In this day and age, everyone is using social media to get their message out there, ranging from restaurant chains like Wendy's to government officials. Social media is also being leveraged by police forces all over the world, including the NYPD, which actually trains the officers posting on its social media accounts to "be funny" in order to "build trust."
This was revealed by Vice, who got its hands on the social media training presentations. Apparently, the presentations even include an entire slide dedicated to PewDiePie, who is used as an example of how to "be funny" on social media. What's worth pointing out is that the presentation lists PewDiePie as only having around 54 million subscribers on YouTube, meaning it was likely made in 2017. It was that year that PewDiePie found himself in some hot water, having used a racial slur while live-streaming (an incident he later apologized for).
Of course, PewDiePie now has significantly more followers than he did a couple of years ago (over 98 million YouTube subscribers and counting), largely thanks to his heated rivalry with corporate-owned YouTube channel T-Series. The feud saw PewDiePie's fans engage in a number of stunts to boost the controversial YouTuber's subscriber count numbers, though ultimately T-Series beat PewDiePie in the race to 100 million subscribers.
The PewDiePie vs. T-Series feud saw the birth of the "subscribe to PewDiePie" meme, which itself became very controversial. There was one instance where the phrase was used to vandalize a memorial, and it was even uttered by the Christchurch mosque gunman. After these incidents, PewDiePie himself called for the end of the "subscribe to PewDiePie" meme and more or less ended his rivalry with T-Series.
It's unclear if the NYPD still uses PewDiePie as an example of how to "be funny" or not. The presentation is clearly dated, and it's possible that the police force is receiving a different kind of social media training. However, we won't know for sure unless the NYPD itself decides to more information on the matter.
Source: Vice