Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg’s continuedYouTubesuccess is almost surreal; very few mainstream content creators can claim to have been a part of the platform for more than a decade, and even fewer can admit to having adapted to new trends as fluidly as PewDiePie has. Once famed for shrieking over horror games likeAmnesia: The Dark DescentandCry of Fear,PewDiePiehas since moved to Japan, gotten married, and mostly moved away from his old Let’s Play style. That said, controversy continues to follow him, and he’s now in hot water for seemingly mocking a deaf TikTok user.
In a July 26 video titled “My Dog Cringes At TikToks,” Kjellberg reviewed some viral TikTok videos, poking fun at a few poorly-planned dance moves and laughing at some particularly unpleasant convenience store customers. However, originally, the latter half of theYouTubevideo featured a clip from a deaf TikToker who was apparently complaining about drive-thru fast food service. That segment of the upload earned quite a bit of backlash, enough to prompt PewDiePie to edit it out and pin an apology in the comments section.
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In the comment, Kjellberg reiterates that he only intended to make fun of the user’s nails and that he did not realize she was deaf. While detractors are likely to find that a feeble excuse, PewDiePie’s core audience doesn’t seem to have been particularly bothered. With nearly two million views and one hundred and seventy-nine thousand likes, the controversy doesn’t seem to have affected the performance of the video, and, givenPewDiePie’s semi-retired status, it’s likely that he isn’t exceptionally worried about the long-term impact of this event.
While this latest nexus of dispute became grounds for a clash of heated opinions on Twitter, it’s not likely to go down as an especially memorable career low-light for the YouTuber. In fact,PewDiePie deleted his Twitter accountin late 2019, so he likely isn’t terribly concerned about what is being or has been said bout him in the social media space.
