X

PewDiePie's apology sequel: A video about shooting Hitler

Felix Kjellberg, the most-subscribed star on YouTube, was at the center of a controversy last week over past jokes about Nazis and Jews.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
See full bio
Joan E. Solsman
screen-shot-2017-02-16-at-2-22-28-pm.png

Felix Kjellberg, better known as Pewdiepie, last week posted a video apologizing for jokes that "went too far."

Screenshot by Joan E. Solsman/CNET

PewDiePie is back to his staple "Lets play" gaming videos on YouTube, this time with some overt digs at the controversy surrounding him last week.

The YouTube star's latest video, posted Wednesday, shows him playing a video game on a mission to shoot and kill Adolf Hitler.

Felix Kjellberg, better known by his YouTube identity, PewDiePie, came under fire for allegations of anti-Semitic messages in videos last week. The frenzy resulted in Disney cutting its ties with him and YouTube dropping plans for a second season of his reality show "Scare PewDiepie" on its subscription service, Red.

After posting a video Thursday apologizing for jokes that "went too far" and criticizing media reporting that took his messages out of context, Kjellberg went back to his most familiar format for the latest post Wednesday: clips of him cracking jokes while playing a video game.

This time, the video -- titled "I KILL HITLER! *notclickbait*" -- shows him playing a WWII-style first-person-shooter, as he fields calls from "PR" about how killing Nazis in the game is helping to erase modern day Nazis.

CNET Magazine: Check out a sample of the stories in CNET's newsstand edition.

Life, disrupted: In Europe, millions of refugees are still searching for a safe place to settle. Tech should be part of the solution. But is it?