PewDiePie calls out ‘obnoxious’ YouTubers for ‘ruining Japan’

YouTuber PewDiePie has called out other content creators for “ruining Japan” in a video posted on Thursday.

Key points:

PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg — and has 111 million subscribers on the platform — described other YouTubers as being “obnoxious” in his video.
While the Swedish content creator did not mention names, clips from Somali American creator JohnnySomali and Cypriot creator Fifi “Fidias” Panayiotou were played in his video.
PewDiePie relocated to Japan with his wife Marzia in May 2022 and welcomed their son Björn on July 11, 2023.

The details:

JohnnySomali, whose real name is Ismael Ramsey Khalid, rose to infamy in May 2023 over provocative videos filmed in Tokyo. He was arrested in September for trespassing and charged with “forcible obstruction of business” for a separate incident at a gyudon chain in Osaka.
Fidias, on the other hand, sparked outrage for fare evasion while participating in a $10,000 race for a video in October.
PewDiePie, who has previously faced multiple accusations of racism and antisemitism, linked the rise of “nuisance-style YouTubers” to Logan Paul’s 2017 incident in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest, also known as “Suicide Forest.”
Aside from foreign YouTubers, PewDiePie highlighted similar behaviors by local content creators, including a group who put a bed in the middle of Shibuya crossing in Tokyo in 2019 and the “sushi terrorism” phenomenon.
“It is really frustrating, because for a lot of people, Japan is an escape from this bad behavior that’s done in public a lot of times. Japan is, generally, seen as more polite, and therefore, people want to protect that,” he said.
Khalid, who is currently in Israel, responded to PewDiePie’s video in an X thread, calling the Swedish YouTuber a “hypocrite,” threatening him with a lawsuit and accusing him of racism and antisemitism. “See you in court FELIX,” he noted.
Khalid also said he has not been banned in Japan and that he “can and will return in the future.”

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