PewDiePie fans keep making junk ransomware

https://www.zdnet.com/article/pewdiepie-fans-keep-making-junk-ransomware/

by Balgair • 7 years ago

33 54 7 years ago

zdnet.com

wetpaws2• 7 years ago

Poor PewDiePie. First, christchurch guy and now this.

TylerE• 7 years ago

Lie down with the alt-right, catch fleas.

klohto• 7 years ago

How is he alt-right? Let's also label him russian troll why were are at it!

Midnightas• 7 years ago

Okay, the printer one was fun but this is taken waay too far now.

jessaustin• 7 years ago

As background for anyone who didn't hear about this, I enjoyed the relatively recent "Darknet Diaries" episode called "Hacker Giraffe".

gabbygab2• 7 years ago

More like someone does something for media attention.

Isn't it funny how all of these things happen after the media started using pewdiepie for clicks?

For years, pewdiepie went about his business and nothing happened. Then one day the media decided to exploit pewdiepie for views and all of a sudden, the attention seekers pile on.

sparkie• 7 years ago

PewDiePie gets more views on Youtube than the entire mainstream media combined, who pour a shitload of money into Youtube to get their videos promoted because they are losing viewers and can't get the ratings through good content.

Of course they hate the fact. They try to paint him in a negative light at any point possible, which just backfires on them, because they are just doubling-down on the same garbage which is what caused their massive loss of viewership in the first place.

People are fed up of old media pundits and their garbage "news" (or deliberate omission of). Pew News is now the mainstream news. Of course, trolls have taken the opportunity to use PDP to keep trolling the left-wing media, who seem eager to take any bait they're thrown.

dkdbejwi383• 7 years ago

All I know about PewDiePie is that they are a YouTube user. What's the connection with terrorism and ransomware?

zegl• 7 years ago

There is none. Felix is popular, "Subscribe to PewDiePie" is a big meme. People like to trash talk others I guess?

tombert2• 7 years ago

The recent New Zealand shooter mentioned PewDiePie, and while I don't know if PewDiePie is directly racist, he was subscribed to a ton of fear-mongering idiots on Twitter until immediately after the shooting.

EDIT: Just to make it clear, I'm not saying that Felix is responsible for the actions of his fan, just that it makes sense that people would latch on to the potential that he might be a douchebag.

jquery3• 7 years ago

Pewdiepie has become clickbait. Articles written about him are typically very poor quality and poorly researched, nor do they take into account the fact he has 80+ million subscribers. That is a LOT of subscribers and if you go looking for bad behavior, you're going to find it.

It's ridiculous I have to say it, but Pewdiepie is no more responsible for terrorism or white nationalism than Doom was for Columbine. In fact I'd say he's less culpable. We've been through this before with videogames, now we're going through it with memes. The older generation always thinks the younger generation is up to no good and their form of entertainment is "corrupting" them. Before videogames it was movies, and before that it was "rock and roll". And so on.

wetpaws2• 7 years ago

High profile person who attracts way too much unwanted attention.

lftl• 7 years ago

The Christchurch gunman name dropped PewDiePie at the start of his feed of the shooting.

jquery3• 7 years ago

He also said Spyro 3 made him a fascist. The best thing to do is to ignore anything the shooter said and forget about him, and remember the victims.

snovv_crash• 7 years ago

I feel like YouTubers are the next "bad influence", a position held in the past by marijuana, video games, rock 'n roll, heavy metal and communism.

The funny thing is that the ones complaining are the same ones who's generation was accused of listening to bad influence music like SOAD, Marilyn Manson and Rammstein, all of whom were blamed for shootings in the past because the perps happened to listen to them.

JohnTHaller• 7 years ago

"Subscribe to PewDiePie" has been adopted by white supremacists. Part of it is due to the 'fight' to get to 100m between PewDiePie (the 'white') and T-Series (the 'browns'). Part of it is also because PewDiePie has or has been accused of retweeting, posting, promoting, etc views, channels, and memes that are racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, etc.

cheez4• 7 years ago

Everything you disagree with isn't white supremacists. Mostly white edgy teenagers who are just edgy.

Asooka• 7 years ago

Was it really, or is it like the "White Power" symbol (ok sign), which was a joke by /pol/ until the mainstream media believed it after which it was picked up by actual racists?

darkpuma• 7 years ago

Just people piggybacking off his fame, and the media's eagerness to rebroadcast their claimed association to him if it makes him look bad, thus making this attention seeking tactic effective.

The more it happens, the more the media is willing to cover it, meaning it will happen even more. What would you call this, a Virtueless Cycle?

RugnirViking2• 7 years ago

Pretty much nothing to do with the actual guy; he's become something of a symbol in certain circles of the internet as something to fight for - people who are seeking something to do with their lives.

