“Remember lads, Subscribe to PewDiePie”, was uttered by the New Zealand shooter moments before the worst attack in the country’s history.
Popular YouTuber PewDiePie has called for an end to the ‘subscribe’ meme following a reference to it during terrorist attacks that took place in Christchurch in March.
Before opening fire on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, the shooter recorded himself saying the words “Remember lads, Subscribe to PewDiePie.”
He went on to kill 50 people and injure 50 more.
This was in reference to an online movement among PewDiePie’s millions of fans to keep his YouTube channel as the most subscribed channel on the site.
In a video posted on his channel, PewDiePie (whose real name is Felix Kjellberg) urged his fans to put an end to the meme, saying: “To have my name associated with something so unspeakably vile has affected me in more ways than I might have shown.”
Explaining why it took him this long to address the situation in a video, he said: “I just didn’t want to address it right away, and I didn’t want to give the terrorist any more attention. I didn’t want to make it about me. Because I don’t think it has anything to do with me. To put it plainly, I didn’t want hate to win.
“It’s clear to me now the ‘Subscribe to PewDiePie’ movement should have ended then.”
Boasting over 96 million subscribers, PewDiePie has caused controversy in the past, for making anti-semetic jokes and once shouting the N word while live streaming a video game.
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