PewDiePie Faces Backlash After Mocking A Deaf Woman With His Dog

Earlier this year, Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg took a short break from YouTube but much to the delight of fans, quickly made his return. On several occasions since then though, the creator has exhibited some questionable judgement. 

A few months ago, PewDiePie found himself in trouble with the police after he ordered a butterfly knife online (typically used to perform tricks, albeit dangerous ones). Regardless of the intended use, police soon showed up to the creator’s house and confiscated what they considered to be a weapon. Now, PewDiePie has once again come under fire after he appeared to mock a deaf woman during a recent video.

On 26 July, PewDiePie uploaded a new video in which he reacted to a TikTok. The TikTok in question featured a deaf woman who was conveying a story both through speech and via American Sign Language. Partway through the TikTok, PewDiePie paused the video declaring “No. I’m not listening to this. She has your crazy nails Maya,” referring to his dog.

PewDiePie then proceeded to lift Maya the dog, waving around her paws - seemingly mocking ASL - whilst saying “What I did was, I ran outside then I peed and then I pooped a little bit as well, and it was crazy. Sorry, are my nails distracting you guys?” Fans soon started calling out PewDiePie for his misjudged ‘joke.’

Twitter user iced_exponet wrote, “Not PewDiePie making fun of a deaf women?” PewDiePie appears to have edited the clip in his original YouTube video, although it is circulating on social media. 

The featured TikTok user, scarlet_may.1, has since responded to the incident. She said, “I feel like it was very weird, very unnecessary but at the same time, I’m not surprised. I’m used to it. It’s been a big issue in the deaf community. I’ve been trying to normalise and put it out that using nails while signing is normal. It’s okay”

She continued, “If any other hearing person was telling this story but had long nails on and didn’t need to sign to get their point across, he would have listened to the full story and maybe even had a laugh but because I have to sign to communicate, and I have long nails on, he stopped the video after two seconds.”

“If you made a mistake, admit the mistake. You don’t just get to mock deaf people who’ve been struggling for years with people like you, and you go about your day like nothing happened.” PewDiePie is yet to formally respond to the incident at the time of writing.