie is a YouTuber who has one of the most subscribed to channel and has for a long time. He has been competing with T-series for the top spot and has reached an insane ninety million subscribers over the course of thirteen years. The competition of subscribers between T-series and Pewdiepie became a meme where people were would spread the message to "subscribe to Pewdiepie" in public and mass ways.
This was a pretty harmless movement as it was just a whole bunch of people publicly spreading the message and it was a friendly competition between the channels. Most of it was positive with people making signs and showing the message throughout their community, however, with ninety million subscribers, there was bound to be some negative feedback. At first, people went a bit too far by hacking into printers worldwide having them print the message and then some hacked the Wall Street Journal and published a mock apology to Pewdiepie.
However, it got out of hand when someone wrote the message three times on world war two memorial which Pewdiepie addressed by having the message removed and donated to the memorial. Although this was clearly disgusting and terrible, the movement reached a new level when the New Zealand gunman spread the message by saying "Remember lads, Subscribe to PewDiePie". Pewdiepie has now come out with a video addressing the act but explained that he didn't want to give the hate more attention and that he was disgusted that his name was associated with such a horrible act.
Youtube is a platform, like many other places on the internet that if extremely powerful and can be used for good but there are always people that will find a way to make it negative which ruins it for those trying to have a positive experience. I think Pewdiepie handled the situation pretty well considering that he didn't have much say in the end as he can't control all his subscribers and I think it's obviously incredibly hard to deal with being inadvertently dragged into such a horrible act.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/29/i-didnt-want-hate-win-pewdiepie-ends-subscribe-meme-after-christchurch-shooters-shout-out/?utm_term=.a01bd2b0cc72
This was a pretty harmless movement as it was just a whole bunch of people publicly spreading the message and it was a friendly competition between the channels. Most of it was positive with people making signs and showing the message throughout their community, however, with ninety million subscribers, there was bound to be some negative feedback. At first, people went a bit too far by hacking into printers worldwide having them print the message and then some hacked the Wall Street Journal and published a mock apology to Pewdiepie.
Youtube is a platform, like many other places on the internet that if extremely powerful and can be used for good but there are always people that will find a way to make it negative which ruins it for those trying to have a positive experience. I think Pewdiepie handled the situation pretty well considering that he didn't have much say in the end as he can't control all his subscribers and I think it's obviously incredibly hard to deal with being inadvertently dragged into such a horrible act.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/29/i-didnt-want-hate-win-pewdiepie-ends-subscribe-meme-after-christchurch-shooters-shout-out/?utm_term=.a01bd2b0cc72
I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to be such a big influencer on so many people and realize that with all the good followers, he has one of the lowest human beings support him. I agree with you Lisa in that pewdiepie handled the situation in a professional and responsible way. Many would have condemned the event and moved on but he shut down the movement realizing it was not worth the disrespect many victims of not only this particular massacre but others may feel.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing all the memes and posts saying "subscribe to Pewdiepie" and was a little confused, so your posts clears things up a little bit. It is horrible that people took it so far to vandalize and spread hate. I have seen a couple articles where people were exposing Pewdiepie for racist and anti-Semitic comments. Although I don't know all the details, being a well known influencer or celebrity comes with a lot of responsibility. People will be watching his every move and these racist comments may influence others to spread similar types of hate.
ReplyDeleteGreat post about such a thrilling and interesting event. It was crazy to see it blow up on social media and I was tempted a couple times to sub to pwediepie but I end up not doing it because I did not want to give in to the societal peer pressure. I couldnt pick a side because I did not know much about the topic.
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