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Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, has apologized after uploading a video in which he appears to mock a deaf woman.
PewDiePie uploaded the video "My Dog Cringes At TikToks.." on Tuesday (July 26). In the video, he watches TikToks and makes fun of them. One clip, which has since been removed from the video, featured deaf California TikToker Scarlet May telling a story in ASL. PewDiePie only gets a few seconds into the clip before he pauses it, saying "No, I'm not listening to this." He goes on to make fun of May's nails and picks up his dog to imitate May telling her story, using the dog's paws to copy May's hand movements.
After the video went live, many criticized PewDiePie for appearing to mock a deaf creator. One person wrote, "Pewdiepie mocking a deaf tiktok creator for signing in her videos simply because she has long nails…as if the dude couldn't be any worse." May herself responded to the video in a TikTok, saying: "I feel like it was very weird and very unnecessary but at the same time I wasn't surprised, I'm used to it."
Here's what PewDiePie wrote under the reuploaded video:
"Hey, just to clear a few things up: I edited out the clip with the girl that has the long nails. Had no clue she was deaf, but kinda dumb of me to not realize. Still watching through the clip I only poked fun of her long nails. The voice I did for my dog is the same voice I've given her for years. (edit: ..and making my dog's paws move was poking at people always dancing or doing some move on tiktok, which is an ongoing theme in the whole video). Anyway honest mistake, my bad."