You may not recognize the name Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, but you’re likely to recognize his gamer tag and online name: PewDiePie. The Swedish internet personality has millions of fans who want to know everything about him, including whether he is colorblind.
PewDiePie’s fans were the first to discover that the gamer and YouTuber is colorblind. Though he has yet to confirm just how colorblind he is, it would appear as though he struggles to see the colors yellow and red which indicates that he has tritanomaly.
Let’s find out more about PewDiePie’s color blindness, what it means to be colorblind, and whether any other celebrities are colorblind. Regardless of his diagnosis, PewDiePie’s channel and personality will always be described as ‘colorful’.
PewDiePie’s Visual Impairment
Though he has yet to explicitly confirm it, there is reason to believe that PewDiePie is colorblind. As you’ll see in the clip below, PewDiePie acknowledges colorblindness and seemed genuinely concerned when a fan commented “You forgot to put yellow in the list”.
The color yellow is very clearly — to people without visual impairments at least — featured in the list, as it is the most dominant color present.
PewDiePie’s colorblind status was confirmed once again in his 2019 video titled ‘YouTube is Stinky’. In the video he says “Should I pick any other color than this shade of gray?”, referring to a photo that is certainly not gray.
Several Reddit threads cover the topic of PewDiePie’s color blindness and many of his colorblind fans are excited for him to open up more about the condition.
What Does ‘Colorblind’ Mean?
Mayo Clinic defines color blindness, also known as color vision deficiency, as “an inability to see the difference between colors”. Contrary to popular belief, being color blind does not mean that you cannot see colors but rather have difficulty distinguishing certain colors.
Technically speaking, there are 7 different types of color blindness. Four types are found in the red-green category, two are found in the blue-yellow category, and the last type stands alone.
Protanopia (red-blind), protanomaly (red-weak), deuteranopia (green-blind), and deuteranomaly (green-weak) are the different types of red-green color blindness. Red-green color blindness is the most common type of color blindness.
On the blue-yellow side of the color blind scale, tritanopia (blue-blind) and tritanomaly (blue-weak) are found. Tritanomaly, the type of color blindness PewDiePie is thought to have, makes it incredibly difficult to tell the difference between blue and green, and between yellow and red.
The last type of color blindness is called monochromacy, achromatopsia, or complete color blindness, and it’s very rare as it occurs in only one person out of every 33,000 people. People who have monochromacy are unable to see any color whatsoever, and they view their world in black and white.
Color blindness is caused by many different factors. Exposure to chemicals like carbon disulfide, aging, certain medications used to treat heart problems, diseases such as sickle cell anemia, chronic alcoholism, and glaucoma, are all known causes of color blindness.
But most often, color blindness is an inherited disorder. Inherited color blindness is more common in males than it is in females, and its severity — which can range from mild to severe — will not change at all during your lifetime.
PewDiePie Aside, Who Are Colorblind Celebs?
There are many other celebrities that are colorblind, including PewDiePie’s fellow YouTube personalities GeorgeNotFound, Jacksepticeye, and Logan Paul, who are red-green colorblind.
Actors Keanu Reeves, Robert Redford, Joseph Gatt, and Eddie Redmayne are colorblind, while athletes like Jack Niklaus, Vinnie Testaverde, Brian Foster, Chris Rogers, Ian Hunter, and Doug Flutie all have color blindness to some degree.
Other celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg, Prince William, Bill Clinton, Meat Loaf, Matt Lauer, Bob Dole, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Sting, Marco Rubio, Paul Hollywood, Howie Mendell, and Christopher Nolan all join PewDiePie in the colorblind club.
PewDiePie — as well as all of the other celebrities mentioned in this article — are prime examples that prove that being colorblind is not debilitating. Many colorblind people can and do lead normal lives.