PewDiePie accused of ableism after he compares a deaf woman's sign language to his dog

Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie has been accused of ableism after appearing to mock a deaf woman using sign language.

The accusation came when the YouTuber, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, uploaded a video captioned, “My Dog Cringes at TikToks..” where he sat with his dog and watched clips from the social media platform.

In one section that has now been edited out of the original video, he watched a clip by TikTokker Scarlet May.

In the video, May, who is deaf, used American Sign Language and speech to recount a story about going through a drive-thru.

But before the clip had ended, PewDiePie stopped the video and said, “No, I’m not listening to this” and proceeded to mock the woman using a distorted voice and using his dog’s paws to imitate her signing.

Before it had been edited out, a clip of the moment was captured and shared on social media, with one person on Twitter writing: “Not Pewdiepie making fun of a deaf woman???”

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One person wrote: “how hard is it to not make content based on demeaning other people, like i will never see the appeal in watching videos solely about mocking and poking fun at others who didn't do anything to deserve it.”

Another said: “just a very weird, nasty and miserable person.”

Someone else commented: “he been problematic for YEARS how are y’all suprised.”

In a comment underneath the YouTube video, PewDiePie wrote: “Hey, just to clear a few things up: I edited out the clip with the girl that has the long nails. Had no clue she was deaf, but kinda dumb of me to not realize...

“Still watching through the clip I only poked fun of her long nails. The voice I did for my dog is the same voice I've given her for years. (edit: ..and making my dog's paws move was poking at people always dancing or doing some move on tiktok, which is an ongoing theme in the whole video). Anyway honest mistake, my bad.”

After being notified by fans that she was in a PewDiePie video, May responded to the incident in a TikTok video.

She explained she thought his actions were “very weird and very unnecessary” and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, saying that if he really didn’t know before, “he definitely knows now”.

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