I think Pewdiepie's main reason for success is the opposite of what you just said. Differently from other youtubers, he seems real and honest, not built artificially to target a specific audience.

Have you ever watched Meme Review or You Laugh You Lose? Nobody is like that IRL, these videos are made on lots of energy drink. He has a lot of honest videos too, but those are not where most of his revenue comes from. He also admitted that he used "forced positivity" for a long time to gain subscribers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyGI1uHyyws

Maybe I'm biased because I'm a fan. But there is a large difference between forced positivity and "misogynistic tendencies, playing with racial slurs". I'm not saying he's not partly performing, but he's not the misogynistic/racist character you were suggesting.

Oh yes he is. How do you explain the „respecting wamen“ thing? „Death to all Jews“ - yeah it was just a joke, right? „F‘n N-Word“ in a live stream. The incidents add up. He’s probably not serious, but he does play around, I don’t know how you can deny that if you have seen a lot of his videos.

I've watched pewdiepie vids and think they're completely retarded but pewdiepie as a person is a genius because he knows the largest demographic on youtube are immature youngsters who have tons of time to watch youtube. So he creates content to cater to that demographic's quirks.

His real persona comes through pretty frequently though, which is why people like him, imo. When he does longer gaming videos, or more serious videos, you can see what he is really like to some degree. Most of his viewers should be very aware that the PewDiePie persona isn't who he actually is in real life, which is a departure from other YouTubers who always have their "TV personality" on while they are recording. Even in his less serious videos, every once in a while he will break from his PewDiePie persona and have a bit of more serious commentary, which makes him seem very genuine, while still being entertaining. The viewers know he is having fun and joking around in his videos, rather than trying to act like he is something he's not.

I've never watched pewdiepie but I assume his audience is too young to be on reddit or 4chan or to having been rejected by women for so long as to consider themselves to be celibates.

It's funny that you say his audience is too young for reddit, since the Pewdiepie's subreddit r/PewdiepieSubmissions/ has more than 700k subscribers.

How would you know any of that without actually knowing him IRL for the contrast?

Afaik your IRL description is one he gave about himself, where he also explained that he initially used YouTube to get past his "awkward around other people" issue.

In that context, I find it hard to believe that people could consistently play a "fake-persona" without that ever influencing their normal mannerisms, particularly when they have to summon this "fake-persona" on a near-daily basis.

> How would you know any of that without actually knowing him IRL for the contrast?

I follow him around a lot, and as you said, you cannot hide personality traits forever. E.g. he definitely is not misogynstic, but he plays that card often during Meme Review or his other weekly formats to cater to his Reddit audience. I honestly believe he speaks for his real self in his social commentary videos.

I've had a few phases were I binged a couple of his videos over the years, as such it feels like I've actually seen him kinda grow up.

I don't think it's really a "card" he consciously plays, it's much more a reflection of the culture he lives in and caters to, as a gamer.

Not all use of misogynistic language has misogynistic intent, particularly not when it's been an established part of the sub-culture. And in that context, this recent need to "enforce PCness", particularly in gaming culture [0], DID trigger a massive reactionary backlash that most of the industry and especially the mainstream seems still to be ignoring.

Gaming has always been about freedom and creativity, just hinting at intent to censorship [1] is enough to cause a, usually very loud, reaction. Right now the industry as a whole is running into a wall it won't be breaking through, instead it's paying the price by losing customers en mass. Take a look at recent EA, Ubisoft, Activision stock development and you will see exactly what I mean.

Other factors play into that as well, like over monetization of products which are often of very shallow quality. Case in point: Fallout 76

Or simply misreading what your customers actually want: Blizzard with Diablo immortal.

All these issues have brought the community to a breaking point, and now the most visible and biggest industry players are feeling the brunt of it.

[0] https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/14/17572060/rainbow-six-siege...

[1] https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/21/18106429/rainbow-six-sieg...

With the audience that he has, he HAS to hold himself to higher standards. I get that he would burn out if he didn’t do what he liked, but he could at least let Brad edit it all out.

> he definitely is not misogynstic, but he plays that card often

"He's not racist, he just says racist stuff often" "He's not a serial killer, he just murders people often"

It's not a great excuse, really.

"They are not authoritarian, they just censor your language."

But I guess intent doesn't matter, it's all about the optics, right?

It's kinda amazing how ESRB 18+ games can have players commit the cruelest and bloodiest violence, but as soon as somebody says a slur, that's suddenly "crossing a line".

> players commit the cruelest and bloodiest violence,

Generally against fictional entities inside a computer.

> but as soon as somebody says a slur

Generally to or about a real person. That's why there's a difference.

I agree, he should think a bit more before he says things, or just let his editors cut the problematic stuff out.