PewDiePie under fire for “mocking” deaf TikToker

Popular YouTuber Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg is under fire after some have accused him of “mocking” a deaf TikToker who was speaking in sign language during a recent video. Others have defended the clip, arguing that it was only a critique of the TikToker’s nails.

With over 111 million subscribers on YouTube, PewDiePie is one of the most successful long-time creators on the Google-owned platform.

He’s known for his gameplay reactions and reaction videos that sometimes star fellow YouTuber CinnamonToastKen.

In a video uploaded on July 26 where he reacted to TikTok uploads, Kjellberg “mocked” a TikToker’s nails, in a video where she was speaking in American Sign Language.

At the end of her video, he mentioned that she has “crazy nails” while moving his dog’s arms around to imitate the action.

PewDiePie under fire for “mocking” deaf TikToker

Just a day after his video was uploaded, users took to Twitter to share their thoughts.

One Twitter user named saturn shared a recording of the clip with the caption: “so why is nobody talking about PewDiePie making fun of a deaf black woman?”

User ‘moonlightcherie’ said “PewDiePie mocking a deaf TikTok creator for signing in her videos simply because she has long nails…as if the dude couldn’t be any worse”

Another argued that the clip was not ableist, but rather racist.

However, many users have also defended PewDiePie, arguing that the clip was only mocking the TikToker’s long nails, and had nothing to do with her being deaf or black.

It appears the clip in question has now been removed from PewDiePie’s upload.

Although, at the time of writing, a screenshot of the TikToker is still in the thumbnail of his video uploaded on July 26. He has yet to respond to the backlash, but we’ll be sure to update this article if he does.