The guy himself was a gaming youtuber but nowadays mostly makes relatively simple comedy videos reviewing memes. He's hosted people such as elon musk on his show, and really isn't all that controversial or bad himself. He's the most subscribed youtuber at the time of writing, and a long drawn-out campaign by several people has been made to keep him there, mostly without his guidance or really, much of his participation. Mostly because he has become something of a figurehead for the time where the internet was based around individuals sharing things - this happened because the next highest channel who will inevitably pass him at some point are a large corporation.

As a result, many twenty-somethings who grew up on an internet of blogging and viral videos made by random people like them are having a sort of kickback against what they see as the growing influence of corporations on the internet's culture.

Naturally, there is nothing that is against manufactured pop culture taking over the internet than places like 4chan with their rhetoric about 'normies' and 'npcs', and they already have a sort of apocalyptic outlook on the world and culture of anything goes, it breeds certain kinds of people like this.

Now pewdiepie himself has done things that haven't helped his cause, but it's difficult to spin this situation and say it's his doing.

fellellor• 7 years ago

long drawn-out campaign by several people has been made to keep him there, mostly without his guidance or really, much of his participation.

I'd say he actively participates in that campaign. Also, he did nothing to discourage fans who came up with that printer hack, which though seemingly innocuous, is still a hack.

rogual• 7 years ago

Maybe the same as that between football hooligans and actual footballers? No real link, just a Schelling point for dumbassery.

nemothekid• 7 years ago

PewDiePie is a the currently the most subscribed YouTuber. He started off making gaming videos (LetsPlay, reviews), but has since really "retired" from that and occasionally makes comedy style vlogs. He likely has a very large and diverse fanbase, all of whom are probably coming into age now (Someone who watched PewDiePie at age 13 when he became the most popular YouTuber in 2013, would be 19 now).

Around sometime last year, PewDiePie came under a string of bad publicity which linked him to Nazi's and an incident where he called someone a nggr when he died in a video game. He has since "apologized" and tried to make things right, but whats done is done.

My hypothesis is, due to his "persecution" PewDiePie is now very popular as an alt-right martyr - he can't fully come out and say he's full on white supremacist because of the media boogeyman, but, to his supporters, he's clearly on their side (whether he is or not, I don't know, and it's irrelevant). As a result he gets a lot of lip service from a lot of notorious individual (regardless if he wants it), due to his nature as a meme in these communities.

Again, I'm not pretending to know where PewDiePie lies in all this, and he could very well be supporting or indifferent to this whole thing. However I do believe this whole thing might be larger than him at this point.

5trokerac33• 7 years ago

"PewDiePie fans"

More like trolls piggybacking off PewDiePie as a meme.

happytoexplain5• 7 years ago

Is the assertion that they don't actually support or watch PewDiePie? Or that they do so ironically? How can we even begin to make these distinctions without a god's-eye-view of all these people and all this fans and all their intentions?

5trokerac33• 7 years ago

"PewDiePie fans keep making junk ransomware" is a different headline than "Virus encrypts hard drive until PewDiePie reaches 100M followers"

The former, for people who only read headlines, implies PewDiePie is at fault, or at least condones ransomware in his name. It's the same (purposefully?) ignorant reading of "chan culture" as the implication that every Pepe meme is Nazi propaganda.

crushcrashcrush3• 7 years ago

PewDiePie's community is toxic and gross and represents everything that is wrong with the internet and gaming culture.

This does not surprise me.

crushcrashcrush3• 7 years ago

Also, this story should not have been flagged.

cheez4• 7 years ago

PewDiePie has an audience of 60 million if I remember correctly. For comparison, ~120 million people voted in the US 2016 elections.

If you are thinking that 60 million people are all toxic and gross and represent everything that is wrong with internet and gaming culture, with respect, you're being an extremist. Just like those in that community who are noisy enough to get your attention.

crushcrashcrush3• 7 years ago

Also, holy shit if this is real:

“As pointed out in editorials by the New York Times and The Verge, the phrase "subscribe to PewDiePie" has become almost equivalent with dumb stunts and racially fueled declarations, and was also muttered by a gunman before embarking on a killing spree in a New Zealand mosque last week.”

mempko• 7 years ago

Yes, it's real. The terrorist said on camera "Subscribe to Pewdiepie" before murdering people.

Pewdiepie followed a lot of white supremacists and alt-right on Twitter, including encouraging his fans to follow one of them.

After the terrorist attack, he went into damage control and unfollowed everyone on Twitter, probably to hide the fact he had followed those kinds of people.

rwz2• 7 years ago

Pewdiepie has some over 90 million followers. Judging such a huge number of people by the actions of few representatives as not too far from "all muslims are terrorists" and "all christians are pedophiles"

rbanffy• 7 years ago

For some misguided reason

These people are some of the most misguided humans our species ever produced.

PewDiePie fans keep making junk ransomware

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