SOCIOPOLITICAL GAUNTLET: INFLUENCER RESPONSIBILITY

If you’ve been on the internet at all lately, you’ve heard that YouTuber JonTron’s voice was pulled from the critically acclaimed indie title Yooka-Laylee after his racist tirade. You’ll also know that we are in the thick of “#PewDieGate”. If that reads as a foreign language to you, I’ll give you the PewDiePie origin story. PewDiePie, actual name Felix Kjellberg, is a YouTuber. Not just another YouTuber, though – the current biggest YouTuber, clocking in over 53 million subscribers. That’s more than a lot of A-list celebrities on Twitter! PewDiePie started YouTube somewhere around 2010 – but things really took off for him around 2012 when he hit his first million subscribers. He’s been a part of several MCN’s (Multi-Channel Networks) and Time magazine even named him one of “The World’s 100 most Influential People” in 2016.

I want you to hold onto that word “influential” for the duration of this article.

So what exactly is #PewDieGate and why does it matter? I hope you like dumpster fires, because this one is on wheels.

The short of it: After a history of anti-Semitic “jokes”, PewDiePie used gig site Fiverr (where people will do anything for $5) to commission two foreign, non-English speaking men to dance around with a sign that said “Death to all Jews” – I know, bizarre, but you can’t even make this kind of shit up.

Is what PewDiePie did in bad taste? Absolutely. Is he ACTUALLY a full-fledged Nazi? No. Was YouTube/Disney right to back away from him? Yes. Will PewDiePie survive this? For sure. Did the Wall Street Journal create an out of context clickbait article on the whole ordeal? Without a doubt. Was there more PewDiePie could have done to cover his ass? Not really. Are journalists having a field day with this and missing the bigger picture? As usual, yes.

But with the onslaught of all these articles, videos, tweets, and content that weigh in on the controversy, every last one of them misses the bigger picture.

What is the bigger picture?

Do these YouTubers even matter?

Unfortunately, they do – immensely. Anytime an influencer loses their fuckin’ marbles, the discourse online is divisive at best, largely composed of defensive fans vs. progressives fighting against the normalization of hate speech. But there are a large amount of apathetic flesh-bags who feel lukewarm to these situations entirely, repeating the anthem of “who cares about these guys anyways? I don’t.”

Hey, good for you. Nobody cares about you, either. The reality is that we live in a world where roughly 300 hours of new content is uploaded to YouTube per minute, and that number dramatically increases year over year. More kids aged 8-25 watch YouTube content than anything else, either on their mobile device(s), smart TVs, computers, laptops or consoles…YouTube is extremely accessible to say the least. A lot of parents of the younger demographic don’t even realize what their kids are watching, and “gaming content” can seem harmless enough on the surface. This sets a huge stage with an enormous built-in audience for questionable and egregious influencers.

In the gaming community specifically – between YouTube, Twitch, and media sites like RoosterTeeth – we live in an era of personalities that become more famous and important to the consumers than any A-list celebrity; this is widely because of a much more sincere and organic connection with the person and their subsequent content.

It is easier to appreciate someone when they are making only content you like, enjoy the same things you do, run their own social medias, are responsive, and have chats/discords/forums you can communicate in to facilitate that connection. This leaves a lot of impressionable people feeling a much closer bond and loyalty to these individuals than may be healthy. And why not? It’s fantastic to find a person you idolize, to aim to do what they do one day – the motivation that a lot of influencers instill in people is invaluable, and a hugely important asset within the evolution of the gaming industry and within society in general.

Influencers have the power to use their platforms to change the world, and a lot of them are trying. They’ve learned “how” to use their voice appropriately to present their views; political and personal alike. The stark difference between A-list celebrities and influencers are that, for the most part, influencers are on their own as far as management and PR is concerned, whereas A-list celebs have teams of people using all the Scarlet Witch tricks in the book to create the illusion of a perfect reality for <insert celebrity here>. Learning how to manage your own brand, especially when YOU are your brand, is incredibly difficult, and you WILL make mistakes.

“With great power, comes great responsibility.” – Uncle Ben

See? He said it. It's right there.

Uncle Ben didn’t die for our sins so a handful of a bozos on pedestals could normalize hate speech and use their fan-funded platforms to push their ill-advised agendas. If we refuse to accept this incredulous behavior from our government, we should doubly refuse to accept it from within our tender communities where our voices are louder. Influencers have a social obligation to be appropriate role-models for their younger fans. There is no other way to cut that. If you were holding in your racism like a fart for years while building your brand and you feel comfortable enough to finally unclench your anti-Semitic butthole, you can’t honestly act incredulous when people react, and fiercely.

But they do. They act like their dirty-shit-mouths aren’t “real issues”. That shame on people for reporting on their shortcomings instead of fist-fighting ISIS instead. You can’t diffuse your fuck-ups by pointing at another fuck-up. Point that finger right in the mirror.

“Basically, YouTubers need to face the reality that with the fame and fortune they worked so hard for comes caveats. Once you start influencing millions of minds, of course people are going to notice when you do something that crosses a line. PewDiePie, JonTron, and those defending them seem taken aback, horrified even, that the likes of the Wall Street Journal would bother with them, that they’re being focused on instead of “real issues” without realizing they are the issue now.

They’re the next generation of celebrity, and guess what, celebrities get talked about.”

- Jim Sterling, YouTubers Say The Darndest Things

This is the bigger picture.

This is what many are failing to grasp during #PewDiePieGate and now JonTron’s comments, and we need to focus on this.Influencers are the new celebrity. It is arguable they have a much greater impact than “actual” celebrities these days and, as such, should be held accountable. While PewDiePie probably isn’t an actual racist, he is an actual idiot and his “shock value” stunt isn’t read as comedic by the majority of his fans.

A lot of fans are extremely critical of their influencers’ behaviors and vernacular, subsequently mimicking and using any joke as leverage to justify their own questionable behavior and agendas. This is extremely dangerous. Hate-speech is a contagion, and fans will defend their favorite influencer blindly, which reads a lot like Celebrity Worship Syndrome. This dissociate behavior makes it all too easy to normalize hate speech. When you are normalizing hate speech to literally millions of impressionable fans, you are public enemy number one.

Thanks for reading.

To make this article more fun please re-read it and take a shot every time I say “influencer”.

#pewdiepie #influencers #internetculture #jontron