The fallout from PewDiePie's anti-Semitic public comments continues, as the YouTube star's second season of his horror reality show has reportedly been canceled.
It has been a nightmare few days for YouTube sensation Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg. Although the primarily video game-based content creator has always felt comfortable making controversial statements, his latest fifteen minutes in the spotlight could genuinely threaten the burgeoning career of the online star. After uploading recent videos that featured heavily anti-Semitic undertones - and overtones, in the case of the video that showed two men holding a sign that says "Death To All Jews" - PewDiePie now finds himself bleeding valuable media deals by the day.
It began yesterday, when the deal between Disney and PewDiePie was abruptly cut short in an official statement from Disney and subsidiary Maker Studios, with both companies citing PewDiePie's flagrant anti-Semitism as the main reason for the end of their business relationship. Now, a YouTube spokesperson revealed to Variety that PewDiePie's YouTube Red show, Scare PewDiePie, has had its second season canceled. The spokesperson also revealed that YouTube had decided to remove the PewDiePie channel from its Google Preferred section, which is an even bigger blow to ad revenue.
While the YouTube spokesperson declined to comment on the exact reason for the website's actions against PewDiePie, it's hard to imagine it would be for anything but the most recent controversy he finds himself in. PewDiePie's relationship with YouTube has been a little strained in recent months even before this misstep, however, as the YouTuber frequently criticized the website's new video recommendation algorithms.
PewDiePie has since apologized for his actions and the production of the videos being cited as anti-Semitic, but his online persona has led some to question the sincerity of his apology as well. PewDiePie recently committed to deleting his YouTube channel once he hit 50 million subscribers before backing out, an event that made many of his subscribers vocally angry with the content creator.
In a statement regarding the earlier severance of Disney from anything PewDiePie related, the YouTuber defended himself, stating that he thinks of the content he creates "as entertainment, and not a place for any serious commentary". PewDiePie has yet to respond to this latest news, but it now seems safe for his fans to begin worrying about whether or not this could be the end of PewDiePie's long-standing dominance of YouTube's video game community. Losing the support of two major industry leaders in the span of two days can't be an easy pill to swallow, and there could be more fallout yet as PewDiePie's comments begin to receive even more mainstream coverage.