There’s been an inordinate amount of
coverage in the past few days of PewDiePie, a YouTube celebrity gamer who is
already annoying me solely because of all the red lines that are appearing
across this article.
He’s Swedish. He’s young. He’s
extremely successful at what he does.
He made $7.4 million last year. Some people are upset about that.
Understandably so. After all, who is
this guy who makes millions by playing video games, by giving stupid reactions
to stupid toys? Why can he make so much doing something so worthless? And where
do I sign up?
Here’s the thing. PewDiePie makes a
huge amount of money through his videos because people enjoy watching them. And
because YouTube allows that monetisation to take place. There’s nothing cynical
about those earnings. You know why?
Because he’s doing something that he
loves. And we as a society value what he’s doing.
You could argue that society
shouldn’t value his work. You could argue that he might be just in it for the
money. But the reality is that there’s no way he would be so popular, and so
successful, without having a real passion for his work.
It’s easy to dismiss those who
become wealthy in unorthodox ways as being below our respect. That what they do
lacks worth.
But one of the things we value most
is entertainment. PewDiePie is providing entertainment for his audience, and
selling ad space for YouTube while he does it. Whether or not you like his
content, living in a free society means that you can’t control whose voices are
worthy of money or respect.
I have no interest in watching
PewDiePie’s videos. But his presence on the web is an encouraging reflection of
the freedom people have these days, to make money doing the things that they
love.
(No matter how stupid they might be.)
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