An open letter to PewDiePie

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  • An open letter to PewDiePie

    Pewdie has recently posted an apology which was more sincere than the previous one , and he said he would not broadcast any more rape jokes. Due to that, this letter has expired, to some degree. I'd like to, in addition to the post a page or two down from here, thank Pewdie for his reaction, although he still managed to belittle problem even in this later response. I've included the original letter by me in the spoiler, so as to avoid confusion about the state of affairs here.

    Display Spoiler

    Pewdiepie,

    You've been accused of trivialising rape, by making rape a cheap joke in your videos. Rape is a serious issue, you know this, and that's why you should show a lot more discretion with it. When you joke about rape so flippantly, not only are you insulting every rape victim, you're also insulting every dignified person who stands in solidarity with their fellow humans.

    When you make rape such a light an issue, and make it a source of laughter for millions of people, you are encouraging them to make these same jokes. You know that's the case, the funny thing a popular person does quickly becomes viral, contagious even, further driving the point of insult and rape trivialisation deeper into the flesh of human decency. You have a responsibility, and you are not facing it.

    When you laugh about rape, the rapists laugh with you. They'll think you're an ally to them. If you wanted to distance yourself from this sort of crowd, you would make an earnest apology, and be a lot more careful about this sort of thing in the future. That thing you posted on your Tumblr was not an apology, it was a middle finger to criticism, and a denial of anything flawed with what you do, a show of nothing but indifference.

    You might think that attacking every rape victim is not targeting them, but it is. The same goes for any person of dignity, and any rapist enjoying your videos. You might not mean any harm, but you have been told how you are being harmful, and yet, you persist. You either do not care, or you do not understand, even after laborious explanation. Maybe you'll understand after this message, though maybe that's a optimistic.
    "Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."

    The post was edited 3 times, last by UsernameMax: Victory ().

  • Internet is internet.
    Trolls are trolls.
    You fall for it, its your fault.
    Everyone who knows someone that gets raped/has been raped always gets like this.
    I know you people just want to get it straight through other peoples' head that "Rape is serious". No shit sherlock, of course its serious. No one wants to get raped. No one wants to have a psychological scar. But anything can be used as humor material in comedy, if done right, but yes I believe most comedians would avoid using rape jokes. Majority > Minority, if this comes to play against him.
    If you don't laugh at rape jokes, then don't laugh. Chill on pewds. Pretty sure he knows very well that its serious, being told 1000x over again doesn't do anything. Its just annoying.


    ココロオドル

    The post was edited 3 times, last by bLanK.facE ().

  • bLanK.facE wrote:

    Internet is internet.
    Trolls are trolls.
    You fall for it, its your fault.
    Everyone who knows someone that gets raped/has been raped always gets like this.
    I know you people just want to get it straight through other peoples' head that "Rape is serious". No shit sherlock, of course its serious. No one wants to get raped. No one wants to have a psychological scar. But anything can be used as humor material in comedy, if done right, but yes I believe most comedians would avoid using rape jokes. Majority > Minority, if this comes to play against him.
    If you don't laugh at rape jokes, then don't laugh. Chill on pewds. Pretty sure he knows very well that its serious, being told 1000x over again doesn't do anything. Its just annoying.
    Even if Pewd's just trolling the rape victims and others, does that make it ok? I don't really understand your point with bringing that up. If this is what rape victims are always getting, we should be even more adamantly acting against this sort of behaviour. PewDiePie is completely not doing rape humour right, and I made the argument why rape humour, even the good stuff, is condemnable. Consider the following, rather dark joke, to what PDP's doing, and tell me he's up to par with his gimmicky humour.
    Display Spoiler
    A priest, a pedophile and a rapist walk into a bar. He orders a drink.
    Obviously, this joke is offensive on so many levels, but it does not even hint at rape being a great, funny thing. It condemns it implicitly, along with a few other things we might find wrong.

    Kneesocks wrote:

    A rapejoke is a joke. And jokes are funny. (aslong you keep it as a joke)
    There will always be X people butthurt made by a joke about race/religion/rape (note the 3 r's) and they go all apeshit for no reason.
    So yeah , specially for you. Some nice rape jokes.
    All jokes are meant to be funny, but that does not mean that all of them have funny consequences. Before the emancipation of the black people, would you have defended racist jokes like you're doing here with rapist jokes? Obviously, rapists and black people aren't at all the same thing, but the logic I'm trying to point out here is that jokes are not necessarily harmless. They can tell other people that we think something serious is not serious, if we are not careful about it. Words have influence.

