PewDiePie pulls $50,000 ADL donation after fan backlash and conspiracy theories

The controversial YouTuber has announced he will instead be donating to a different charity after doing more research
YouTube / PewDiePie
Megan C. Hills13 September 2019

Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie is walking back a $50,000 donation to the Anti Defamation League, following a surge of fan backlash and the controversial personality learning more about the charity. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, previously said he would be donating to the foundation which aims to stamp out anti-semitic hate speech and has criticised him in the past. He announced yesterday that he would be pulling the donation, apologised for “messing this up” and said he would be researching another charity to donate to instead with the same “intent that I had”.

The donation was first announced in a video posted on Tuesday, in which the YouTuber unveiled an award from the video streaming platform to celebrate hitting the 100 million subscriber benchmark. (Kjellberg is the first individual YouTube creator to reach this milestone, though an Indian music label named T-Series surpasses his subscriber count.)

The $50,000 sum was part of a sponsorship that browser extension Honey had partnered with Kjellberg on. He revealed that he had been “advised” to donate to the ADL while discussing the partnership, but had not done his research into the charity.

PewDiePie

He said, “When we were planning the collaboration, we thought it would be nice to donate to a charity as a way to celebrate. I made the mistake of picking a charity that I was advised instead of picking a charity I was personally passionate about which is 100 percent my fault."

He continued in the video posted below, “I didn’t know a lot of things that surfaced throughout this whole thing that doesn’t fit at all. These are things I would have known myself if I just would have taken my time. It doesn’t feel genuine for me to proceed with the donation at this point and I instead want to take my time, keep the intent that I had and do it with the right charity.”

PewDiePie has previously made numerous anti-semitic jokes, which have included Nazi imagery including swastikas and dressing up as an SS soldier. He also posted a now infamous video in which he reviewed the site Fiverr, where he paid an Indian duo called Fiverr Funny Guys to unveil a message that read “death to all Jews” on camera. Kjellberg apologised for the latter incident in the same video - which he claimed was his attempt to prove how anybody "would do anything for five dollars" - and additionally in a follow up video, in which he appealed for Fiverr to unban the duo from the service (who admitted they did not know what the message meant) and to ban him instead.

Following a 2017 Wall Street Journal article investigating the prevalence of anti-semitic language and imagery in his videos, many called for brands such as Disney to cut ties with Kjellberg. After Disney ended their relationship with Kjellberg, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt congratulated Disney on the decision.

Greenblatt said, “ADL commends Disney’s decision to sever ties with PewDiePie following his posting of videos on YouTube containing swastikas and other anti-Semitic content, including an image of two men holding a sign saying ‘death to all Jews.’”

Getty Images

He continued, “This clearly crosses a line, but is becoming all-too commonplace on social media. In the past few months we have seen a proliferation of similar anti-Semitic messages and memes on social media. PewDiePie is entitled to his brand of humour, but neither Disney nor any other company has any obligation to support his wide dissemination of hate speech.”

Kjellberg was also named in the ADL’s roundup of 2018’s top 11 moments of hate.

Kjellberg claimed that following the announcement of the ADL donation, his fans had gone “full conspiracy mode” pointing out the ADL’s prior criticism of him. Others theorised that he had been pressured into making the donation by everyone from YouTube to the ADL themselves. He clarified that was not the case and that beyond the ADL being recommended to him during sponsorship talks, the decision had been “rushed” and not researched well enough by the star. He added that the negotiations had taken place over the course of his recent wedding to Marzia Bisognin, subsequent honeymoon and the countdown to his 100 million subscriber milestone.

YouTube

"Usually when I pick a charity I take my time,” he said, “I find a charity I'm really excited about and actually passionate to donate to, so when I uploaded the video talking about the charity, it was very brief and people could something was off.”

He continued, “I saw [the ADL donation] as an opportunity to put an end to these alt-right claims that have been thrown against me. It wasn't to try and clear my name or save grace. If it was I would have done it years ago.”

Kjellberg distanced himself from the alt-right and neo-Nazis in 2017, when he said in a video following a white supremacist rally in the US, “If for some reasons Nazis think it’s great that I’m making these jokes, I don’t want to give them that benefit. So I’m going to stop doing it. Nazi memes, they’re not even that funny anymore….It’s not me censoring myself, it’s more like I don’t want to be part of this.”

He also apologised for his use of anti-semitic language following the Wall Street Journal investigation, saying he was "sorry for the words I used as I know they offended people". He also additionally used the N-word while livestreaming in 2017, igniting accusations of racism against the star, and apologised for using it.

Controversy: PewDiePie, real name Felix Kjellberg, one of the world's biggest YouTube stars
PA

Kjellberg was also connected to the Christchurch mosque shooting which claimed the lives of 51 people, after the white supremacist shooter livestreamed the incident and name-dropped Kjellberg during the video. Kjellberg said he was “absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person” at the time and said it had played into his decision to donate to the ADL.

Kjellberg said yesterday, “After the Christchurch tragedy, I felt a responsibility to do something about it because it’s no longer just about me, it affected other people in a way, and I’m not okay with that.”

“I’ve struggled to figure out with how to do that, but this is not the right way to go about it,” he continued. “I knew it wasn’t perfect, but I also didn’t know a lot of things that surfaced throughout this whole thing about the charity that doesn’t fit at all. So I understand why people had concerns about it.”

PewDiePie has apologised for using the word
PewDiePie/YouTube

Following the initial backlash, Kjellberg originally defended his donation to the ADL. He said in a now deleted tweet, “Making a donation to ADL doesn’t make sense to everyone, especially since they’ve outright spoken against me. I wanted to show publicly that I can move past it and move on. I think that it’s important, this just isn’t my fight anymore.”

Kjellberg has not announced which charity he will instead be donating to, however the ADL previously released a statement saying that they had no prior knowledge of Kjellberg’s donation.

“ADL learned about the potential donation from Felix Kjellberg when everyone else did: when he made the announcement on his channel earlier this week. We have not received any communication from him beyond that,” they said.

To find out more about the Anti Defamation League, you can follow a link to their website here. Stop Hate UK is a leading national organisation that aims to wipe out hate crimes and discrimination and more information is available at their website here.

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