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Lisa Nakamura’s article,”‘I WILL DO EVERYthing That Am Asked’: Scambaiting, Digital Show-Space, and the Racial Violence of Social Media”, reminds us that the exploitation of third-world countries persists to this day for the sake of amusement and personal vigilantism.
The article reminds me of a controversy surrounding Felix Kjellberg, widely known as Pewdiepie, not too long ago. Kjellberg is a Youtube star, currently holding the top spot on Youtube with over 57 million subscribers. In January of 2017, he came under fire after using Fiverr, an online marketplace where people offer their services for five dollars, to get a pair of Indian performers to hold up an anti-Semitic sign reading “DEATH TO ALL JEWS.”
Unlike the examples in Nakamura’s article, Kjellberg does not fit under the category of “scambaiter.” He did not use the service in any sense of vigilantism or for personal vendettas against scammers. Instead, he used unsuspecting people in a third world country in order to spread a racist message. Although Kjellberg immediately made an apology video and claimed that he only did it because it was just “a funny meme” and that he “didn’t think they would actually do it.”
But whether or not Pewdiepie’s actions were anti-Semitic or just a poorly executed joke is besides the point. A quick look into the the Indian performers, Funny Guys, that Pewdiepie had used shows a picture similar to that of the Nigerian scammers within the articles. Their Youtube page is filled with short clips of them half-naked and fake-laughing along to messages such as “Happy B-Day” and “Berry Christmas”. This cements Nakamura’s point that racism is a pervasive force in the online world as people continue to exploit and emasculate other cultures by forcing them to become a primitive, uncultured stereotype.
Posted from our fascination by Tony N.