    Kneesocks wrote:

    Display Spoiler

    Kneesocks wrote:

    "They say that the more sex you have, the better you get at it. Nonsense. I’ve done hundreds of rapes, and they still always end up sobbing."

    Kneesocks wrote:

    "In a recent survey 9 out of 10 people said they enjoyed group rape."

    Kneesocks wrote:

    "I called that Rape Advice Line earlier today. Unfortunately, it’s only for victims."

    Kneesocks wrote:

    "Who here wants to play a game of rape?
    No? That’s the spirit!"

    That's dark. It's better than what Pewd's doing, but I'll get to the point about rapists laughing with you in a moment in this post. There's a marked difference between telling a joke like that in private or in company you know to take rape seriously, and telling these sorts of jokes in public, where there are a lot of influences going back and forth. In any case, if that was how PDP made fun of rape, this post would not be like this.

    Kneesocks wrote:

    So now go home and be a family boy and stop sobbing about jokes made on tv/internet/world etc.
    Legitimate grievances are not dismissed with appeals to tears.

    Widge wrote:

    Even if you were right and he is attacking the whole of the human race because hes offending rape victims, he ain't gonna read your post. BTW, unless you're a rapist, how do you know the rapists laugh with him? (I am by no means calling you a rapist).
    When I say that the rapist laughs with you, I'm saying that in his audience, there are most likely rapists. In such a large crowd of over two million people, going by the number of subscribers he has, there is statistically bound to be a good number of rapists. I know that Pewd's unlikely to read this post, and I do wish that I could have contacted him directly. Unfortunately, he's way too popular to be easily accessed.
    It must be really hard to NOT say rape jokes. Must be tough to just not say that when people ask. Probably ruins his day that he can't scream "rape" into a microphone for teens. Poor guy.
    Some of the people trying to defend Pewdie have been saying that this is just what he is, that this is the best he can do. This is selling him short - I am sure he can do much better. The way he tries to bring life to inanimate objects is pretty funny, and does not require that he makes rape a gimmick of his show.

    Sorry for the strange quotes, I am new to the forum.
    "Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."

    The post was edited 1 time, last by UsernameMax: Decency. ().

  • It's not wrong to joke about things, because that's what they are, jokes.
    Jokes are supposed to be funny, not sad. I feel sorry for you if you take jokes seriously.
    Somewhere in the world there's always someone joking about rape, murder and so on. That's not going to stop. Someone will find it funny even tho you don't.

    If you don't like it, don't watch it. (Pewdiepies videos, that is.)

    Joking about something does not make you one of those who actually do those kind of things. I joke about rape, murder and so on but I do not rape or kill people c:
    I have not failed. I have just found 10 000 ways that do not work.

    The post was edited 1 time, last by LordVoldemort ().

  • LordVoldemort wrote:

    It's not wrong to joke about things, because that's what they are, jokes.
    Jokes are supposed to be funny, not sad. I feel sorry for you if you take jokes seriously.
    Somewhere in the world there's always someone joking about rape, murder and so on. That's not going to stop. Someone will find it funny even tho you don't.

    If you don't like it, don't watch it. (Pewdiepies videos, that is.)
    I've already responded to jokes being meant to be funny, and you would know my answer if you had read the thread. Yes, jokes are meant to be funny, but that does not mean that the consequences are necessarily funny themselves. I've brought up an example, to highlight how flawed that sort of logic is, with the sort of jokes that were used to put black people down, before the emancipation. The jokes in this example are meant to be funny, but they are funny partly because of the racist attitudes shared by the teller and the audience, it's a way of them expressing agreement, in that slavery and racism are pretty funny things, and not to be taken seriously. When racist jokes are used indiscriminately, they make it seem as if racism was less of a serious issue. We can make jokes that involve racism and make them in a way that does not mean that racism is made into a triviality, something that does not matter, or something that is good. A good joke involving racism tells us that racism is not a good thing, to put it simply.

