Does Karl Jacobs deserve the hate he is getting? Racism & anti-semitism accusations explained

The American YouTuber/streamer Karl Jacobs has come under scrutiny from the community for associating with former Twitch streamer Paul “Ice Poseidon” Denino.

At his peak, Ice Poseidon was a popular Twitch streamer known for his hilarious antics during his “IRL” streams. He currently streams on YouTube as he is permanently banned from Twitch. Karl Jacobs has been accused of supporting Denino in the past.

Ice Poseidon’s community was highly toxic due to their frequent use of racial and sexual slurs. An old photo, in which Karl Jacobs admits to being a fan of Denino, has been making the rounds on social media, leading to outrage.

---

Karl Jacobs receives online hate through no fault of his own

While Ice Poseidon’s overall community has always been highly toxic, the former Twitch star was incredibly popular on the platform from 2015-2017. In his peak, Ice Poseidon generated around 18k average viewers on his stream, according to Twitch Tracker. Ice Poseidon regularly streams on YouTube and has garnered around 750k subscribers on the platform.

So this suspected white supremacist "gamer/youtuber" named Ice Poseidon apparently goes around antagonizing Black people, so he can get a reaction from them, and then call the police on them, allegedly in hopes that the police will show up and harm the Black person pic.twitter.com/4dj36wdjT4

— Tariq Nasheed 🇺🇸 (@tariqnasheed) May 30, 2018

Ice Poseidon’s ban came as a result of a viewer swatting him as he mistakenly revealed his flight number during a live stream. He has since been accused of being a “white-supremacist” after a black family accused Denino of making racist comments at a Denny’s restaurant. Check out the video below.

here’s a photo of karl jacobs with a racist streamer (ice poseidon) which karl has said he was a “big fan of” the streamer would have raids where he would have his fans call black ppl racial slurs pic.twitter.com/bXJY9BVRif

— salem✿READ MY CARDD BEFORE FOLLOWING (@femmefairyy) April 29, 2021

Regardless, Karl Jacobs has come under scrutiny from the internet because of admitting to being a fan of Ice Poseidon in the past. Images of Jacobs having “stream-sniped” Ice Poseidon have been doing the rounds on Twitter. Karl Jacobs has also been accused of using a “racist emoticon.”

I FUCKING FOUND IT pic.twitter.com/ceoalSIjYU

— ana sofia🦦 (@aisannaa) April 29, 2021

you also used an emote that’s only purpose was to harass the black community. pic.twitter.com/Q5A2j4Ry4y

— paige (@feralpaige) April 29, 2021

Karl Jacobs, during his recent apology, addressed the emoticon as well. He explained that the emoticon in question was in truth in reference to an early Ice Poseidon meme. Jacobs claimed that the joke was that Poseidon had a “big nose,” and there was no racist connotation attached to the emoticon.

"I want to talk about a clip that came out recently, on Mizkif's stream where I said I was spamming Cx in his chat because I said 'probably because somebody in a video game had a big nose'. I think people associated that with antisemitism but in reality, in early Twitch, the meme was like Ice Poseidon had a big nose. So people made fun of him for having a big nose. I wasn't coming towards antisemitism if that makes sense, or anything racially charged at all. I don't know if that's clear, but yeah, Ice Poseidon is not Jewish or anything like that. It wasn't meant to be anything like that."

While the joke seems to be in poor taste, the now 22-year old Karl Jacobs was merely a teenager when the incident occurred. It also seems from his apology video that he was unaware of the entire connotation when he had first cracked the joke.

Regardless, Jacobs apologized for his actions and said that he does not share Ice Poseidon’s alleged beliefs despite admitting to being a fan of the personality a long time ago.

“There's threads going out there that I've associated with a streamer, a prominent streamer, that is currently known for a lot of bad stuff, like racism, any phobia you could think of. I just want to make it clear, a million percent, I don't condone anything I've done. I hope that's clear; that's just not who I am as a person. That's just never who I wanted to be. I just never want anyone to associate that kind of garbage with me because it's not true. I'm sorry that I made anyone uncomfortable because I understand that. I am sorry that I've upset people. I know I have; I appreciate you guys a lot for hearing it out, at least. "

So I watched the Karl Jacobs stream and I have mixed feelings about it. I might get cancelled but so be it. On one hand I do agree with some of the stuff he’s getting cancelled for. Like being a fan of a super racist person for 3 years, come on man.

— artphobic2021 (@artphobic2021) April 30, 2021

As a Karl Jacobs fan who is a pic, I'm not even gonna sugar coat how deep this shit cut. I wanna believe that Karl is good but you choose who to follow, support, and be friends with. Idk how old the footage is but it's clear this poseidon guy is just a racist jerk - https://t.co/Qch9KSCxbh

— Anna hath died (@AnnaMarkiela) April 30, 2021

Dude I’m gonna cry, I’m angry, sad, and overall disappointed. I was so confused as to why Karl Jacobs was apologizing, I didn’t even have to go that deep into why he was racist, transphobic, etc. I’m honestly disgusted, he was someone I genuinely looked up to and now I don’t know

— i am funny (@No58694465) April 30, 2021

watching all these people blatantly disrespect minorities in the karl jacobs fandom is disgusting. honktwt is mass reporting anyone who doesn't forgive him, his mods are silencing ppl on discord, it's frankly disgusting how much you guys want to force minorities into silence

— gage! ☾ (@hiyabeetwt) April 30, 2021

Karl Jacobs’ apology has divided the internet. Quite a few people shave saidthat he doesn’t have the right to decide whether his actions/words constitute “anti-Semitism.”

I understand that people are upset at Karl Jacobs, you're allowed to be, It's totally reasonable. He was friends with someone who is a racist, etc. That's not a mistake. But that doesn't define Karl as a human. That doesn't mean that Karl agreed with all of his actions.

— kat *:･ﾟ✧ (@angeuics) April 30, 2021

I'm really disappointed in alot of people. I understand the situation that happened with Karl jacobs and this racist streamer and I wanna adress it. Just because Karl associated himself with him doesn't automatically mean he racist and doesn't mean he support it.

— BbyVisces (@BVisces) April 30, 2021

twitter isn’t letting me post the 3 minute video, but i literally don’t understand how people can be so rude towards such a genuine and caring person. he doesn’t deserve all the hate he gets </3 pic.twitter.com/ylgAsj8qBW

— i love karl (@iluv_karljacobs) April 30, 2021

The definition of racism: Karl Jacobs supporting people who happened to be racist in the past doesn’t make him racist. End of discussion.he has made it clear he is against racism, grow up and stay out of it. pic.twitter.com/BQaE5ZedJf

— isdiot (@dtupids) April 30, 2021

A number of his fans have come out in support and said that Karl Jacobs does not deserve this hatred. People have argued that just because Karl Jacobs supported a racist in the past, he isn't one.