PewDiePie has deleted his Twitter account that had over 19 million followers, hours after he sent a tweet calling out fake news headlines that suggested he was quitting YouTube.
In a video explaining the deletion, PewDiePie said “I hate Twitter” and admitted that he had thought about deleting his Twitter account a lot.
PewDiePie criticized the “constant posturing” on the platform where users “can’t seem to help themselves from pointing out what is good and what is bad.” He added that he doesn’t like how this behavior is rewarded through likes and engagement.
One example PewDiePie pointed to specifically is J.K. Rowling retroactively changing the sexual identity of her characters which he described as “a way to posture for social virtue points” on Twitter.
PewDiePie also used the example of sports to illustrate how social media sites such as Twitter foster a type of fake virtue.
“We have for thousands of years rewarded the winners,” PewDiePie said. “We don’t reward the ones who say they run the fastest but thanks to social media this has somewhat become backwards. You get rewarded for saying things that make you seem virtuous rather than acting on it.”
PewDiePie spent the rest of the video discussing what he believes to be true virtue based on ancient Greek philosophy. He said the answer lies in The Golden Mean – an area of action in between deficiency and excess where the virtuous person acts. He added that you find The Golden Mean through “right action and through habit.”
PewDiePie closed the video out by talking about eudaimonia (a state of human flourishing) which he described as “acting virtuous because you enjoy being virtuous” and “realizing your potential and acting upon it.”
“That is the key to happiness. That is the key to eudaimonia. And that is my summary of Nicomachean ethics,” PewDiePie said. “By the way, f**k Twitter.”
His last tweet before deleting his Twitter account pointed to several misleading tweets from legacy media outlets which claimed that PewDiePie was quitting the platform when he had actually said he’ll be taking a break next year.
Twitter isn’t the only platform PewDiePie has voiced his frustrations with recently. He has also called out YouTube’s updated harassment policy in several recent videos – a policy that he believes will slash comedy and edgy content from the platform.