    I do not take jokes seriously, but I take the bad things they cause to happen very seriously. If there's always someone out there, making a joke out of rape and murder, and doing it like PDP, I don't like that either, I would tell them why they're doing a bad thing as well. It's important to note that two wrongs do not make a right.

    I don't like Pewd's videos because of the humour involved, so I don't watch them anymore, but that does not mean I should not criticise him. If you seriously think "don't like it, don't watch it" is a valuable thing to say, something we should all do, why do you post in a thread that you disagree with?
    "Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."

  • UsernameMax wrote:

    LordVoldemort wrote:

    It's not wrong to joke about things, because that's what they are, jokes.
    Jokes are supposed to be funny, not sad. I feel sorry for you if you take jokes seriously.
    Somewhere in the world there's always someone joking about rape, murder and so on. That's not going to stop. Someone will find it funny even tho you don't.

    If you don't like it, don't watch it. (Pewdiepies videos, that is.)
    I've already responded to jokes being meant to be funny, and you would know my answer if you had read the thread. Yes, jokes are meant to be funny, but that does not mean that the consequences are necessarily funny themselves. I've brought up an example, to highlight how flawed that sort of logic is, with the sort of jokes that were used to put black people down, before the emancipation. The jokes in this example are meant to be funny, but they are funny partly because of the racist attitudes shared by the teller and the audience. When racist jokes are used indiscriminately, they make it seem as if racism was less of a serious issue. We can make jokes that involve racism and make them in a way that does not mean that racism is made into a triviality, something that does not matter.

    I do not take jokes seriously, but I take the bad things they cause to happen very seriously. If there's always someone out there, making a joke out of rape and murder, and doing it like PDP, I don't like that either, I would tell them why they're doing a bad thing as well. It's important to note that two wrongs do not make a right.

    I don't like Pewd's videos because of the humour involved, so I don't watch them anymore, but that does not mean I should not criticise him. If you seriously think "don't like it, don't watch it" is a valuable thing to say, something we should all do, why do you post in a thread that you disagree with?


    I have read the the posts except for the last one you did. Too long.
    And the thing is, people don't mean to be rude when they joke about things. Well, mostly they don't mean it. Some people joke about it because they are afraid. Some joke about it because they don't fear it. It's not wrong to joke about it but if you know someone that 's been raped etc it's quite insensitive to joke about it while that person is near. <:
    I have not failed. I have just found 10 000 ways that do not work.

  • I have read the the posts except for the last one you did. Too long.
    Why should I continue replying to you, if you don't read my replies?
    And the thing is, people don't mean to be rude when they joke about things.
    It doesn't matter if they mean to be rude or not, that is not what I'm talking about here at all. Just because someone tries to be good does not mean they can not do anything that is wrong. I explained why jokes can be wrong, and I'm not going to do it again, if you'll just keep ignoring my replies.


    it's quite insensitive to joke about it while that person is near. <:
    PewDiePie tells his "jokes" to an audience of over two million subscribers. I'd say that's plenty insensitive, considering there are bound to be rape victims there, along with people who are empathetic towards rape victims. It would be one thing for him to tell a joke that contains rape as a theme, but it's another to do as he does - simply repeat rape as a word, insert it into inappropriate places and say things like "I can rape anyone". That's what I have a problem with, and you're not helping here.

    If you want to have a dialogue here, you're going to have to read my replies. There's no rush, so if you're a slow reader, take your time. It's pointless to say the same things over and over again, it's not productive.
    "Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."

  • LordVoldemort wrote:

    I meant that if the person that got raped stands next to you, it might not be a good idea joking about rape, unless that person is okay with that.
    When it comes to videos the viewer have a choice to watch or not to watch. <:
    So, after someone does get raped, it's ok to make terrible "jokes" about it to them? I don't think so. I've also addressed this "don't like, don't watch" argument already - I won't be watching any more of Pewdie's videos, unless he comes out to apologise for what he did, and honestly so. That does not mean I can not say what I think he did wrongly. If you're not going to make any new arguments, this will be my last response to you.
    "Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."

