* Just in case anyone feels like delegitimizing my opinion by saying I'm a cis straight white woman.
I've watched Pewdiepie for years. Not only for the last year, when he turned his Internet persona way more ironic, cynic, and rude, but for more or less 4 years now. Some people like to call him now "a FilthyFrank copy cat", and I only think of the irony of people mostly knowing that name because everybody keeps calling Pewdiepie like that.
Yes, he is a white man from Sweden, with proper educational and family background. He should know better. He should be aware (and I'm pretty sure he knows) of the toughness of being a minority, or an immigrant, or simply not being a cis white straight man. He should specifically know (and, again, I'm pretty sure he knows) the historical, worldwide persecution of the Jewish people. That's a given.
And yet, one thing is Pewdiepie, an Internet clown with a sense of humor from your best 12 years old lol random edgy local boy who just discovered 4chan, and another thing is Felix. And I believe that's the point Markiplier, and other Youtubers, that many simply disregard at "sucking it up for the Youtube king".
Pewdiepie, the one that one month ago made a video where he paid $5 to two guys to say "Death to all Jews". Mind you, two guys that could've rejected the request, and also magically lost their ability to speak the most basic English to understand 4 words and later on could explain why they didn't know any better with a great level of English. Pewdiepie, also the one that refers to his foreigner friend as Romanian, and jokes about Guantanamo and the Irish Great Famine, and a long etcetera. In my book, he has done equally as bad in other occasions, but to me it's a mystery why his evilness hasn't blown up until now.
Pewdiepie, who also claimed he was going to delete his Youtube channel, just for it to be a prank with the purpose of letting everybody know there was a charity campaign going on. The Revelmode group raised more than 1 million dollars, and there's going to be another charity campaign soon. It is just an example of other "oh, that's not bad" things he has done, and yes, undoubtedly that doesn't cancel his shitty sense of humor and overall Internet persona, but to me it means there's more in here than a white man that, according to the press, he is the current God of the Nazi side of the Internet.
There's also Felix, who has made video responses on this specific matter, saying he was sorry-but-not-sorry. He also claimed he was not racist nor antisemitic. And I guess I'll have to believe him instead of a lousy WSJ article, and accept that he is just rude and immorally makes money out of the global insensitiveness we all suffer.
There's also Felix, who found a WSJ article where the situation was told without any context, whatsoever, and instead of trying to get his response/comments/opinion before publishing it, WSJ actively went and looked forward to severing his main business ties. Don't worry for WSJ, it is doing just fine: its article got shared everywhere and used by other press. Maybe it didn't generate enough money for its standards, seeing that yesterday went to Felix's house (not his office, his house) to try and get now his response. Gotta keep the $$$ flowing in, I guess.
Maybe it's my Christian mindset, but I'm not in a superior moral ground to determine whether someone is sufficiently regretful. What I know is that treating a person (not an Internet persona, a person) like the liquid at the bottom of a trashcan is not the right thing to do either.
In conclusion: Pewdiepie has had this downright insensitive and stupid sense of humor for a fairly long time, it's "old news" even for WSJ. It is more complex than a white man paying people to say 'Death to all Jews' and, like some people have already said here in the thread, context do matter. If I don't like him, I can always go watch another Youtuber, just like I don't visit 4chan.
