Since their original article is paywalled and has been edited since, I can't find a direct quote calling him a nazi and I'm sure they didn't literally use those three words like that.
The oldest snapshot[0] on archive.org indicates the article's subheading as "Star with most subscribers posted videos in which he makes anti-Semitic jokes or content, testing media firm’s standards" which they later changed to "Move came after the Journal asked about videos in which he included anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery".
The accompanying video[1] deliberately took a lot of sequences out of context and presented them as representative. Regardless of the validity of the Souther Poverty Law Center quotes[2] they deliberately suggest he is a nazi by association, especially by ending the video with the implication that The Daily Stormer (a nazi website) likes him.
Ironically The Daily Stormer has since changed its tagline from "the world's #1 PewDiePie fan site" to "the world's #1 Wall Street Journal fan site", with a composite image of the three journalists that wrote the WSJ hit piece on PewDiePie.
The WSJ presents the entire story as investigatory journalism (the WaPo[3] even calls it "investigatory") with all the characteristic window dressing like the haunting steel drum soundtrack and creepy transitions to soundbites. It includes an apology and follows it up with a SPLC quote suggesting the apology itself is just a nazi dogwhistle.
I would be far more forgiving if the entire ordeal didn't give off such a strong "old media vs new media" vibe. PewDiePie became popular with probably the most mundane and inoffensive content (gameplay videos with quirky humour) before recently shifting into more daring content, much of which is built on him calling out his critics. A lot of the nazi/anti-semitism segments the WSJ cites are actually retorts to people accusing him of these exact things and can be summarised as "Look, this is what you say I am: <nazi segment>. This is ridiculous".
I don't care much for PewDiePie's style of content, neither the old gameplay stuff nor the more recent videos. And his humour is definitely playing with societal sensibilities and at times in bad taste. But the anti-semitism accusations are willfully ignorant of the context and no more valid than the child abuse accusations against Louis CK.
Regardless of whether PewDiePie is an anti-semite/nazi or not, the style of reporting by the WSJ, WaPo, Guardian et al is sensationalist and intellectually dishonest. It calls into question their credibility on topics that actually matter, which is a net negative to the credibility of the traditional press as a whole.
[2]: While frequently cited because it's ostensibly "good people" the SPLC has also called Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz as "anti-Muslim extremist" (which almost everyone else seems to agree on being ridiculous and irresponsible). Appealing to their moral authority should thus be taken with a grain of salt.
The oldest snapshot[0] on archive.org indicates the article's subheading as "Star with most subscribers posted videos in which he makes anti-Semitic jokes or content, testing media firm’s standards" which they later changed to "Move came after the Journal asked about videos in which he included anti-Semitic jokes or Nazi imagery".
The accompanying video[1] deliberately took a lot of sequences out of context and presented them as representative. Regardless of the validity of the Souther Poverty Law Center quotes[2] they deliberately suggest he is a nazi by association, especially by ending the video with the implication that The Daily Stormer (a nazi website) likes him.
Ironically The Daily Stormer has since changed its tagline from "the world's #1 PewDiePie fan site" to "the world's #1 Wall Street Journal fan site", with a composite image of the three journalists that wrote the WSJ hit piece on PewDiePie.
The WSJ presents the entire story as investigatory journalism (the WaPo[3] even calls it "investigatory") with all the characteristic window dressing like the haunting steel drum soundtrack and creepy transitions to soundbites. It includes an apology and follows it up with a SPLC quote suggesting the apology itself is just a nazi dogwhistle.
I would be far more forgiving if the entire ordeal didn't give off such a strong "old media vs new media" vibe. PewDiePie became popular with probably the most mundane and inoffensive content (gameplay videos with quirky humour) before recently shifting into more daring content, much of which is built on him calling out his critics. A lot of the nazi/anti-semitism segments the WSJ cites are actually retorts to people accusing him of these exact things and can be summarised as "Look, this is what you say I am: <nazi segment>. This is ridiculous".
I don't care much for PewDiePie's style of content, neither the old gameplay stuff nor the more recent videos. And his humour is definitely playing with societal sensibilities and at times in bad taste. But the anti-semitism accusations are willfully ignorant of the context and no more valid than the child abuse accusations against Louis CK.
Regardless of whether PewDiePie is an anti-semite/nazi or not, the style of reporting by the WSJ, WaPo, Guardian et al is sensationalist and intellectually dishonest. It calls into question their credibility on topics that actually matter, which is a net negative to the credibility of the traditional press as a whole.
[0]: http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.wsj.com/articles/di...
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFY7mGkmFxo
[2]: While frequently cited because it's ostensibly "good people" the SPLC has also called Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz as "anti-Muslim extremist" (which almost everyone else seems to agree on being ridiculous and irresponsible). Appealing to their moral authority should thus be taken with a grain of salt.
[3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/1...