The day after YouTube star PewDiePie called for fans to end the viral “Subscribe to PewDiePie” meme, a banner was flown over the New York City skyline Tuesday.
Felix Kjellberg aka “PewDiePie” was live on a streaming site watching the plane fly around the Big Apple with the banner.
He started the subscribe movement when he realized his YouTube-leading subscriber count might soon be overtaken by T-Series.
While some people came up with funny and creative ways to get the message across, others took it too far.
One example of things getting out of hand occurred in Brooklyn, New York, recently when someone wrote “Subscribe to PewDiePie” on a World War II monument.
In March, the man accused of killing 50 people in an attack on two New Zealand mosques invoked the meme in a video livestream of the crime.
“His was a perfect example of a meme that spun out of control. Creators sometimes latch onto something before they realize what's happening it’s bigger than anyone imagined," Julia Alexander, a reporter at The Verge, told Inside Edition.
"This unfortunately became indoctrinated into a hateful, terrible event and the only way they could move on from it is to end it," she continued. "He’s kind of seen as the villain in the traditional mainstream media. That’s not how he's seen to his fans. That’s not how he's seen to the majority of the YouTube community. To them, he's Felix. He’s somebody who has messed up and has moved forward. I don't think that on their end it going to change."
For his part, PewDiePie has had enough of people going too far with what was supposed to be an innocent meme and is calling for it to come to an end.
“To have my name associated with something so unspeakable vile has affected me in more ways that I’ve let show. I 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 it,” he said on his YouTube channel.
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