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YouTube star PewDiePie rails against
‘the media’, but he’s a part of it too now
February 22, 2017 11.53pm EST
Each of Pew DiePie’s videos attracts as many view ers as an edition of The Wall Street Journal. Pew DiePie
PewDiePie – the online alias of Felix Kjellberg – is a bit of an enigma.
 Email
 Tw itter
11
Here is a man who made US$15m (A$19.5m) in 2016 playing videogames
 Facebook
15
on YouTube for his audience of nearly 54 million subscribers, the largest
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in the world.
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Last week, though, PewDiePie’s business partners Disney and YouTube
began withdrawing support following an anti-semitic “joke” in one of his
Authors
Dan Golding
Lecturer, Sw inburne University of
Technology
Anthony McCosker
Senior Lecturer in Media and
Communications, Sw inburne
University of Technology
video blogs.
Disclosure statement
PewDiePie’s response was to admit some culpability, but also to attack
the messenger – which in this case was The Wall Street Journal, with its
print circulation of around 2.5 million and an online reach of 20 million
readers a month.
It was, according to Kjellberg, “an attack by the media to try to discredit
me, to decrease my influence, and my economic [success]”.
The authors do not w ork for,
consult, ow n shares in or receive
funding from any company or
organization that w ould benefit
from this article, and have
disclosed no relevant affiliations
beyond the academic appointment
above.
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Victoria State Government
provides funding as a strategic
partner of The Conversation AU.
Pew DiePie’s response to the controversy he caused.
New and old media
Sw inburne University of
Technology provides funding as a
member of The Conversation AU.
View all partners
Who, exactly, is “the media” here, though? The Wall Street Journal, with
a readership of more than 20 million, or the man with an online
audience twice that size?
Republish this article
There’s no doubt that the joke was in bad taste. And as Guardian
columnist Arwa Mahdawi points out, even jokes can have consequences,
such as reinforcing social divisions or normalising unpalatable ideas. She
also shows that his “joke” gave fuel to white nationalists, with The Daily
Republish our articles for free,
online or in print, under Creative
Commons licence.
Stormer website praising Kjellberg for promoting their ideals.
But PewDiePie is correct, in a sense, to point to the power relationships
in all of this: this is also a clash of platforms.
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The YouTube video was online for a month before The Wall Street
Journal reported on it, and it was the newspaper’s story (and not the
video’s posting) that became the catalyst for the censure and pulling of
sponsorship that followed.
This kind of incident highlights just how complicated the idea of having
a platform in the media industry has become today. Despite PewDiePie’s
significantly larger reach, it was the power of traditional media that
counted here.
For hundreds of millions of younger people worldwide, though,
YouTube is well and truly mainstream media. Its stars are the movie or
television celebrities of today.
PewDiePie himself is apparently more influential for young people than
actor Jennifer Lawrence. And what we used to think of as the usergenerated content of social media platforms has already built a strong
cache of cultural legitimacy, high production values and serious
financial value. A single video from PewDiePie can assure a videogame’s
success, as spectacularly demonstrated by Australia’s 2014 megahit,
Crossy Road.
Yet the relationship between traditional media companies and newer
platforms like YouTube is not well understood, and is often complex.
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Pew DiePie’s video on the infamous game Flappy Bird has been view ed over 33 million times (language w arning).
Not long after its acquisition by Google in 2006, YouTube started on an
inventive path of commercialisation. It has incorporated traditional
media through its Channel and Partnership system, which also makes it
easier for anyone to monetise content and draw advertising revenue. It is
precisely these sort of systems that have benefited people like PewDiePie
over the past few years.
Meanwhile, YouTube has also struggled against traditional media
copyright holders, which have worked to protect their content. Seven
years of litigation between YouTube and media giant Viacom was finally
settled in 2013, a decision that in the end favoured YouTube’s claim to be
“merely” a hosting platform not directly responsible for the content its
users post.
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This is only multiplied by something like YouTube Red, a subscription
service that positions YouTube as a platform more along the lines of
Netflix or Amazon. It is this kind of arm’s-length involvement with
content that YouTube is now using to step back from PewDiePie’s work
on its own platform.
So YouTube is both interested in content and also not. It’s often
supportive of its community of creators facing copyright difficulties, but
in this case has decided to protect its YouTube Red brand. But what of
even more “traditional” media companies, like Disney?
Well, two years ago Disney bought Maker Studios in a deal worth close to
US$1 billion (A$1bn). Maker Studios grew as a network of creators,
working mostly through YouTube, and with a combined subscriber base
of around 380 million.
Who’s in the media?
Given all of this context, it is difficult to imagine how someone like
PewDiePie can reasonably view himself as somehow separate from
today’s media industry, or expect to be immune from competition and
attacks.
Making a living through partnerships with Disney and providing adsupported content for a conglomerate like Google would usually qualify
most others to be media professionals.
Yet, in another sense, PewDiePie is also right to draw the distinction. As a
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celebrity media maker of the internet age, he does exist in a different
sphere to the likes of The Wall Street Journal, and even in some ways to
Disney and YouTube, too.
The fact that media corporations can only sanction PewDiePie via the
withdrawal of their partnerships but can’t exclude him entirely is one
indication that we’re dealing with a different beast.
The best indication of this complicated relationship, though, is
PewDiePie’s future. If, indeed, he was only working for the media, we
might expect him to suffer such a scandal by withdrawing and fading.
That, however, seems unlikely. This is a serious blow, but PewDiePie
wasn’t working for the media, or at least for YouTube or Disney alone. In
today’s landscape, he is the media, and he will continue accordingly.
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11 Comments
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Alan Gannaway
“Given all of this context, it is difficult to imagine how someone like PewDiePie can
reasonably view himself as somehow separate from today’s media industry, or
expect to be immune from competition and attacks.”
Have you watched his content? He’s not that bright. He has an unsophisticated
and undemanding audience.
I don’t think he or his fans are capable of getting their heads around this call for
reflection.
Just because someone makes money we regard them as somehow “savvy”. Quite
often wealthy, successful people are actually pretty dumb.
I hope the trad media aren’t just failing to report his anti-Nazi material; actually I
don’t think there is any.
PewDiePie, new media
stars and the court of
public opinion
Just like old media he just produces content mindlessly because that’s what he
does
and, just like
old media,
riddles it with his prejudices
YouTube
games
starhe unconsciouslyCollaborations
are key and
getsPewDiePie
defensive when
gets picked
is that
playing
for up.
to kickstarting your
global dominance
YouTube career
Guess what Kjellberg, they are right. You are The Media!
YouTube Red is here,
and it breaks the
video-on-demand mould
4 days ago • Report
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Bryn “Cybermat47” Watkins
logged in via Google
In reply to Alan Gannaw ay
What I want to know is where are his anti-Semitic jokes?
If you watch the video, it’s clear that he’s calling Keemstar an antisemite. He didn’t ask people to say “Death to all Jews”, he asked them
to say “Death to all Jews, subscribe to Keemstar.”
Given Keemstar’s infamous content, it’s fairly obvious.
3 days ago • Report
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