Why Are Media Outlets Targeting YouTubers?

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Commodore

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In the past few weeks two large YouTubers, JonTron and PewDiePie have been targeted by large media organizations with baseless accusations about them being racist and supporting Nazis. Since there is no accuracy to these accusations whatsoever, I'm left scratching my head as to why media organizations would be running smear campaigns against popular YouTubers. It's not that bad with JonTron, but with PewDiePie even supposedly credible media organizations like the Wall Street Journal are getting in on the act.

The only reason I could possibly think of for these smear campaigns is maybe large media organizations feel threatened by popular YouTubers as more and more people turn to them for information and entertainment instead of established media organizations.

What do you guys think? Why would media organizations risk losing credibility by making false accusations and running baseless smear campaigns against popular YouTubers?
 
I can't speak to what JonTron's doing, but PewDiePie made a literal anti-semitic video earlier this week and was cut from Maker for it. Sounds pretty newsworthy to me.
 
Pewdiepie already issued an apology for he stupid prank /joke
He went too far, with hes stupid not much of a story really. him and hes stupid click bait. (Anime, boobies, swearing in Swedish, immature humour, more attention horing)
 
It seems that are significant cogs of a large media platform, so I think they can take a little bit of criticism. They certainly have the means to push back with their own message, even if that message is an apology, as the case may be.
 
Owen Glyndwr said:
I can't speak to what JonTron's doing, but PewDiePie made a literal anti-semitic video earlier this week and was cut from Maker for it. Sounds pretty newsworthy to me.
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He didn't make an anti-Semitic video. He made a joke, like he always does, and it was taken completely out of context. Hell, he was accused of idolizing Hitler simply because he used a picture of Hitler as one of his transition slides as a joke in one of his videos. JonTron was accused of being a Nazi simply because he went on another YouTuber's channel and expressed the opinion that it's not okay to just go around punching Nazis.
 
So it's ok for these two to express their opinions or content, but other media outlets should remain silent? I don't understand why these two snowflakes are in need of coddling.
 
Commodore said:
He didn't make an anti-Semitic video. He made a joke, like he always does, and it was taken completely out of context.
Click to expand...

He offered poor people $5 to say "kill all Jews" on his video to prove that...poor people are stupid and will do anything for money? Yeah, great joke there, dude. Really encapsulating the big social issues of today. A regular vox populi.

An obvious Antisemitic joke is obviously Antisemitic and Disney - a large, multinational organization that generally tries to stay away from anything controversial and hateful - severed ties from him in response. I don't really see what's the big ado here.
 
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The news part used to be credible, but the editorial section has long been a dumpster fire. I've heard the news content has gone significantly down in quality, but I haven't been a subscriber since about 2009.
 
Owen Glyndwr said:
Hey offered poor people $5 to say "kill all Jews" on his video to prove that...poor people are stupid and will do anything for money? Yeah, great joke there, dude. Really encapsulating the big social issues of today. A regular vox populi.
Click to expand...

That's kinda his thing though, making bad jokes that are in poor taste. That doesn't make him a Nazi or a racist though.

Owen Glyndwr said:
I don't really see what's the big ado here.
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The problem is not with Disney dropping him. If they want to lose out on the money he brings in for them, that's their decision. The problem is with media outlets reporting that he is a Nazi and a racist without having anything to back that up aside from short clips from his videos that they present without any context. Even PewDiePie isn't really all that upset with Disney dropping him, he's mad at the Wall Street Journal for falsely calling him a Nazi.
 
JollyRoger said:
So it's ok for these two to express their opinions or content, but other media outlets should remain silent? I don't understand why these two snowflakes are in need of coddling.
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There's a difference between calling bad taste what it is and spinning bad taste as genuine facism. The media should absolutely do the former, but the latter is a total overreaction and normalizes actual fascism.
Commodore said:
That's kinda his thing though, making bad jokes that are in poor taste. That doesn't make him a Nazi or a racist though.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
 
While you have claimed big media is making up things without evidence, you have yet to provide links to big media's actual reporting. You are asking us to take the characterizations of a fanboy as true.
 
JollyRoger said:
While you have claimed big media is making up things without evidence, you have yet to provide links to big media's actual reporting. You are asking us to take the characterizations of a fanboy as true.
Click to expand...

I'm not a fan of PewDiePie, I just find it more than a little disturbing that big media organizations seem to have it out for large YouTubers for some reason.

Anyway, here's the link to the WSJ story on him. In the little video they made they pretty much accuse him of being a Nazi without coming right out and saying he's a Nazi.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney...pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533
https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney...pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533
Note also that Disney only decided to drop PewDiePie after the WSJ asked them for comments on his videos.
 
So he made a death to all jews joke and got criticism from a conservative newspaper and got dropped by a corporate sponsor. Sounds about par for the course. I don't see what the big deal is. Your crush got taken down a peg. You will survive.
 
Wow this thread
 
Commodore said:
I'm not a fan of PewDiePie, I just find it more than a little disturbing that big media organizations seem to have it out for large YouTubers for some reason.

Anyway, here's the link to the WSJ story on him. In the little video they made they pretty much accuse him of being a Nazi without coming right out and saying he's a Nazi.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney...pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533
https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney...pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533
Note also that Disney only decided to drop PewDiePie after the WSJ asked them for comments on his videos.
Click to expand...

You can't link to wsj articles, everything past the first two lines of text gets cut off.
 
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