PewDiePie is under fire again this week due to a live stream in which he shouted the word "nigger." The reaction from Firewatch developer Campo Santo to file a DMCA takedown notice on PewDiePie's Firewatch YouTube video has created even more consternation. Fans have rushed to defend this insanely popular YouTuber, but I honestly have one thing to say to anyone who thinks it is ok to say that word. Stop.
@pewdiepie RACIST?? @KEEMSTAR @JohnScarce pic.twitter.com/ulAz45ZN28
— Felipe Diaz (@ThatFelipeDiaz) September 10, 2017
PewDiePie, Stop
It is time to stop acting like you are doing this accidentally. We all get mad at video games. I curse like a sailor, but never does that word come out of my mouth. It is not about the freedom of speech, either. This is about simple human decency.
PewDiePie casually said, “what a fucking nigger” on a live stream. The games press and social media have exploded about the topic and not a word from him. Instead, he posted a video today about other streamers’ “Stream fails” and has maintained radio silence across all his social media channels.
It is time for PewDiePie to actually step up and say what he did was wrong. It isn't even remotely sufficient to say that he regrets saying it on a live stream. That half apology simply implies that he thinks it is totally fine to casually throw that hateful word around in private company. It isn’t, and if you think it is you are part of the problem.
But Black People Say It
Black people took that word back from racists and made it their own. That does not make it ok for anyone to say that word in a derogatory manner. I don’t care how many rap albums you have purchased, that does not give anyone a pass to say that hateful word. Closet racism is still racism. Just because you aren't a bigot in public does not make you a good human being.
It isn’t just PewDiePie
I hear that horrible word when I play online multiplayer in a variety of games. COD, Halo, PUBG, and even Rocket League are all games that I have heard players shout that word and yell it at me. There have been times I have been invited into a Discord or Teamspeak and been met with the same horrific language. Racism is a societal problem and it is being amplified in the games community.
It isn’t just the N-word
Mysogyny, homophobia, racism, and all other forms of hate are truly amplified by the anonymity that online gaming provides. Some people revel in the ability to be genuinely awful people who pride themselves on saying as many offensive things as they possibly can in a given session. This goes beyond trolling and it is starting to divide the gaming community.
Choose a side
Two stories have popped up in the past week that sum up the video game world pretty well right now. Last week, Dean Takahashi drew tons of criticism over some Cuphead gameplay footage. People were asking him to kill himself, over gameplay footage. Now this week we have some people rushing to defend PewDiePie's rights despite his track record. It is more apparent to me than ever that GamerGate never ended and just like American society we are devolving into a two-sided argument. On one side lies bigotry, hate, misogyny, and a lot of terrible things I don't have time to name. On the other side lies respect, love, and simple human decency.
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Shacknews
replyAsif Khan posted a new article, PewDiePie, Stop
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This is a pretty great article. Thank you. It's really fucking sad that it needed to be written :-/
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Yea. I don't understand how it could be even a question.
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Accidental unf? That's a strange tag combo.
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I guess basic human decency is a lot to ask of a person.
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I'm there aren't enough sad face emojis for this post
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Thanks!
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Good article
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Wish he would rise to the opportunity of his audience and be an actual positive example for them. Dude has a ton of influence and is clearly a smart person, but acts like such a shithead so often. Gaming culture would be so much better if he just took some responsibility for his actions instead of doubling down or equivocating.
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Thanks Asif. That was a really great piece that kept it simple without missing a beat.
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This sums up my feelings pretty well.
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Right. It seems to me the only reason Campo Santo tried to use the DMCA violation thing was because the streaming services couldn't be bothered to do it for moral/ethical reasons. I'm certain the services could make that work if they cared to.
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Don't they have ways to report other violations aside from DMCA?
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I'm sure they do, and my assumption (clearly I don't know for sure) is that they did but nothing happened.
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Cause they would ban half their streamers and have no revenue.
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Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
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Yeah but anonymity is replaced by apathy in this case.
