Oh I wasn't suggesting that what he said wasn't meant to be provocative, the main instance they picked up was ill considered and in bad taste, but then if you watch any of his other videos this really shouldn't be a surprise.
The hit job was some of the other items they'd cut together to make the "anti-semetic" charge stick. One item where he was comparing youtube policies to those of the Nazi's (i.e. casting both in a negative light) the WSJ used as "proof" he was pro-Nazi. that's what prompted my thought of the quote.
A recurring pattern I've seen with online celebrities is that when they get popular enough for more mainstream media to notice them, they're suddenly held to the standards of mainstream sensibilities and judged in a mainstream light that can be very incompatible with their brand.
And their fans then defend them with "If you've seen their other stuff, you'd know that isn't unusual," which is a pretty thin defense---a bit like defending an arsonist with "Oh sure, nobody cared when they burned down all those grocery stores, but now that the WSJ is reporting on that orphanage..."
No. The whole reason pewdiepie and other personalities on youtube have such high viewership is because mainstream media hasn't had anyone funny for decades. Anyone fresh, honest or even just equally offensive to every group has been purged from the airwaves for being politically incorrect. Even Dave Chappelle is getting in hot water for jokes that no one would have objected to 10 years ago.
I don't see how what you're saying opposes what fixermark is saying. Sure mainstream media may not be providing good material, but the way to fix this isn't to not hold people accountable for their actions.
If holding people accountable for their actions kills a joke, the joke wasn't very good. This is one of the points slowbeef makes in the essay; part of the reason YouTube let's-players end up offending is the nature of the project doesn't leave them time to simmer jokes long enough to be good.
> There’s an apparent double standard, right? Comedians tell AIDS jokes, Holocaust jokes, 9/11 jokes and much more. When a popular YouTuber does it, it’s suddenly being reported by the media (and, cough, other YouTubers). Didn’t George Carlin once say no topic is off limits?
> There really is a joke there somewhere at Fiverr’s expense, and I think that’s what he was going for.
> The parts are there, loosely, if you cock your head and squint a bit. There’s an air of exploitation (on Fiverr’s part, but also often claimed to be on PewDiePie’s part) but it was a rush job. Seinfeld, in contrast, maps out goofy jokes about Pop Tarts down to the syllable.
I read and understood what slowbeef wrote. Delivery is the unmentioned point of discussion -- landing the delivery. It's the difference in whether a joke is funny or not. But changing delivery keeps the raw essence of the joke the same.
And I don't think it's fair to call it "holding someone accountable", if the same raw essence of a joke told with better delivery is suddenly OK. It's the same accountable action. If you're really interested in "holding someone accountable", shouldn't the same raw essence of a joke be wrong no matter how it's delivered?
I don't disagree that delivery is extremely important to landing a joke and it being funny. I do disagree that holding people accountable for bad delivery of a joke is somehow a moral impetus. That good joke was just as morally bad as the bad joke.
In other words, you could have taken a lot of George Carlin's material and run it through the ultra-politically-correct filter and come out deaf from the blaring alarms. But he's somehow above moral reproach because he's good at it? I don't buy it.
I think all this really goes back to the idea: Only the fool can criticize the king. Anyone else, and it was grounds for treason. I would have hoped we moved beyond that model.
I think the point is that there is no king. Or rather, kings are manufactured at will based on outrage, and outrage is dependent on delivery. Land the joke, and no one calls treason on you. Whiff and there's an angry mob with pitchforks.
I think that's why you see a lot of people saying that none of this was surprising for people who knew his material before hand. And I think the comparison elsewhere to shock-jocks is very apt. Such material is often suddenly found lacking when it gains an audience wider than it was targeted for.
And this also plays into the wider idea of, how responsible should a speaker be for "triggering" [0] a listener? That's a very heavy burden when your audience suddenly -- and not necessarily intentionally -- becomes "everyone".
[0] Yes, this is a somewhat lax usage of that term. However, it is also a common usage, so I use it as such.
which is not the point I was referring to , nice way to take my comment of out context. For avoidance of doubt I originally said
("The hit job was some of the other items they'd cut together to make the "anti-semetic" charge stick. One item where he was comparing youtube policies to those of the Nazi's (i.e. casting both in a negative light) the WSJ used as "proof" he was pro-Nazi. that's what prompted my thought of the quote.")
My point was the the part where they conflated PewdiePies comparison of Youtube and the Nazi's as being him supporting the Nazi's, this was entirely take out of context. I wasn't referring to the sign there at all.
The hit job was some of the other items they'd cut together to make the "anti-semetic" charge stick. One item where he was comparing youtube policies to those of the Nazi's (i.e. casting both in a negative light) the WSJ used as "proof" he was pro-Nazi. that's what prompted my thought of the quote.