  • UsernameMax wrote:

    LordVoldemort wrote:

    I meant that if the person that got raped stands next to you, it might not be a good idea joking about rape, unless that person is okay with that.
    When it comes to videos the viewer have a choice to watch or not to watch. <:
    So, after someone does get raped, it's ok to make terrible "jokes" about it to them? I don't think so. I've also addressed this "don't like, don't watch" argument already - I won't be watching any more of Pewdie's videos, unless he comes out to apologise for what he did, and honestly so. That does not mean I can not say what I think he did wrongly. If you're not going to make any new arguments, this will be my last response to you.


    That's not what I said c:
    I have no problem joking about murder, rape, suicide and so on. It's more okay to joke about rape with someone if that person hasn't been raped. Do you understand what I'm saying? Cause to me it seems that you don't.
    And I haven't said that you can not express your opinion. :)
    I have not failed. I have just found 10 000 ways that do not work.

  • Ive said this before and ill most likely not say it again, because im tired of people like you who can't take a simple joke.
    If you don't like it don't watch it, simple as that.
    If you feel offended don't watch his videos its not like he is gonna start a revolution where everyone think it is okay to rape people its harmless fun and its harmless words, he puts no one in harms way by yelling RAPE!
    Ive had a lot of rough things happen to me too, and i joke about it everyday.
    Learn to take a goddamn joke or gtfo, that is all.

    My youtube: youtube.com/user/LazyPeanut01
    please do watch some of my videos and sub if you like what you see :)

  • LordVoldemort wrote:

    That's not what I said c:
    I have no problem joking about murder, rape, suicide and so on. It's more okay to joke about rape with someone if that person hasn't been raped. Do you understand what I'm saying? Cause to me it seems that you don't.
    And I haven't said that you can not express your opinion. :)
    I understand what you're saying. That's why I'm telling you, people are actually quite often the victims of sexual assault, and there are most certainly rapists in PDP's audience. He does hurt these victims, and he does make it more socially acceptable, in the mind of the rapist , to rape. When he jokes about rape to an audience of millions, he spreads this sense of humour.

    When you tell me, in response to my concerns, that I should not watch it if I don't like it, that's not telling me that I shouldn't be complaining? What's the point, if not that? That I shouldn't watch things I don't like? That's obvious, and not a response to what I'm saying. If you think my concerns are not legitimate, that's fair, but don't try to argue against them using this sort of silly platitude, because it's not a counter-argument.
    "Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."

  • UsernameMax wrote:

    and he does make it more socially acceptable, in the mind of the rapist , to rape. When he jokes about rape to an audience of millions, he spreads this sense of humour.
    Where does he say anywhere in his videos "You should rape someone?" Just because something including rape is involved in a scene, a book, a movie, etc, does not mean the person is making it socially acceptable. Take for example The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. There is a rape scene included. Does that mean the writer automatically is making rape out to be socially acceptable? Most certainly not.

    It's one thing to go "haha you got raped what a noob lol loser". Yeah, that's definitely not good. But NONE of the rape jokes Pewdie used is directed toward ANYONE. So if you take offense to it, then you have no reason to continue letting it be seen by your eyes or heard by your ears.

    I wrote a novelette FULL of gore and murder. Does that mean I am saying murder is socially acceptable? Nope. Unless the person says "I endorse this" or "this is okay" or "we should all do this" or anything along those lines, keep your assumptions to yourself. I used to be a cutter. I've had friends commit suicide. But I don't get offended by the emo jokes, or the suicide jokes. Why? Because it is a JOKE. You know, haha, lmao, lolol?

    Bottom line is: There's a difference between making a joke, and making fun of someone. Oh and btw, rape does not involve just sexual actions. For example: raping a country side. So when Pewdie says something like "Ahh they're raping me!" it can be taken in more than one context. Which context you take it in is up to you.

  • ChibiZoMbiE wrote:

    Where does he say anywhere in his videos "You should rape someone?" Just because something including rape is involved in a scene, a book, a movie, etc, does not mean the person is making it socially acceptable. Take for example The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. There is a rape scene included. Does that mean the writer automatically is making rape out to be socially acceptable? Most certainly not.
    Did you not read the thing that was linked in the text you quoted from me, did you not read what I said? He does not need to explicitly say that he's a friend of rape for that to seem like it for a rapist. Please, read the link I gave.

