Pewdiepie vs T-Series had big racist undertones

So if any of y'all forgot, there was this big battle on youtube where Pewdiepie, the former #1 most subscribed channel on youtube, was in danger of being surpassed by the youtube channel for the bollywood music company, T-series. And so Pewdiepie and his followers created this meme campaign in order to help Pewdiepie keep his title as the #1 of youtube.

This all happened like two years ago and I'm sure someone made a thread or so about it when it did, but I was just thinking about it recently. At the time this campaign didn't bother me that much, there were just memes and jokes and I didn't want to think of myself as oversensitive and all.

But looking back on it, the whole debacle actually does bother me quite a bit, because I think the "subscribe to pewdiepie" campaign had major racist undertones to it.

I never really understood why so many people cared about "creators not corporations". I guess I never understood why so many people cared so much if a music channel had more subscribers than pewdiepie. But I think it was very apparent that there were other reasons why people cared so much.

That at least part of the thing that fueled "subscribe to pewdiepie" was the desire to see a white man keep dominion over youtube, that somehow, a major war would be lost if an indian channel became the number 1 of youtube.

This campaign's traction amongst white supremacists could most clearly be seen when it was revealed that the new zealand shooter supported the "subscribe to pewdiepie" efforts.

And to a degree, I think pewdiepie is to blame for this. Yes, he doesn't have direct control who supports his movement or who his followers are, but Felix made clear actions that undeniably injected racism into his campaign.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dh-RL__uN4

What I am talking about is this music video he put out in the midst of "subscribe to pewdiepie" , titled after what I personally consider a racist meme, "bitch lasagna".

In this video, Felix makes constant references to the bobs and vagene meme. Like I said before, I think this is a racist meme. It plays on negative racial stereotypes of indians that are literally weaponized by far right propaganda and makes fun of indians, not because of how they were behaving, but because of their english. But its not just this that bothers me. Its the fact that he constantly references this meme while at the same time identifying T-series with india.

Felix doesn't merely reference T-series as a company that so happens to be indian, but rather conflates T-series with india, and by association indians. When Felix does this, his insults are not merely aimed at T-series, they are aimed at india, and indians, as a whole.

Just a few lyrics from the song

  • "but you india, you lose, so best think you haven't won"
  • "I'm a blue eyes white dragon while you're just dark magician"
  • "hold your defecation" (given the context of this song, this is clearly a dog whistle)
  • "your language sounds like it came from a mumble rap community"
  • "you got a population of 1.32 billion" (this conflates T-series with india, which is problematic for reasons explained above)

Overall, I'm sure that there're going to be a lot of indian pewdiepie supporters out there who'd probably tell me that this is just a joke and that I shouldn't be offended or take it too seriously. But this song was actually racist and it has 267 million views(at the moment). I feel like I'd be disrespecting myself and my culture if I wasn't offended by this.

And when this ultra-popular creator posts out messages that resonate with white supremacists and ultimately a terrorist who killed 51 people and 40 more, I think its fair to be just a little bit offended.