PewDiePie
Following the posting of videos featuring anti-Semitic content, Disney has severed their ties to the YouTube personality “PewDiePie”. His real name is Felix Kjellberg, a 27-year-old Swede who gained popularity by playing video games online, however he has transitioned to controversial non-gaming content.
In a statement Disney said, “Although Felix has created a following by being provocative and irreverent, he clearly went too far in this case and the resulting videos are inappropriate.”
PewDiePie’s account has removed videos from January 11, January 17, January 22 which featured controversal content such as an image of a sign that says “Death to All Jews” and showing a picture of a man dressed as Jesus Christ saying, “Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong.”
On Tumblr, PewDiePie commented on the controversy in a posting titled “Just to clear some things up…” In the posting, Kjellberg said, “I am in no way supporting any kind of hateful attitudes. I make videos for my audience. I think of the content that I create as entertainment, and not a place for any serious political commentary. I know my audience understand that and that is why they come to my channel. Though this was not my intention, I understand that these jokes were ultimately offensive.”
It is expected that Kjellberg was making nearly $15 million from his YouTube series as well as appearances and endorsements. YouTube currently lists his channel as having 53,170,530 subscribers. He also has a series on YouTube Red, the subscription based segment of YouTube.
In a video posted today, PewDiePie posted a video where he addressed “haters” while speaking highly of himself and his wealth.
Warning: The video does contain inappropriate language.
Disney purchased Maker Studios in 2014 and spent some effort into keeping the talent who was their biggest star, by far. When his contract was due, Disney created a joint venture with PewDiePie in order to keep the talent from going to independent or to a different YouTube network.