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Ban this guy, he said the f word
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Same with "sperg".
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I think it's situational. Used in an insulting and demeaning way, sure. Nuke the fucker. Arguments that degenerate into idiotic name calling should be curb stomped and punished.
On the other hand, I don't see the phrase "attn Nintendo fgts" as having a remotely similar connotation. I think we've really stolen the word and made it our own thing in the community over the years. It has a different meaning, a different usage, and it's a surprisingly positive and inclusive meme.
I'm not married to the term though, so if it goes then it's not like I'm going to feel like a fgt cuck snowflake. Inevitably it would just be replaced with a similar co-opted word in the same fashion.-
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Sexist comment incoming. I dont think women understand the emotional bond men build through projecting their insecurities upon each other. Whether those insecurities are real or fake, men bond over teasing each other. Thats why when you say a woman is "one of the guys", its because she understands that culture. She gives it as well as she takes it, and the men accept her for it.
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Definitely, and in more testosterone-fueled environments it only gets more prominent. There's a reason why it's called "locker room talk", although that umbrella covers some very negative behavior as well (as our esteemed President demonstrated when he hand waved away condoning sexual assault).
Obligatory "I'm not gay, but I'll fuck you in a game of gay chicken just to win" -
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For example: would you take me seriously if I defended catty woman culture like this and actually listen if I told you to stop making fun of it or wanting it to stop?
First woman thing I could think of - but honestly, it's all the same. I don't believe that sentiment is universal amongst either gender and I don't think it's good for anyone to hide behind excuses.
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Yah, in the US we get a pretty limited exposure to the reality of our country's history. Check out this book for a different perspective. It's a bit fry but it's fair and kind of important: https://www.amazon.com/Different-Mirror-History-Multicultural-America/dp/0316022365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1505230517&sr=8-1&keywords=a+different+mirror
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Great article! Thanks for writing that. I'm listening to Waypoints podcast on this topic right now and you echo a lot of their points. There are no excuses for this anymore.
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Nope. I think the legal question is very different. I understand anyone who questions the legal ramifications of using the DMCA in that manner. I don't understand anyone who defends the use of that racial slur.
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Thanks, Asif.
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Online gaming could be so great without the terribleness endorsed by guys like pewdiepie. Some of the best experiences are when its just people all talking, laughing working together. A great randoms L4D2 defense sticks out in my head. No trolls, no awful language or attacks. it was great.
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I would pay extra, in every game I play, to be able to play only with people who are nice. I don't even care that much if we win or lose. Just some sort "nice people" setting.
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yeah just with super strict one strike rules. That'd be awesome. You mess up you are OUT.
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Yeah I really enjoy when I get in a game with people who are excited, understanding that people make mistakes, encouraging, etc. Those are the times when I do my best and have the most fun. The people who shit on mistakes or whatever just fuck it up and make the game suck and everyone does worse because of it.
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I don't know exactly when but it seems to have turned into tryhards cursing at each other and slinging racist slurs.
Either you are just instantly assaulted with horrific language or you're screamed at for sucking, it's not a fun experience. Outside of good friends, family, and some Shackers, I just don't participate much anymore.
Was it always this toxic? I mean I remember some shitty chat during DOOM and Quake but it feels like the overall direction is part stoner / part shitlord / part legit racist / with a dash of try hard in there.-
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didnt feel that way, even in ealrier overwatch days. I still once in a blue moon get in there with a solid group of people who just want to play and have fun but....man. its worst than it used to be.
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I've given up on online play for the most part. It's just toxic. In the early days, when individuals set up their own game servers for others to play on (like QuakeWorld), the owner would boot and ban people for this kind of behavior. Now, it's a process to get someone booted from game servers.
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I do miss the days of CS with active admins and communities on servers. Nowadays Splatoon seems the best community but probably only because you can't communicate explicitly with anyone. I do think the silly miiverse posts and graffitti are all generally good natured though which is really nice to see.
