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Felix Kjellberg: From Hotdog Seller to Superstar PewDiePie
Known online as PewDiePie, Felix Kjellberg is one of the internet’s biggest stars — he has more than 100 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, and over 24 billion views. The PewDiePie channel is best known for its irreverent gaming content, shot in a “Let’s Play” style — videos of Kjellberg playing video games while giving an expletive-strewn running commentary. "Let’s play" became a hugely popular YouTube genre, and PewDiePie its superstar; his repertoire has expanded to include live-action and animated comedy shorts.
But as the Swede’s fame has grown, his behavior has become increasingly controversial. He apologized in 2012 for use of “gay” and “retard” as supposedly playful insults and for making rape jokes — but after he posted videos containing anti-Semitic and Nazi imagery , he was dropped in February 2017 by his network partner, the Disney-owned Maker Studios; he was also ejected from YouTube’s Red platform and the Google Preferred program. He apologized, claiming his humor had been taken out of context, only to blurt the n-word months later during a live stream in September 2017. Like his videos, PewDiePie’s future appears to bedisturbingly unpredictable.
But as the Swede’s fame has grown, his behavior has become increasingly controversial. He apologized in 2012 for use of “gay” and “retard” as supposedly playful insults and for making rape jokes — but after he posted videos containing anti-Semitic and Nazi imagery , he was dropped in February 2017 by his network partner, the Disney-owned Maker Studios; he was also ejected from YouTube’s Red platform and the Google Preferred program. He apologized, claiming his humor had been taken out of context, only to blurt the n-word months later during a live stream in September 2017. Like his videos, PewDiePie’s future appears to bedisturbingly unpredictable.
