During a recent video, Felix 'PewDiePie' Kjellbeg shared his thoughts on the ongoing "cancel culture" debate. The hugely popular YouTuber believes that "cancelling" someone (the act of no longer supporting a figure over something illegal/offensive they might have done) can be "ridiculous" and dangerous.
Kjellbeg himself has well over 105 million followers on YouTube at this point, and is no stranger to controversy. One video, posted in January 2017, saw him pay two men over Fiverr to hold up a sign that read "Death to Jews". It saw him lose at least two partnerships, but didn't do much to damage his devoted following.
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In the intervening years, Kjellbeg has expressed regret for many of the ill-advised and controversial uploads he made. In his most recent video, he touched on the problematic nature of cancel culture and how he feels celebrities and content creators being cancelled for older content they made years ago might not be the best course of action.
Kjellbeg made specific reference to the recent cancellation of Jenna Marbles over a series of racially offensive videos posted between 2011 and 2012. In one of these uploads, Marbles donned blackface to impersonate rapper Nicki Minaj. Another featured a rap with an offensive joke about Asians.
"With Jenna, that was actually nine or ten years ago. To me, that changes things a lot, especially if I know that person has grown out of that. That doesn't make it okay, what they did, but at the same time I don't see a reason to drag them through the dirt because of it," he said.
"Remember when James Charles was canceled," he continued, "and the entire world was so sure that he was a predator? The amount of people that spread that message around, causing him to almost be suicidal. Did we learn anything from that? ... This is just ridiculous.
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"No one learned anything. If anything this is worse now. Did we learn that maybe we shouldn't point fingers before we know the truth? No. Those days are over. I have definitely become so much more aware of not just what I say, but how what I say can be perceived. Because it's not just what you meant. It's if you can take a portion of what you said, and it seems like something else. That's enough. That's how careful you have to be."
While it's true that cancel culture can often spiral out of control, too many people these days instantly equate the practice with simply holding people to account. Calling out figures for predatory or abusive behaviour, or offensive content is by no means a bad thing. It's how we respond and move forward that's most important.
Featured Image Credit: PewDiePie/YouTube