    ChibiZoMbiE wrote:

    It's one thing to go "haha you got raped what a noob lol loser". Yeah, that's definitely not good. But NONE of the rape jokes Pewdie used is directed toward ANYONE. So if you take offense to it, then you have no reason to continue letting it be seen by your eyes or heard by your ears.
    They do not need to target anyone specifically to still target the whole demographic of rape victims. If I say a racist joke of any kind, I am targeting victims of racism, even if my joke did not somehow involve a specific group of people within victims of racism. Yeah, I know I don't have to listen to PewDiePie, and I'm not going to watch the videos where he spits out the rape, but like I've stated several times in this thread, that does not mean my criticism is null and void.

    ChibiZoMbiE wrote:

    I wrote a novelette FULL of gore and murder. Does that mean I am saying murder is socially acceptable? Nope. Unless the person says "I endorse this" or "this is okay" or "we should all do this" or anything along those lines, keep your assumptions to yourself. I used to be a cutter. I've had friends commit suicide. But I don't get offended by the emo jokes, or the suicide jokes. Why? Because it is a JOKE. You know, haha, lmao, lolol?
    There's a difference between featuring something and trivialising it. If you acted as if murder was funny, yes, you would be trivialising murder. You do not have to explicitly endorse something to endorse it, and you know this to be true. When we show appreciation, we do not always say "I appreciate this", we might pat the person responsible on the back, we might use the thing ourselves to show our appreciation. With humour, this becomes apparent when, say, on YouTube, the top comments are mostly quotes directly taken from the clip. They are not saying "I explicitly endorse this", but it is apparent implicitly, in the same way that the rape gimmick impliicitly tells us you are trivialising rape. I've already shown how that jokes are not harmless, please stop making me type the same thing over and over again, read the thread.

    ChibiZoMbiE wrote:

    Bottom line is: There's a difference between making a joke, and making fun of someone. Oh and btw, rape does not involve just sexual actions. For example: raping a country side. So when Pewdie says something like "Ahh they're raping me!" it can be taken in more than one context. Which context you take it in is up to you.
    A joke can make fun of someone, and I think PDP's "jokes" make fun of rape. By doing so, he's giving a signal of appreciation for rapists. No, normal people are not moved to think he's necessarily supporting rapists, but rapists do think that everyone else is a rapist as well. I have given you information regarding this in the link that I gave above, and there are plenty of studies on rapist psychology.

    I will not answer questions I have already answered. If you can not be bothered to read the thread, I will not be bothered answering your questions.
    "Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."

    The post was edited 1 time, last by UsernameMax: Came to my senses ().

  • I read through the entire post you made, and I will simplify what I'm trying to say.

    It's all a matter of context. One person can take something one way, the other person another way. Yes, rapists are going to think it's okay because of their psychological condition, but it is not something that we can simply cater and change. It's kind of like trying to keep a person from ever looking outside. The only way to do that is to lock them in a room or a box with no openings of any kind.

    Sure, Pewdie should put a disclaimer in the beginning of his videos. I don't see why he hasn't yet, maybe the thought never occurred to him. We don't know, and until we know, we shouldn't make judgments or anything.

    If a rapist is in the psychological mindset that rape is okay, then it is hard to change that. The mind isn't that simple unfortunately. You can't simply tell someone with a psychological condition "this is bad." And have them believe that it is. It takes therapy. Sometimes years of it. Think of it like smoking. Someone who has smoked a lot can't simply just quit cold turkey. It has to be changed and removed a little at a time. And trying to get the possible billions of people that do these type of jokes to stop doing it due to people with those conditions is asking for a miracle.

    Note: I'm not saying trying to rid the world of these types of jokes is bad, but due to laws and things like that, it is pretty much impossible to do so. Unfortunate, yes. But continually debating about it won't do quite as much as it possibly should sadly.

  • Listen, people asked him to not do something that he doesn't have to actually do. People asked him nicely because it bothered them. People are mad because they asked him nicely, using the underpinnings of feminist critical theory as evidence that it's probably a good idea for everyone to not talk about it unnecessarily. Doing what he is doing it immoral on those grounds, and they're making that available to him as an avenue of thought. "Not watching it" still makes his actions immoral. "Well people everywhere joke about this" still makes his actions immoral. Sometimes people you like do bad things. You just need to pay attention to what they do about it.