#btw i stumbled upon said neo-nazi and oh yes he also criticizes the most garbagiest of show steven universe

[wanderingfan]

To Anyone Invested in the Current Pewdiepie Drama I Have Some Things to Say

I Have a Horrid Confession to Make...I was one of those kids that watched peediepie religiously. (yes I misspelled his name and no I won’t change it)

Don’t get me wrong. I stopped watching him in like my second year of high school. But it’s not because I realized he was a awful glob of wood glue right then and there.  This was almost a decade ago, before his antics made even gaming new sites, and while I was aware he made some awful jokes (namely ones about periods and that one Ao Oni video that I sincerely hope has been deleted by now) it didn’t stop me from simply moving on to the next video.  Sadly what stopped me was just that I got bored of him.  I, unaware of myself, quietly grew out of that phase of my life where I loved when he’d mentioned barrels and looked at deviantart to see how people depicted a pig and a golden statue from Amnesia. 

I was one of those embarrassing commenters who’d talk about the bro army and how we should be mad at barrels instead of each other and yes I deleted my entire account because I had the same one for five years and Youtube wouldn’t let me delete all my comments at once.  I did similarly embarrassing things for the Nostalgia Critic and MatPat too.  And like Pewdiepie, I grew out of that phase before their crap caught up with them.  I didn’t have the ability to reflect on my watching habit until my third year of college, and that’s because I was a closeted white girl who didn’t know I was closeted, who didn’t have a tumblr account until I turned 18, and had a high school history teacher that compared Pearl Harbor to the Atomic Bomb that was given the Best Teacher Award every year (she was fired eventually but it was long after I graduated.)

I think the name Wandering Fan suits me because while I fixate of certain sources of entertainment I move on fast.  When its good it can pull me back to series I loved (Undertale dont at me, Fruits Basket, The Last Airbender, ect.) but oftentimes when I look back on the stuff I used to obsess about I’m mortified (Ib, Twilight and Host, that one film about the two headed dragon that wore an Elvis outfit, god I can’t believe I told my family about Vampire Knight, ect.)

And I think as a wandering consumer I’ve gotten lucky to not put all my eggs in the wrong basket, but don’t think I’m fooling myself or that I think I’m above the people who are still in that eggs-in-one-basket phase.  If Pewdiepie did his anti-semite antics and his “oh i didn’t MEAN to promote a neo-nazi” spiel back when I was in middle school I absolutely would have been one of his defenders who thought his critics were just a little too mean to him.  Because I was part of the “bro army.”  Because I invested myself to watching his videos daily, even at the expense of the numerous things I could have done to improve myself, like actually reading the assigned books or practicing music.  I couldn’t have wasted my time watching him.  He was “important” to me.

But now I’m 23 years old.  I’m not the teenage girl who was encouraged to be kind and understanding to the worst kinds of people anymore.  I’m not the very smart very intellectual young lady who tried debating sexist boys younger than me when the new hip new thing to say was “not all men” and “sjws hate all men” and every girl who complained about character designs.  So when I learn that the people I currently follow and look up to do a bad, I can move on pretty easily.

Here’s the thing though.  While I naturally grow out of phases, I still had to actively learn to change how I view people and what it really takes to be observant.  I can still be nice, but I can also refuse to play polite when I know people are being malicious, unawares or not.  People have to actively learn to do better and be better for others, even if that means stepping on a few toes and letting go of the people you like.  Pewdiepie is 29.  As far as I know he never had to learn to do better, so he won’t be better.  There’s no incentive for him to.  There will always be young fans who will always watch him, because even if these fans move on there’ll always be younger fans to take their place.

All of this to say if you’re a 13-16 year-old mad at people being mean to Pewdiepie, you’re not an awful human being because the person you enjoy is in trouble and you want to defend them.  But he’s not worth it, and you’re going to grow out of him.  Pewdiepie is not the hill you’re going to die on.  People do not die on the hills they’ve claimed to be ready to die on, because eventually they’ll forget why they’re there and climb back down.  They’ll move on to other hills to die on, or they realize they can’t die on this hill, and will just enjoy the view for what it is.  But the people around them also don’t forget how they’ve been hurt, and threatened, and scared because of people who’ll die on the hill at the expense of everyone else’s safety and well-being.

But while Pewdiepie’s the hill you plan to die on I’m going to give you a bit of advice: next time you go on Youtube, search for something random, it could be about a game you’re interested in, or an animal you like, or a Simpson’s clip you heard referenced tons of times but never actually saw firsthand, or that vine where a guy high-fived a bumble-bee.  Do about three searches for different topics, then pick a video out from the suggestions page from an uploader you’ve never watched before.  Then go back to a Pewdiepie video.  You might realize you forgot about Pewdiepie for awhile, and maybe, just maybe, you’re interest in him will slowly but surely fade out of you’re mind.

And maybe a few years down the line you’ll be a little more ready to reflect on the people you looked up to and what you did in the time.  Look at your old comments and/or videos defending Pewdiepie and saying what he did wasn’t as bad and didn’t really hurt anyone, and anyone criticizing him is just an overreacting pc sjw.  Look at the people you might have hurt along the way and ask if they deserved it.

Self-reflection isn’t an ability that can grow without your awareness, like your nails or your hair.  Its like puberty.  It feels gross, and uncomfortable, and it’ll make you feel like a rotten apple a lot of times.  It’ll hurt.  It will make you feel bad, and you will not want to do it, and there’s a lot of people online who won’t make the attempt until they hit their twenties like me.  But the earlier you do it the easier it’ll be to avoid being fixated on people like Pewdiepie.  You don’t have to force yourself to hate Pewdiepie.  You just have to realize he’s not going to do better, but you can do better than him, and you no longer need him in your life.

Sorry for impromptu Ted Talk/ You’re-Not-Even-A-Mom-Stop-Acting-Like-One Lecture I just remembered my really embarrassing bro army comments from way back when and the fact that I deleted my account and had to resubscribe to like 200 channels ADD A DELETE ALL COMMENTS OPTION YOUTUBE PLS THX.