PewDiePie Receives Fierce Backlash After ‘Missing Point’ On James Charles Controversy

PewDiePie/James Charles/ YouTube

Everybody’s favourite YouTuber PewDiePie has weighed in on the James Charles controversy.

You may or may not have heard that YouTuber and beauty vlogger James Charles has attracted a load of criticism for using the term ‘influencer representation’.

Some felt it implied Charles, 19, had faced discrimination for being a successful YouTuber, using a term like ‘representation’ that is often used for groups of people who have been discriminated against.

This was the Instagram post that sparked this whole controversy:

Charles was soon criticised by his former champion and friend Tati Westbrook, another beauty vlogger and YouTuber who posted a 43-minute long video outlining Charles’ ‘problematic behaviour’.

According to Tati, Charles has been using his ‘fame, power and money to play with people’s emotions’ and had even tried to ‘trick a straight man into thinking he was gay’.

The video, entitled ‘Bye Sister’ (a clever play on Charles’ video greeting ‘Hi Sisters’), quickly went viral and you can watch it below:

She said:

You’re threatening to embarrass them. And you’re doing that to have them behave sexually in your favour, even if you’re straight.

And you know what, that’s not ok.

To make matters worse, Charles turned up to an Australian meet and greet almost two hours late and raised prices for his world tour, with some tickets going for as much as $500.

Due to all this, Charles’ subscriber numbers plummeted with nearly two million gone in the two days since the controversy began.

So Charles released a video explaining everything and addressing the allegations entitled ‘Tati’.

You can watch that below:

At the time of writing, Charles’ apology video has been viewed over 22 million times.

And it’s at this point that PewDiePie, no stranger to controversies of his own, weighed in on the situation.

PewDiePie, real name Felix Kjellberg, has been avoiding controversy since his feud with T-Series and hasn’t done a Pew News show for a while.

However, he’s brought it back, entitled ‘James Charles is cancelled’, just to address the drama between Charles and Tati.

Kjellberg claims, she’s unjustified in her response to all this.

Here’s the full video:

He said:

I looked into it and the whole makes even less sense. A lot of people are just latching on Tati’s stance, just to sh*t on James Charles.

He then listens to Tati’s reasoning for exposing Charles publicly before explaining he ‘isn’t here to defend James Charles, I just don’t think what Tati did is that justified’.

Kjellberg cited the age difference between the pair as a reason it’s all very inappropriate and wondered why it couldn’t be dealt with privately.

He said:

For a mother figure to completely drag this kid? No one has a problem with this?

Either we talk about it in private or I stop being friends with that person. I can’t imagine making a video just publicly dragging someone instead of talking to them.

PewDiePie then suggested Tati went public just so she could sell more products from her supplement company which she discusses at length in her video.

He concluded by saying he was completely neutral in the feud and that they’d both ‘exposed themselves’.

However, this view didn’t go down well with fans of PewDiePie, Charles or Tati:

It looks like this controversy has a way to go before we see the last of it.

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George Pavlou

Taking the idea of ‘being woke’ to a whole new level over a decade-long career in sport, court and online news, George has worked for titles and agencies including ESPN FC, Eurosport, LADbible and Court News UK. He may not have a degree but does have an unhealthy obsession with Lord of the Rings.