PewDiePie and Jack Black will team up for a Minecraft stream to support Mental Health Awareness, with the YouTube creator and the Jumanji: The Next Level star collaborating for livestreams that will take place across YouTube and DLive. The stream will seemingly focus on the impact that overwork and burnout have on YouTubers, streamers, and online creators, with these individuals facing “tremendous pressure that leads to a toll being taken on their mental health.”
The collaboration was announced in a press release this week, with the unlikely duo pairing up for a session of Minecraft Battle Royale. Jack Black will stream to his Jablinski Games YouTube channel, while PewDiePie will also utilize the streaming platform DLive.
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“One-in-two people will be diagnosed with a mental health condition in their life,” the press release reads. “To improve mental health awareness for creators within the gaming industry, DLive is partnering with PewDiePie and Jack Black’s JablinksiGames for a livestream fundraiser in support of charity.”
Though the stream is for a charitable cause, it’s arguably a divisive decision for Jack Black to choose to collaborate with PewDiePie. The YouTuber, real name Felix Kjellberg, has been embroiled in a number of controversies in recent years, including calling a rival player a racial slur on a PUBG YouTube livestream. PewDiePie apologized for the incident, though his behavior online garnered him support among far-right figures on the internet. This ultimately led to the New Zealand shooter repeating the “Subscribe to PewDiePie” meme while carrying out his attack on a mosque earlier this year. “To have my name associated with something so unspeakably vile has affected me in more ways than I’ve shown,” PewDiePie later said in a video in which he called for the “end” of the meme.
Still, burnout among online creators is a prevalent issue among the YouTube and Twitch communities, so the spotlight given to this issue by PewDiePie and Jack Black will be welcomed by many. With both YouTube and Twitch’s algorithms ensuring that creators have to produce frequent, consistent content in order to continue making a living, many find themselves incapable of taking breaks. This ultimately leads to many facing mental health issues, feeling pressurized to continue performing in the spotlight in order to retain their audience.
The dual livestreams will be held on Sunday, July 21 at 10:00 AM PDT, with viewer donations benefiting charities that focus on improving mental health in the gaming community. The charities that will be funded will be revealed on Friday. PewDiePie’s livestream can be viewed here, while the Jablinski Games YouTube channel can be viewed here.
