About six months after getting in trouble for anti-Semitic “jokes” and pro-Hitler comments that were apparently totally cool if taken “in context” with the rest of his horrible sense of humor, excessively wealthy and excessively popular YouTuber PewDiePie is once again in trouble for saying something racist. As reported by Game Informer, PewDiePie—whose real name is Felix Kjellberg—was playing a game of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds recently on his YouTube channel when he dropped the n-word.
As seen in this clip, he does it quickly and casually, replacing it shortly after with the word “asshole,” which kind of gives the impression that it’s a word he’s said before. Of course, that short video probably leaves off the all-important context, which is the magic that makes every racist joke excusable, but he still clearly said the word. This latest dip into racism comes less than a month after PewDiePie decided to swear off Nazi jokes, calling them a “dead meme,” but now it seems like that was less about him learning to be a decent person and more about him simply protecting his brand.
This latest racist incident is already causing problems on that front, though, as indie game developer Sean Vanaman (one of the people behind Firewatch) has decided to filed a DMCA takedown of any PewDiePie videos that feature content from Firewatch or any other games from its studio, Camp Santo. On Twitter, Vanaman said, “I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make,” arguing that PewDiePie’s propensity for racism—regardless of whether or not he’s racist—hurts the entire video game industry.
At this point, PewDiePie hasn’t released a half-hearted apology video yet, but it’s probably in the works.