this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
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I don't, that's something you made up about me in your head. I think that YouTube's business execs would always lead it to where we are now.
He made gameplay videos. I think that's the most benign form of "influencing" there can be. I think there are much more damaging channels that had way more sway in shaping this new generation.
Again, I'm not saying he's a saint but I do think he's ultimately insignificant when looking at the causes of and reasoning behind youtube's enshittification. And I don't think he would ever go a different direction, just doesn't seem like the type.
He laid the groundwork for those shitty influencer. He had the attention of young people who looked up to him. The minute they saw he could make millions by becoming the walking embodiment of a Nascar fender he set the attitudes and aspirations of a generation.
Would YouTube continue without him? Yes of course.
Could he have pushed back and created helped influence a generation of kids to reject the selling out of themselves to this influencer culture? Absolutely.
There were a few influencers in those early days that could have changed things or at least maintained the zeitgeist that we had then. Nobody did. That money was too good. Everything after he made that first million would change how the internet worked.
He was the inflection point. He could have impacted everything going forward. He could have told kids that these companies were stealing their data. That they were soliciting gamers to use as Trojan horses for what would eventually make everything worse.
To call him the inflection point, as if this wasn't a more complex change emerging over time, is ridiculous. You are clearly speaking from an outside perspective. He has never come close to flashing his wealth or showing a 'lifestyle', anything that has came definitively after his peak. The influencer issue was also far more complex. Instagram was the central breeding ground for those types, and twitter was still conversationally relevant.
Even if he was the inflection point, what now? You expect someone at the center of things to realize their unique position, and then realize the most morally correct thing (to you) to do about it? Patently ridiculous, hindsight is 20/20 when it comes to larger cultural movements like influencers.
Calling pewdiepie an influencer shows how little you understand that sphere. You have no idea what you're talking about.
What is an influencer.
Since you said I'm wrong. What is the inflection point that I'm describing.
Did I say he flashed his wealth.
I do expect people to be aware of their impact directly and indirectly especially on kids. The more people you can potentially impact the greater the responsibility to be aware.
Is data collection, exploiting children to sell products and the consequence of profit seeking something that we weren't aware of at the time pewdiepie became famous?
I agree pewdiepie didn't sell things to children. He didn't need to. He was the product.
I'm against commercial pressure in the internet which is a radical concept now it seems. Pewdiepie didn't need to hawk products to kids. I know he did a good job with that. But he was the product. He was the point that kids saw they could become a gamer that helped commercial sites collect people's attention and sell it all to advertisers. They model is what broke everything. It turned the internet into cable television 2.0
We already had corporate approved media that was just a way to sell our attention. The internet for a brief moment was something for us. It was as close to a gift economy that we could get. These were true leftist values. It was the difference between a Texas bluegrass lawn and a lawn allowed to grow wild.
One was de-weeded and sprayed with glyosphate to kill anything that wasn't good old American texas blue grass. Devoid of any originality, beauty or color but looked good. The other was full of weeds but also flowers and plants and life.
Pewdiepie wouldn't have been the only one to make money. But he was the first to hit the milestone and everything changed after that.