Pewdiepie er et varmt emne lige for tiden. Efter nogle upassende jokes hvoriblandt en, hvor han betalte to indiske mænd for at holde et skilt op hvor der står "Death to all Jews". Mange på internettet har reageret heftigt på hele debatten, hvilket har skabt en "enten er du mod Pewdiepie eller også er du med ham"-kultur, hvilket youtuber, Jacksepticeye, nu mærker på egen person.
Jacksepticeye uploadede en velartikuleret video, hvori han taler om hele debatten. Af udvalgte citater, udtaler han blandt andet:
"What Felix did was very stupid, I think it was a very moronic thing to do, whether it was in context or not".
Der var en mening bag de grove jokes Pewdiepie kom med, men Jacksepticeye mener ikke, at den mening blev leveret ordenligt. I stedet endte det i en grov joke, hvor den blev kastet ud for shockeffekten, men ikke samlet op. Han understreger dog samtidig:
"I've known Felix very well in my personal life... we're pretty good friends. I know for a fact he's not a Nazi, I know for a fact that he's not anti-Semitic person. This doesn't excuse what he did... but Felix himself as an actual person is decent."
Og dette er en vigtig pointe. Jacksepticeye er venner privat med Pewdiepie og kan - ifølge mange i kommentarerne - takke hele sin succes for hjælpen Pewdiepie har givet ham. Derfor har videoen lige nu 65.539 dislikes, hvilket - for at sammenligne - ligger langt fra en af hans nyeste video med 368 dislikes.
Af kommentarer på videoen kan man finde er der blandt andet:
"Unsubbed for being a backstabber", "fake friends make me sick" og "Doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with your friend, you should just support him in a time like this". Det skal noteres, at efter videoen har været ude noget tid, er folk i kommentarerne begyndt at støtte Jacksepticeye mere, men han nåede stadig at bukkede under for presset og fastlåste denne kommentar til videoen:
"I've seen a lot of talk after the video went up and I'm trying to get an overall picture as much as I can. Some people agree with my video, some really don't and some agree with half of it. No one is wrong and I definitely appreciate the variety of opinions because as I said, I'm not right and I am open to discuss it further.
My main regret for this video was focusing too much on what Felix did and whether I agreed with it or not instead of elaborating on the media side of it all. I did this initially because I wanted to avoid the "youtubers vs the mainstream media" narrative that's been going around but I can see now that that wasn't a good idea. It made it seem like I was defending them more than Felix and I was throwing him under the bus. Absolutely not my intention. I think because I'm close friends with Felix that I thought I could criticise him a bit more and explain it to him if he disagreed but to the outside viewer this isn't apparent and looks like I just blasted him instead in front of a lot of people.
I do think there were some unethical practices at play with the media, a lot of misquoting and misrepresentation and then other articles taking that and doing their spin on it which muddied the waters more. As I said in my video, it got very messy. Also yeah, it's a little strange that WSJ would focus on a youtuber making jokes (good or bad) rather than bigger real issues, as Felix put it "I expect it from The Sun maybe but not Wall Street Journal".
When I said "WSJ weren't wrong to run the story" I meant that technically it's in their rights to do whatever they want. I don't have to agree with it however and some parts of it did feel a little overly critical of everything while other sections flat out lied about him. Some articles literally called him "Racist" which I mentioned I knew wasn't true.
I felt like most of this had been said by everyone else and better, so I made it a shorter talking point in my video which now I see wasn't a good idea. It paints a picture that isn't true. I think fear of backlash got to me a bit and I'm inexperienced tackling such large issues so I didn't get specific. There's no one right answer to everything but I'm not arrogant or stubborn enough to not listen to others on this and discuss it or even admit when I'm wrong.
I still stand with Felix as my friend, in fact now more than ever because he needs it. I've been in contact with Felix privately over all of this and have shown support since the very beginning. The insane endless attacks on him and witch hunt are out of control and going too far. We all make mistakes and should be given an opportunity to learn from them."
En anden youtuber, Keemstar, kastede dog ny brande på bålet, gennem en video kaldet Jacksepticeye Backstabs PewDiePie! #DramaAlert hvori han - du har nok gættet det - kalder Jacksepticeye en "backstabber" og beder ham om at fjerne sin video.
Hidtil er videoen stadig at finde på Jacksepticeye kanal, men han noterede på twitter at han er: "considering removing the video to avoid confusion".
Tak til Kotaku for at have opsummeret nyheden.