Earlier this week, an article from the Wall Street Journal regarding a series of videos YouTube star PewDiePie posted burst into a firestorm that left PewDiePie without his lucrative deal via Disney-owned Maker Studios. One particular video showed PewDiePie paying a duo over Fiverr to hold a sign saying "death to all Jews."
While PewDiePie did take to Tumblr to explain himself, saying that "the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive," he decided to make a video about the situation.
At first, PewDiePie (real name Felix Kjellberg) took the media to task for how they've covered him in the past, as well as how they took this situation "out of context." He apologized, saying he is "sorry for the words I used as I know they offended people and I admit the joke itself went too far." He did speak out about how the media has covered him, especially in this situation, and didn't mince words.
"This whole thing," Kjellberg says, "was an attack towards me. It was an attack by the media to discredit me, decrease my influence, and my economic worth. If people don't like my jokes, I fully respect that. I understand that. I acknowledge that I took things too far and that's something I will definitely keep in mind moving forward. But the reaction and the outrage has been nothing but insanity."
While PewDiePie says he believes "you can joke about anything," he did acknowledge that "there's a right way and not the best way to joke about things. "I love to push boundaries but I would consider myself a rookie comedian and I've definitely made mistakes before."
Kjellberg also dropped some personal darts at the Wall Street Journal, saying, "I'm still here. I'm still making videos. Nice try Wall Street Journal. Try again motherf*ckers."
Well, that's that. Based on the comments, PewDiePie's subscribers and viewers are riding for him. And even without the Scare PewDiePie series and being a part of Maker, one has to imagine that PewDiePie, who is sitting at over 53 million subscribers, will still be able to cake up.
You can watch his full response below.
