What to Know
- A call to subscribe to Youtuber PewDiePie have been repeatedly scrawled on the World War II Memorial in Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza
- The YouTuber has over 88 million subscribers and is known for making controversial and racist comments
- Several of PewDiePie's past videos have included Nazi imagery and jokes
A plea to subscribe to a YouTuber known for making controversial and racist comments has been repeatedly scrawled on the World War II memorial in Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza, photos show.
The chalked vandalism reads “Subscribe to PewDiePie,” which has become somewhat of an online mantra in the past year for fans of a particular YouTube vlogger. The saying comes from what known as the “Great Subscriber War,” in which Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie, continues to rally his fans to defend his spot as the most-subscribed-to channel on YouTube.
Kjellberg, a gaming vlogger, currently has over 88 million subscribers. However, he has faced backlash on multiple occasions for making racist and anti-Semitic jokes. Several of his videos have included Nazi references in the past.
A photo of the vandalism was first posted to Reddit on Sunday by Joe Steer under the user Jahoe. Two instances of the vandalism can be seen scrawled near the memorial message: "This memorial is dedicated to the heroic men and women of the borough of Brooklyn who fought for liberty in the Second World War 1941 - 1945 and especially to those who suffered and died. May their sacrifice inspire future generations and lead to universal peace."
The post has since garnered over 28,000 upvotes — which, if you’re not a Reddit user, is a lot.
Many users expressed confusion and anger as to why someone would deface a war memorial for a Youtuber. And while it appears the vandalism could easily be removed, commenters argued the vandalism was still extremely offensive. "Deface a memorial dedicated to people who died in war for a guy who makes YouTube videos?," one user wrote, incredulous.
Local
Even some fans of the vlogger were unimpressed, with one calling the move "disgusting." "As a long term fan of Pewdiepie myself, I wanna say, I’m ashamed as hell of this fan, they’re honestly just going too far right now," user Cursed_Toxic added.
The New York City Parks Department said it was aware of the graffiti and it would be removing it as soon as possible on Thursday.
