 PewDiePie posted a pretty insensitive meme about Demi Lovato's drug overdose and since then he's apologized. Now he says that he understands why it was so insensitive but does he really? What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and today's topic is perfect especially since yesterday I was talking about the stigma around mental illness and around addiction. So PewDiePie has been in the news lately as well as Demi Lovato and here's a little backstory about what happened. So the other day PewDiePie posted this meme and it says mom can you give me money for a burger to buy a burger? Yes actually buys heroin like a boss. Alright so PewDiePie posted that and the internet blew up as it always does and a bunch of news outlets and stuff covered it and I think that news outlets you know they sensationalize everything and they make a much bigger deal out of everything than they need to especially when it comes to PewDiePie. Anytime PewDiePie makes a wrong move the media is all over it because he is the biggest youtuber on the platform and he's an example of the platform as well as an example for a very young audience. So since then PewDiePie took that meme down he apologized and then he released a video today and today in his video he further apologized and discussed the story he discussed where his mind was out when he posted the meme he also explained that he uh read up on addiction that night and he understands now that you shouldn't ostracize somebody who has an addiction because it might make them spiral down worse into their addiction and absolutely absolutely I totally agree but from the things that he says I don't think he really gets it. Now before I continue and get into my opinion and talk about how PewDiePie doesn't really understand what he did or where his head is still at I do want him to say this I love PewDiePie I love this guy so much I know that he does not do anything in a malicious way I know that for a fact he is a very good hearted person you can tell that just by watching his videos he tries to teach his young audience about things and explain you know what it's like to be a youtuber and he warns people before they jump into this career I also love the fact that he's kind of dabbled in starting like a book club and trying to get his younger audience to read like this is amazing PewDiePie is a very good guy but when it comes to addiction like a lot of people are just ignorant and this clip really explains how PewDiePie still doesn't really get it. Also a lot of people are saying that I was making fun of mental health which no that wasn't the case at all I was making fun of them me and her poor choices. So this is the main problem right here people don't get it they don't see it they don't see the connection they see as addiction and mental illness as two separate things so while PewDiePie is defending himself and saying oh I'm not a hypocrite I was talking about addiction not mental illness no they're all the same thing addiction is a mental illness the leading cause of addiction is a mental illness so like in Demi Lovato's case she was self medicating her mental illness which led to an addiction do you understand you see how these things go together addiction can also cause a mental illness so one of the things that PewDiePie believes and he says is this isn't a mental health issue Demi Lovato is in this situation because of the poor choices that she made now I've done plenty of videos about the difference between addiction and a choice and how they're the same thing in many cases and how we need to relate it to other choices right like here's the thing so in PewDiePie's scenario where he talks about how addiction is a choice not a mental illness so would you ever tell a war veteran would you ever tell a war veteran who is suffering from PTSD that his PTSD isn't really a mental illness because this soldier made the choice to go to war like I want you to think about that for a second like when we're trying to decrease the stigma and raise awareness we need to start understanding like this unconscious bias we have towards addiction like why is it like we need to look at these things and say oh wow they are kind of the same like depending on your life circumstances like man I've said this a billion times like if any of you met the people that I work with at my addiction treatment center you would understand you would understand that over 90 percent of them had terrible terrible life circumstances that led to unfortunately unhealthy coping mechanism which involved drinking and using drugs for me for those of you who don't know me I just celebrated six years clean and sober a lot of mine came from mental illness as well as being raised by an alcoholic mother so it's not really fair to say that all these addicts they made this terrible choice like you don't know their past you don't know their history you don't know what they've been through like it's really difficult to tell somebody who has had this traumatic traumatic childhood that oh you just made some bad choices in life now something else that kind of rubbed me the wrong way about Pewdiepie's quote unquote apology is that as he's trying to get you to understand that he's trying to educate himself about addiction which you can't do overnight by reading some articles online by the way he tries to say that the media is blowing this out of proportion but then he goes on the defense and says the media is saying I shouldn't do things like this because I have a young impressionable audience but then he shifts the blame over to Demi Lovato and he says well she has a young impressionable audience she's the one doing drugs shouldn't she be going after her for what she's doing like let me make this very clear this is not how you apologize this is what we call the but what about technique now what I find really really fascinating about this whole video that Pewdiepie released today is that he segues from this straight into the new Casey Neistat and Logan Paul interview and Pewdiepie is unable to see the parallels between him defending himself and what Logan Paul's doing and I think this clip is a pretty good example there's a difference between culturally insensitive and insensitive but it also doesn't matter and you don't seem to understand why one is offensive anyway so so here's the thing because I'm a fan of Pewdiepie because I watch a lot of Pewdiepie's videos I understand why Pewdiepie doesn't see the parallel between what he's criticizing Logan Paul for and what he's actually doing when it comes to addiction okay so Pewdiepie loves Japan Pewdiepie loves Japan he loves Japanese culture whenever Pewdiepie goes on vacation first place on his list is Japan Pewdiepie understands Japanese culture he understands what is offensive to them so when Pewdiepie is criticizing Logan Paul he's basically saying that Logan Paul doesn't understand why what he was doing in Japan was offensive not the suicide force thing but when Logan Paul was running around in costumes and just doing just acting a fool up in Japan like Pewdiepie gets it but Logan Paul doesn't well here's the thing since Pewdiepie isn't familiar with addiction since he doesn't know or work with a bunch of drug addicts and alcoholics he's unable to really see the parallel and say oh okay well what I'm saying is really offensive when it comes to addiction what I'm saying when she made choices what I'm saying when she's being a bad example to this audience oh wow he doesn't get that he doesn't understand that because it's not something that he was really that well educated about here's some food for thought for you here is something I want you all to think about so Logan Paul is out there trying to rebuild his name rebuild his credibility do a bunch of PR and stuff like that because of what happened in the Japanese suicide force he's trying to raise raise awareness about suicide and mental illness and things like that and Pewdiepie says that you know he advocates for illness and mental health something that Pewdiepie has done is he talked about the Nicole Arbor video well let's take a look at the statistics so in the United States alone 44,000 people each year die from suicide but in the United States alone over 65,000 people die each year from opioid addiction now this statistic does not include addictions to other substances alcohol cocaine benzodiazepines meth and all the other ones so that 65,000 number is actually closer to a hundred thousand number okay and something that's also not taken into consideration is a lot of people commit suicide because of their addiction because they feel so hopeless because they don't see a way out I've known many many many many people who have committed suicide after quitting drugs and alcohol because they no longer know how to live a life so I just want you to think about that a little bit and think about is Pewdiepie really getting educated about what addiction really is and how it actually is a mental health crisis but I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions down in the comments below so lay them on me all right and please do me a favor we're trying to fight the stigma when it comes to mental health when it comes to addiction addiction and mental health are the same thing all right so do me a favor and share this video let's educate the world together all right but anyways if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here i'm always making videos to help you out with your mental health click that little round subscribe button and big big big thank you to everybody supporting the channel on patreon and if you would like to help support my mission to educate people about mental illness and addiction go ahead and click or tap on that patreon icon right there all right thanks so much for watching in the stigma and i'll see you next time