PewDiePie Jokes About Joining ISIS: Instantly Regrets It [Video]

No, PewDiePie HASN’T JOINED ISIS!

YouTube’s most subscribed user, PewDiePie, was temporarily suspended from Twitter on Tuesday after he posted some jokes about joining ISIS. Things got out of hand real quick, and his joke began backfiring. But what really happened? PewDiePie explains in his latest YouTube video.

In the video, which has since already received over two million views, PewDiePie tries to make matters clear. First of all, no, he has not joined ISIS. So, that’s a relief. It all started when PewDiePie decided to get his “verified” Twitter account “unverified.” An account is considered verified if it has a blue tick mark next to the name, showing that the owner of the account is in fact authentic.

So PewDiePie decided to un-verify himself and add a globe icon next to his name. His fans followed, and all was well, until someone decided to throw in a little ISIS to the equation. A parody news account, an unverified “Sky News” (@skyniews) tweeted a fake story claiming that PewDiePie had had his Twitter account unverified since it was revealed he had joined ISIS. And to most people, a badly photo-shopped photo of PewDiePie among fellow ISIS members, posted by an unverified news account was clearly enough proof that the YouTuber had in fact joined the Terrorist organization. PewDiePie then decided to joke along, and tweeted that he and his friend had in fact joined ISIS. That’s when all hell broke loose.

Of course most of these people who couldn’t be bothered to click on the link in an obviously fake tweet to see that it was in fact what it seemed to be — a fake story, had a lot to say about the “fact” that the most popular YouTuber in the world was no longer one of them, and had become a terrorist. PewDiePie responded to all this claiming that “social media has made us all retarded.”

PewDiePie responds to the whole fiasco in the following video titled “Why I got unverified” on his YouTube channel.

“Then America woke up, and that’s when s–t got stupid.”

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, popularly known by his online alias PewDiePie, is best known for the Let’s Play commentaries and the vlogs he posts on YouTube. The 26 year old swede lives in Brighton with his Italian girlfriend, YouTube personality Marzia Bisognin. PewDiePie was listed as one of “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” by Time in 2016. He refers to his massive fanbase as the “Bro Army,” and via this fanbase he has raised money for charities. He has consistently helped boost the sales for the games he plays on his channel, and his coverage of games has been known to create a “Oprah effect.”

Felix was born in Gotherburg, Sweden, and was pursuing a degree in industrial economics and technology management at Chalmers University of Technology, when he dropped out to focus on his YouTube career. His parents reportedly stopped supporting him once he dropped out of college, and Felix had to work at a hot dog stand to support himself and to fund his videos.

But PewDiePie was rapidly garnering a lot of online following, and by 2012, his YouTube account had over a million subscribers. As of 2016, the number of subscribers has grown to over 47 million, making PewDiePie the most subscribed user on YouTube, a title he has held since 2013. His account surpassed Rihanna’s Vevo account as the most viewed channel on YouTube in 2014, and as of 2016, the channel has had over 12 billion views.

[Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images]