YouTube creator PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, recently mocked a deaf woman on his YouTube channel, which, sadly, isn’t actually surprising considering his history. Kjellberg is the biggest individual YouTube creator of all time, with a channel boasting 111 million subscribers. He started his channel in 2010, and back then, it was largely a gaming channel, with his Let’s Play videos racking up huge viewership numbers. As his channel grew, his content became more varied and expanded to include vlogs, comedy shorts, formatted shows, and music videos.
From the very beginning, though, Kjellberg has been a problematic creator and has often been steeped in controversy. Shortly after he debuted his channel, he became known for sick rape jokes. These jokes trivialized sexual assault and even went as far as him posting a music video titled “It’s Raping Time.” In 2017, he uploaded a video in which he paid 2 men to hold up a sign that read “Death to All Jews.” After this incident, he uploaded a separate video in which he used a racial slur.
His anti-Semitic rhetoric has conjured him up quite a following of alt-right groups, Nazis, and white supremacists. He was even name dropped by the Christchurch shooter in 2019. Kjellberg has apologized after all of these instances of controversy and said he was “sickened” to learn his name had been used in the Christchurch shooting. However, despite apologizing and claiming that he has grown and will do better, he still continues to do harm, and his latest target was the deaf community.
PewDiePie mocks deaf TikTok creator
On July 26, 2022, Kjellberg uploaded a video to YouTube titled “My Dog Cringes At TikToks…” The video saw him and his dog, Maya, watching TikTok videos and poking fun at the ones they deemed “cringy.” Soon, the duo came across a video from Scarlet May (@scarlet_may.1), who is a popular deaf TikTok creator and communicates with sign language. The video Kjellberg reacted to was one of May telling a funny story that happened at a drive-thru. Kjellberg watched the video for maybe 2 seconds, with his eyes widening in mock horror. He then paused it and rudely said, “I’m not listening to this.”
He then grabbed his dog and commented that May has the same “crazy nails” as Maya. Kjellberg took things further by grabbing his dog’s paws and waving them around, seemingly in a very poor attempt to mimic sign language, and said, in an odd voice attempting to imitate May, “Sorry, are my nails distracting you?” Comments flowed in pretty quickly calling Kjellberg out for mocking a deaf creator. Initially, Kjellberg merely, silently, edited out the portion showing May’s video, likely thinking it would blow over.
Scarlet May responds to Kjellberg
Out of concern, many of May’s fans brought Kjellberg’s video up to her, and she posted a response on July 27, 2022. In the video, May explains that she was already aware of the video and that, sadly, she’s used to things like that. However, she has worked very hard to normalize the deaf community utilizing nails in their sign language, and it’s especially detrimental when a big creator like Kjellberg callously mocks her and sets her community a million steps backwards.
To her, it seemed like he didn’t like her nails, and she was fine with that—not everyone likes her nails. If that were really his whole problem, he could’ve commented on the nails and moved on. However, instead, he decided to mimic her sign language and her voice.
May also pointed out the most infuriating part of Kjellberg’s mockery—that he didn’t even watch the video. He didn’t even listen to her story or what she had to say before instantly attacking her. Meanwhile, she explained that she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, telling herself he must’ve not known that she was deaf or using sign language. However, the actions with his dog seem to confirm that he did know. May also criticized him for simply editing the video out, not apologizing or saying anything, and just going about his day like he did nothing wrong. Check out May’s response below:
Kjellberg responds to backlash
Only after May posted her response and called him out for keeping mum on the issue did Kjellberg make a statement. He pinned a comment to his video claiming he know didn’t May was deaf or using sign language. According to him, the only thing he was doing was poking fun at her nails. Supposedly, the voice is the same voice he always uses to make his dog talk and, by waving the dog’s paws, he was trying to poke fun at people on TikTok who are “always dancing or doing some move.” He ends the statement with “Anyway, honest mistake, my bad.”
He failed take any accountability for his actions or apologize to May. Basically, all he said is that it’s not a big deal and he didn’t do anything anyways. However, his actions are very serious, as I don’t think anyone is buying his claim that he wasn’t mocking her deafness or sign language. If that were the case, then he should’ve said something immediately and apologized instantly so that his actions were taken as such. Instead, he just silently deleted the footage in an attempt to pretend it didn’t happen and, when he continued to be called out, downplayed the seriousness of what he did and didn’t even have the decency to directly address and apologize to May.
(via: Cosmopolitan, featured image: YouTube)
