What to Know
More and more celebrities and influencers have been cutting back on how much they share about their children online (if they share anything at all), and now, popular YouTuber PewDiePie is joining their ranks. On May 23, PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, announced that later this year, he’s ending his family vlogs, wanting to give his 3-year-old son, Bjorn, more privacy as he gets older, but the decision is already stirring up some brutal criticism of the longtime vlogger.
PewDiePie has been documenting his family’s life in Japan.
Originally from Sweden, PewDiePie and his wife Marzia moved their family to Japan in 2022, and since then, the 36-year-old has been sharing what moving to a different country has been like for them on a pretty regular basis, including their toddler in the videos.
But this September, that’s all coming to an end, as he shared in a video he uploaded to YouTube this week, in an effort to preserve Bjorn’s privacy.
“Now he’s 3 years old, and we feel like it’s a good time to end the vlogs,” he said. “If he wants to be part of it, that should be his choice later.”
He will still be uploading videos to YouTube after September, but his son will no longer be featured.
Not everyone is applauding him for the choice.
While some people online are supporting him making a choice that will ultimately keep his son more safe, others think it’s too little, too late, after sharing so much of the first three years of Bjorn’s life online, including a Reddit thread that has become particularly scathing.
“The kid is in the video about keeping kids out of videos,” one person commented, while another added, “You mean to tell me he’s been posting videos of his kid the whole time?? I guess I’m glad he’s stopping but he shouldn’t have been posting his kid in the first place.”
Another focused their criticism on PewDiePie himself as a YouTuber: “Truly one of the most useless OG internet creators when it comes how they used their platform. He did absolutely nothing to make this world a better place.”
At the same time, his past is coming back to haunt him.
PewDiePie has landed himself in hot water before by expressing some pretty disgusting, racist views, including a prank video that included nazi imagery and anti-Semitic messaging in 2017. He also allowed controversial conservative commentator Ben Shapiro to join him for a video in a move that many say paved the way for the alt-right pipeline that has become so toxic for young people on the internet.
“Pewdiepie can just disappear off the internet,” one Reddit user wrote. “He was one of the main reasons that antisemitism and anti-india sentiments became so popular with the younger crowds.”
It certainly can’t hurt for PewDiePie to give his son more privacy — it will only be a positive change for Bjorn and his future in that way. But if he was thinking he’d get any credit for this decision, he might be a bit disappointed right now. People aren’t letting him off the hook for his past transgressions even a little bit.
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