In 2018,YouTube personality PewDiePiefound himself the center of a number of controversies. Most recently, he came under fire for recommending a YouTube channel that was associated with anti-Semitic content (though he later edited his video to remove the suggestion). Perhaps because of his controversies or for another reason entirely, YouTube released its annual YouTube rewind video without PewDiePie, and the video quickly became the most disliked video in the history of the website. PewDiePie later released his own version called “YouTube Rewind but it’s actually good,” which has been much better received, and has actually broken some records.
PewDiePie’s version of YouTube Rewind is now the most-liked non-music video on YouTube, and is also the fastest-liked video in the website’s history, amassing 6.7 million likes in just seven days. At the time of writing, the video is up to 6.8 million likes and over 34 million views, showing no signs of slowing down.
Of course, PewDiePie’s name has also been kept in the media for a variety of other reasons as well, such as the previously mentioned controversy, which has had a sort of ripple effect far beyond his channel. For example, a Ubisoft developer spoke out against PewDiePie in a tweet that called on game developers to end his career, which some perceived as a death threat. This in turned resulted infalse reports that the Ubisoft dev had been firedfrom her job for criticizing PewDiePie.
Similarly, a teacher in Seattle, Washington also criticized the YouTuber, and was sent actual death threatsafter his lecture was posted on Twitter. The teacher likened supporting PewDiePie to “prompting ignorance, racism, genocide, and anti-Semitism.”
2018 saw its fair share of controversies involving PewDiePie, and it will be interesting to see if the YouTuber is able to avoid any major issues in 2019.
