YouTuber PewDiePie has deleted his Twitter account after posting a video criticizing the platform’s tendency to reward “virtue signalling.” PewDiePie wiped his Twitter account after the controversial content creator said he was taking a break from YouTube in early 2020.
In a video called “I hate twitter,” PewDiePie spoke about how he believed Twitter is “a cesspool of opinion” that rewards people for “saying things that make you seem virtuous rather than acting on it.” He briefly included a screenshot of an article from U.K. publication Daily Mirror, titled “PewDiePie quits YouTube saying he’s too tired to go on,” implying that this was a “clickbait” mislabeling of his actual announcement, where he said he was taking a break “for a little while” early next year. PewDiePie then spoke about the concept of Nicomachean Ethics, a collection of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s best-known works, in order to give more background on why he deleted his Twitter account. This is also explained in the Crash Course Philosophy video below.
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PewDiePie touched on multiple elements of the philosophical topic, concluding that being virtuous is about making a habit of taking good actions in any number of contextual situations, keeping in mind your own capacity to do good in any given scenario.
“Through habit only can you find [the virtuous action] in each situation,” PewDiePie said. He concluded the video by saying that eudaimonia, the Nichomean concept of “human flourishing or of living well,” is about “acting virtuous because you enjoy being virtuous, and it’s realizing your potential and acting upon it.”
He noted that his morals and choices have been shaped by habit in this way, including a screenshot of an article titled “YouTube’s PewDiePie Apologizes for Using the N-Word: ‘I’m Just an Idiot.'” Given the juxtaposition of the article and his words about habit, it appears he’s implying he said the N-word on stream after habitually saying it off stream — a habit he isn’t proud of and is trying to move on from. Alternatively, he may be saying he has used his past failures, such as saying the N-word and paying two men on Fiverr to film themselves holding a sign that said “Death to all Jews,” to sculpt himself via “right action through habit” into what he feels is a truly virtuous person who doesn’t feel the need to “virtue signal” on Twitter.
As the face of the second most-subscribed channel on YouTube, PewDiePie has been the subject of numerous controversies, so it’s up for debate whether he has “realized his potential” to be virtuous and acted on it. Earlier this year, the YouTuber withdrew a donation to anti-hate group the Anti-Defamation League — initially meant in part to distance himself from the alt-right movement and from being associated with mass-shooters — after his fans criticized the donation as dishonest. Given that the ADL is an organization that fights anti-Semitism, it also garnered criticism as it appeared as though he was caving to the bigoted portion of the internet.
[Image Credit: PewDiePie/YouTube]
