Pewdiepie is constantly a source of controversy in the geek community. For any of you who somehow don’t know who he is, Pewdiepie is a YouTuber from Sweden. He started making YouTube videos over 4 years ago, doing commentary of him playing various “Call of Duty” games. He slowly starting gaining subscribers and eventually transitioned from “CoD” to horror games. His most popular game series, “Amnesia”, skyrocketed with popularity, and overtime has helped him become the person on YouTube with the most subscribers, at 31,050,730. His ads on his videos, along with his merchandise and other forms of profit, have allowed him to make on average one million dollars a year, meaning that YouTube is now his full-time job, and a successful one at that. Many geeks in the gaming/YouTube community despise Pewdiepie for this, claiming that he only does YouTube videos for the money. Not only that, but they are also angry about how he is the #1 subscribed person on YouTube, claiming that he isn’t funny and hasn’t earned it. Even if you do not like Pewdiepie’s style of commentary, it is biased to say that he hasn’t earned all of his success and fame. Back in July, Pewdiepie actually posted a video in which he reacted to his old YouTube videos, as well as explained how he became a successful YouTuber. He also constantly thanks his fans, which he calls “bros”, for getting him to the point where he is. In fact, he thanks them so constantly that sometimes I get annoyed watching them. But it just goes to show how nice and thankful Pewdiepie is for all of the support he has received these past four years. He also constantly donates money to charity, so he doesn’t just hoard all of his earnings for himself.
Despite all of this positive energy Pewdiepie gives to his bros, he still manages to be surrounded by controversy. The most recent spur of debate comes from him turning off the comments section on all of his videos forever. If anyone has ever wasted their time reading the comments section on literally any YouTube video, then they know what I’m talking about when I say that the YouTube comments section is absolutely horrible. Female YouTubers are constantly subjected to sexist and demeaning comments, especially FeministFrequency. More popular YouTubers, like Pewdiepie, John Green, Laci Green, Tobuscus, and others are constantly subjected to spam, hate, and arguments instead of actual, productive feedback from their respective audiences. Pewdiepie seems to get it worst of all, which makes sense, considering how many subscribers he has. More than half of his comments are usually insulting him, calling him various slurs and demeaning his success. This leads to a string of arguments surrounding these comments, even though Pewdiepie has constantly asked his supportive bros to ignore these comments. Other comments are also constantly filled with people self-promoting their own channels or posting various other kinds of spam. The comments section eventually filled up to the point where it wasn’t even for the true, loyal fans anymore.
Pewdiepie has turned off the comments section before, but almost one month ago, Pewdiepie made an update that he was officially turning them off for good. He mentioned how the comments were filled with negative messages from people who were not true fans, and how it was negatively impacting him and his outlook towards his fans and videos. He decided that turning off the comments was not only the best decision for him, but for all of his fans who were being subjected to these mean and pointless comments. He mentioned how he still wanted his loyal bros to continue communicating with each other as well as him, so he decided to post on Twitter and Reddit to keep the community of fans together. Many people have hated Pewdiepie even more for this decision, claiming that he no longer cares about his fans. Pewdiepie actually made an update video last week clearing up these misconceptions about why he disabled the comments. He said that it was not because he couldn’t handle the “haters” or because he didn’t care about making videos or his bros anymore. In fact, he said that he actually felt happier about this decision. He even has created a new website, broarmy.net, where his fans can post in forums with each other about various things, whether related to him or not. While it crashes quite often, it’s reasonable considering how many people are using it. It’s a very positive environment, filled with a community of Pewdiepie fans connecting, rather than being filled with hate, spam, and arguments. This shows how Pewdiepie still cares about his fanbase and isn’t a money-grabbing, egotistical YouTuber. You can tell when watching the update video how much happier he seems. There is no shame in removing toxic people and thoughts from your life, no matter what form they come in. Not only is he helping himself out by disabling comments, he is also creating a positive impact for his loyal fanbase.
Whether you enjoy Pewdiepie’s videos or not, there is no sense in hating him. Most people who do hate him do so out of jealousy or anger. They think that other YouTubers deserve the #1 subscribed title more than him, or work harder than him. I think that all YouTubers work hard on their videos, and there is nothing wrong about Pewdiepie being #1. In fact, I see it as a positive thing; more and more people are becoming part of the geek community. Geek culture is a very underlooked and demeaned thing, with a lot of misconceptions behind it. With Pewdiepie being #1, people are starting to see that being a geek is not a bad thing – you can even make a career out of it.
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