Time is circular. Here we are again, two days after the latest PewDiePie controversy, reporting on his subsequent apology.
ICYMI, the YouTube gamer recently dropped the words “fucking n*gger” while playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, quickly correcting himself and replacing the word with “asshole” instead, insisting that he “didn’t mean it in a bad way.”
It gives the impression that the word is part of his vernacular, and given his history (paying people to hold up a sign that said ‘Death to all Jews‘, tweeting that he joined ISIS, telling the Charlottesville white supremacists to “keep doing what you’re doing with your tiki torches” and endless homophobic slurs) doesn’t exactly invite sympathy that it was merely a slip in a “heated gaming moment”, as some of his defenders have been saying.
It was the last straw for many game developers, who have taken steps to remove PewDiePie’s videos which feature their games.
Following the controversy – and likely seeing his revenue streams start to take a hit (his past fuck-ups have seen him lose partnerships with Disney and YouTube) – PewDiePie (real name: Felix Kjellberg) posted an apology video, saying he was “disappointed” in himself and that the slur just “slipped out”.
“You probably won’t believe me when I say this but whenever I go online and I hear players use the same kind of language that I did, I always find it extremely immature and stupid. And I hate how I now personally fed into that part of gaming.
“It was something that I said in the heat of the moment, I said the worst word I could possibly think of, and it just sort of slipped out. I’m not going to make any excuses as to why I did it, because there are no excuses for it.
“I’m disappointed in myself, because it seems like I’ve learnt nothing from all these past controversies. And it’s not that I think I can say or do whatever I want and get away with it, that’s not it at all. I’m just an idiot.”
Many of PewDiePie’s defenders right now are claiming some kind of moral superiority over the word, trying to make nonsense claims that ‘gamers aren’t as sensitive as everyone else’ and they’re actually ‘removing the power of the word’.
*pewdiepie calls a gamer the n-word*
“It’s just a word!!”*people call pewdiepie racist*
“That word is SLANDER and I DON’T LIKE IT.”— Marina Watanabe (@marinashutup) September 12, 2017
Both of those arguments are insane. If you don’t get it, I don’t know how to tell you how easy it is not to use racist slurs. I don’t know how to tell you that whining that “black rappers can say it why can’t I?” is unbelievably dumb.
Here’s PewDiePie’s full apology vid, if you want to watch.
