This story was originally published on Passionfruit.
Felix Kjellberg, known online as PewDiePie, is an undisputed controversy king of YouTube. With over 111 million subscribers amassed since 2010, he’s both a trendsetter and a contentious figure. He helped define early video game content and broke viewership with daily uploads, while also catching heat for using racial slurs, paying unsuspecting accomplices to hold up a sign that said “death to all Jews” as a “joke,” and even getting in a full-on feud with the country of India after releasing a diss track song against an Indian music label.
He’s posted a wide range of content in over 4,700 videos, including vlogs, fan reactions, and video game playthroughs. Those “Let’s Play” videos were recently reused and streamed non-stop on Kjellberg’s unearthed Twitch channel, which was inactive for many years until March. But just under two months since the channel became active again, on May 8, Kjellberg’s channel was unceremoniously temporarily banned—and fans don’t know why.
Theories are running rampant, including speculation it was due to a controversial Twitch-banned game known as Yandere Simulator, which contains brutal gore and sexualized representations of underage girls. Though uncertain, these rumors are only further amplified by the lack of public response from Twitch about their reasoning behind the ban.
