New Media VS Old Media

Hello reader! I was having a hard time deciding what to post today because I like writing about what I want to write about, not feel like I have to write something. It finally came to me and I’m extremely excited to be writing this post. A big part of writing a blog for me is spreading knowledge so I hope to do that here today and I would love to hear your opinion on this!

This post is inspired by something you may have heard about but you probably haven’t, the Pewdiepie VS The Wall Street Journal feud. Basically, Pewdiepie, or Felix Kjellberg, is by far the # 1 most subscribed to person on Youtube, a huge platform for self made, creative people. He has almost 54 million subscribers, and on Youtube having a couple million is extremely successful, so 54 million is basically unheard of. Recently, Pewdiepie used a website where you pay people to hold up any sign you want and he asked them to hold up a sign that said “Death to all Jews and subscribe to Keemstar”. His whole point in doing this was to point out how ridiculous these sites are where you can pay $5 for anything and he didn’t think they would actually do it; he stated that his beliefs don’t reflect the joke at all. His intention was only to show the craziness of our world. Obviously, he received instant backfire for this. The biggest backlash came from the Wall Street Journal. They called him a neo-nazi and the face of fascism and put together an SNL style video trying to justify this. They also went around Felix and pressured his biggest sponsors, Disney and Youtube, to cut ties with him. Disney dropped him and Youtube cancelled his Youtube Red show and tried to demonetize him (which means he’d essentially be fired) but couldn’t because he literally didn’t do anything that doesn’t lie under free speech. Pewdiepie responded in the absolute most perfect way I think anybody could ever respond to something like this happening to them. I will link the Wall Street Journal Post and Pewdiepie’s responses below so check them out for yourself. The reaction to all of this from Youtubers and general people/subscribers has been monumental. People who look further into the big name news attacks can see how wrong this is. Yes, what Felix said was out of line and actually offensive to a lot of people, but he’s only a human and we all make mistakes, he has sincerely apologized and understands that what he did wasn’t right, cutting him off at the knees and trying to make him seem evil for your own selfish benefit is disgusting. A lot of people thought the joke was hilarious, Youtubers particularly have stood up for him and can understand more than anyone how wrong this is. The WSJ tried to discredit everything he has done, which is a lot you guys, and just say he was a lucky guy with a bunch of dumb teenagers watching him.

So, why is any of this important you may ask? Well, this is the first time something like this has happened, it shows just how much you can never trust what you read, and it’s a visual representation of society changing. Old media has never blatantly tried to discredit someone this way with their fake articles. The response to all of this is what makes it revolutionary, media has been writing fake posts since people could write. Instead of falling and crippling under the media, Pewdiepie gained millions of subscribers, the Wall Street journal lost a ton of credibility, and a lot of lessons have come out of this. It’s with this situation that we can see the clear clash between traditional and new media and we can see the fear and misunderstanding traditional media has about new media. They are terrified that one person can have and has had such an enormous influence but they just don’t understand. The only thing old media has learned from new media is click bait. Having a catchy title and using these big name social influencers will get your articles 100x more views and clicks and old media knows that. They want to paint this picture of new media and our youth today as being lazy, stupid, followers, when in reality we are genuinely the smartest generation to ever be bred. We have grown up with internet and information about everything at our fingertips, we have learned to research and listen to all sides of the story before making our own decision, and this terrifies old media that depend on us to just believe their bullshit when they feed it to us! Pewdiepie’s videos get millions of views in mere hours, nobody knows how to compete with that or fans of these people because they are self made successes and they have huge chunks of society backing them. We also have to remember that these people don’t always have producers and managers and snakes of the business telling them what to do or say, so multibillion dollar company’s going against one guy is just cruel. There is an obvious shift in media happening and in my opinion, it’s extremely positive. I don’t even look at Facebook “articles” or anything click bait I see because I know I can do my own research on a topic instead of just believing any article. More than half the stuff you see on the internet is probably fake and my generation is amazing at spotting what is fake and real online, older generations aren’t as good. Looking at statistics,

you can see that trust in media is dropping fast, particularly in younger people. In ten years, who knows what the media will look like but I promise you it wont be what it is today because the younger generation is way too real and we don’t really filter ourselves, we call it how it is. We can’t allow media or anybody to determine how we think about something, that is what’s wrong with the world and that’s why there is so much stereotyping and wrong information out there. Look at Islam for example, it’s the most misunderstood religion in the United States because of the way it has been presented to us but anyone that studies or visits an Islamic country knows the beauty of the religion.

I urge you to always do your own research and listen to everyone’s point of view and truly try to understand and learn from them. Opposing opinions shouldn’t be something you want to avoid but something you want to delve into to, to broaden your knowledge in a respectable, mature manner! Your community is everyone around you, not just the people you choose to be around. People are opening their eyes more and more everyday and I urge you to do the same. Look into things, question things, experience things, and then speak upon them.

I really hope you guys enjoyed this, it’s a little different for me but it was on my mind and I’m happy to share my thoughts on this. Please let me know what you think below, are you with Pewdiepie or the WSJ, do you see this shift in media that I see? Let me know! I post ever Wednesday and Saturday so please check back if you enjoyed!

Please watch all the videos below to further understand the Pewdiepie situation and make your own judgment about it!

Wall Street Journal “Post” (attack)

Pewdiepie Response

Pewdiepie Followup

Jenna Julien podcast to further go into the topic