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https://youtu.be/L8rMIQQnXIA
When max dropped an N bomb on stream he handled it the right way. I wasn't even mad. And he used it With a hard R too. It messed with my head for a little bit, but I know he's not racist and it did seem to be just an extremely unfortunate crosswiring of words in his head -- but that shit Felix did was almost like he says it or thinks it regularly which leads me to think he's comfortable with the word as something that refers to somebody. I'm admittedly less sympathetic toward him because he's a millionaire for uploading mediocre content to YouTube. -
People are stupid little shits on the internet. If he said this in a crowd he would get an ass beating.
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Good lord, Phil fucking Anselmo apologized for being a racist shithead quicker than this. Lord only knows if he means it but still, there's a timeframe to this sort of thing.
Hell Kathy Griffin apologized for that Trump bloody head thing and still lost pretty much all of her contracts and concerts. PDP is a (rich) YouTube jerkoff, this is going to destroy him probably.-
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Oh man it was epic how Paula Deen’s empire disassembled itself in like a week. Every four hours some major retailer or thing she had her name on said “lol nope”
I think the main thing is it’s hard to tell when someone apologizes because they really mean it and when they apologize because they’re in damage control mode.-
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The "KILL ALL THE JEWS" joke and its fallout got him dropped from a Disney-owned studio and Google dropped him from a preferred advertising program and canceled his YouTube Red series.
This incident got videos removed from a developer and I don't think this will be the last of it. If he doesn't untuck this fast then allowing him to continue hosting a video with your game on it will be seen as condoning him which will be toxic.
I mean this is a guy who once made $3M a year off of making videos of him playing shit on the Internet. For him to get dropped by major corporations and Campo Santo proving you can get a video of your stuff removed from his channel via DMCA (one article noted that the PDP Firewatch video has the "missing" symbols consistent with being removed involuntarily as opposed to voluntarily) and shit could get real fast. If Google and Apple remove his game from the app stores that could be big too.-
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It's a shame because I bet he has several million tucked away safely so he could give a fuck.
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Perfect. It really is that simple.
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Thanks :)
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Awww yeah
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IAWTAWWWYEAH
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IAWTIAWTAWWWYEAH
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Same here
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You're a good guy anhero.
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I still feel shitty about some dumb Jew "joke" I made last year or the year before when asking for some financial advice.
"Oh jeez, this post isn't funny. I'd better add a funny joke." https://i.imgur.com/NzDDiMo.gifv
To this day I haven't looked Borzoi in the eye.
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with my username, if people are going to tilt in RL there's about a 75% chance they'll go straight there. at least it usually means they're losing
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Will be interesting to see if he can muster enough humility to straight out apologize. I remain convinced it was probably a slip that he instantly regretted, and I don't agree with banning him from Youtube and whatnot - that'll just make a martyr out of him for all of his millions of fans that obviously don't have a problem with this incident. It's much better to see sponsors abandon him and people across the board rejecting the idea that something like this is OK. We have seen exactly how well screaming and pointing fingers works on racists in the last few years. It just makes things worse.
The longer he takes to acknowledge his mistake, the harder it is to believe that he's a decent human being. I wonder if he's worried about losing fans or their respect if he appears "weak", or if it's purely an ego thing. -
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It's time people stop thinking of Youtube streamers as some niche entertainment venue. Youtube/twitch/etc is the way kids get their content these days. This guy is Hollywood-level popular, and he's far from the only one making bank from social media content. Dom Mazetti drives a McLaren thanks to those BroScience videos.
It's a brave new world. -
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I'm having a hard time believing that PewPieDie planned this. And if he did, he's an even bigger dummy. This is the sort of thing that makes sponsors drop out. Sure, some people may learn about PewPieDie from this news, but it's not the sort of thing that would make most people want to start following him.
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It's just a prank marketing stunt, bro!
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I doubt that. If this was a constructed controversy, he would already have put out some sort of attempt at redemption and apologise profusely. Unless he's going full Trump and just wants that alt-right market all for himself.
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Glad this isn't being ignored. If his audience wasn't mostly teens and pre-teens, I wouldn't mind as much,
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Mostly the right things to say (besides some wishy washy language like 'if I offended anyone'). Hard to really take him at his word because this is like the 3rd one of these mea culpa videos I've seen him do. Just be better, dude heh.
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I mean, he's right. I don't believe him. I'm glad he can acknowledge what he said was awful and that he should know better - and that he should have already learned.
And I'm annoyed that being able to make a 1:35 minute video is going to now make folks inclined to say "what more do you want from him?" - because sometimes, you make enough mistakes you don't get to say you're sorry and take it back.-
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Oh, yeah, I think we are in agreement on what he is. Casual racist is spot on, and the most insidious right now (in my world.) Lots of people claiming they aren't at all racist, then exhibiting racist behaviors or backing racist things and explaining it away with hand waving "it's not because of racism, it's because X"
As with PDP, he said "he just thought of the worst thing he could say" - sure you did, buddy.
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So uh, after watching this I clicked on on of his other videos called "I'm banned" , skipped through it for 2 minutes or so, in that time span he trolls pay for service websites ala patreon by:
-sending a girl, a song by dj Adolf and asking her to dance to it
-sending a comic artist to draw a picture of his grandpa Joseph goebbels
-a few random jew puns/hatespeech references
And while at it has a giveaway on one of the most questionable of all key selling sites called g2a
While we were having the discussion about context, casual racism etc i wasn't really familiar with that guy's body of work. Soooo yeah, while I wasn't willing to presume if it was a casual run of the mill racism or something worse over a simple clip, im leaning into the worse camp now.
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He's a dumb 27 year old kid with too way too much money and way too much exposure. I wish he would just stop too, he's annoying and not talented or gifted or special in any meaningful way.
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He's a stupid fucking kid. I'm pretty sure he never grew up. Besides, he's younger than me, he's a kid ;)
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I'm pretty sure he never grew up.
That may very well be, but he's still an adult even if he's acting like a child, so he gets adult consequences and criticism. I don't know if you intended it that way, but "he's a dumb 27 year old kid" sounds too much like a "he's just a kid and doesn't know any better" dismissal.-
I meant it as in his brain is that of a child.
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JFC, he's really really immature.
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You'd never heard of PewDiePie?! The only thing I can think of that differentiates himself from other streamers is he makes a lot of obnoxious sounds and voices that attract children. He's like IT only uglier and maybe doesn't eat children. And since more kids watch more dumb shit than anything else on the planet he quickly rose through the ranks as one of the first famous paid youtubers (I think). It would have been someone else I'm sure but he's the one that lucked out.
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Same.
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I would guess the vast majority of his audience isn't even really ppl watching for purchasing advice, it's simply kids watching their favorite show on TV.
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He was one of the early prominent youtube ones. What differentiates him from normal people (afaik) is that he liked to shout and scream and act the fool and blurt nonsense out while playing scary games and stuff, and kids absolutely ate it up. Kids love all sorts of random garbage.
But it hardly seems different now as that sort of behavior feels way more common after his success.-
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More horrific than any word that can be said is someone telling you what you are allowed to say. I know words hurt, I've been bullied my whole life, but you know what hurts more? Someone beating the shit out of you.
A white person says nigger is automatically worse than hitler and the devil combined. Yet a black man said we have to kill all white people and no one bats an eye. Now think about that, why do white people eat each other over racism? It is intimated that we are somehow superior and we should know better. WE ARE NOT BETTER. We are all the same, yet even the suspicion of racism is a death sentence... IF YOU ARE WHITE.
I'm so fucking sick of a cracker saying something fucked up and the world stops turning. I consider all racism to BE EQUAL. And the world is so full of it, it's normal. So either stop it all, or let it all pass. Either way, fucking get over it. As we chat, genocides are happening, rapes, murders, the fucking planet being destroyed? And we waste time on this shit? When we get everything else covered, I'll back to this and we'll solve it. Fuck sakes.
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