# PewDiePie PewDiePie is the YouTube alias of Swedish creator Felix Kjellberg, whose shouted Let's Play videos made him the most-subscribed channel on the platform from August 2013 until Indian music label T-Series edged him out in April 2019. The rivalry produced the Great Subscriber War, one of the most closely watched follower races in internet history. ## Origin Felix Kjellberg opened the YouTube account 'PewDiePie' on April 29, 2010, after losing the password to an earlier account called 'Pewdie' that dated to December 19, 2006[3]. The earliest surviving upload was a short Minecraft playthrough featuring a zombie that had spawned inside a minecart[9]. He followed it with playthroughs of Call of Duty: Black Ops, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Dead Space 2, which locked in the shouted Let's Play format the channel became known for[3]. Kjellberg later told fans in a video called 'Let's Talk About Money' that he had funded his early channel by working shifts at a hot-dog stand, treating YouTube as a hobby rather than a career plan until it took off[1]. The move from side project to full-time job happened fast: within roughly three years of that first Minecraft clip, PewDiePie was the biggest single channel on the platform. - **Platform:** YouTube - **Creator:** Felix Kjellberg - **Date:** 2010 ## Overview The PewDiePie channel is built around shouted, first-person commentary over video games, most famously horror titles like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, plus vlog skits, callback bits, and merch stunts that treated the audience as an inside-joke group[3]. Kjellberg's Swedish accent, his willingness to scream through jump scares, and a near-daily upload schedule turned single videos into serial content that fans followed like a sitcom. His face-cam-plus-gameplay layout became the default template for a whole generation of gaming vloggers who copied the confessional framing and reaction-heavy edits. Alongside the gaming videos, the channel picked up recurring bits that became identifiers: the Bro Fist greeting, the Nine-Year-Old Army fan label, and later the Floor Gang gag riffed on in Urban Dictionary entries that half-describe him as a man on the floor shouting his own catchphrases[10]. Kjellberg often played into his own reputation, pinning a tongue-in-cheek Twitter bio that read, in broken English, 'Uploadan daily quality content since 1984'[11]. By the mid-2010s the channel was a business as much as a comedy act, with a Disney-backed network called Revelmode, mobile game tie-ins, and public financial filings that made his earnings a news topic[1][5]. That combination of scale, personality, and constant self-referential humor is what set PewDiePie apart from the many gaming creators who followed. ## How It Spread On August 15, 2013, PewDiePie became the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, briefly losing the position to the YouTube Spotlight house channel later that year before reclaiming it[3]. Earnings reporting in 2015 put the scale of the operation in front of a mainstream audience: a Swedish filing by his company PewDie Productions showed roughly $7.4 million in 2014 income, sparking a wave of 'you don't deserve it' comments that Kjellberg answered in the 'Let's Talk About Money' video[1]. His channel closed 2014 with more than 4 billion views and about 33 million subscribers[1]. Mainstream crossovers stacked up. South Park built two 2014 episodes around him, with the second ending on an in-cartoon PewDiePie saving the town from Cartman while Stan and Kyle admitted they still didn't get the appeal[2]. In August 2016 he teamed with Montreal studio Outermind on a free-to-play mobile game called Tuber Simulator, an isometric pixel game about grinding YouTube fame that followed his earlier title Legend of the Brofist[4][5]. By late 2016 he was publicly feuding with YouTube itself over subscription and view counts, threatening in a video that pulled more than 12 million views to delete his channel once it hit 50 million subscribers[7]. The most-watched chapter was the Great Subscriber War of 2018 and 2019, a fan campaign to hold off Indian music label T-Series. Supporters bought Times Square billboards, hijacked printers, and made 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' a running joke across YouTube itself. T-Series overtook him in subscribers in April 2019[3]. Smaller collabs kept him in headlines through the same window: in July 2018 Illinois teenager Billy 'FaZe Lampshade' Krankavitch spent months eating printed photos of Kjellberg's face until Kjellberg finally featured him and offered a paper-for-paper deal, ultimately eating one printed photo of Krankavitch in return for the fan's 100[6]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is PewDiePie? PewDiePie is the YouTube channel of Swedish comedian and gamer Felix Kjellberg, best known for shouted Let's Play videos and horror-game playthroughs[3]. ### Where did PewDiePie come from? Kjellberg started the PewDiePie account on April 29, 2010 after losing the password to an earlier account called 'Pewdie' that dated to December 19, 2006[3]. ### What does PewDiePie mean? The name is a rework of Kjellberg's earlier YouTube handle 'Pewdie', with 'pew' as gun-sound onomatopoeia and 'die' tacked on; he adopted PewDiePie after losing access to the original account[3]. ### How do you use PewDiePie? The channel itself is not a template, but fans still trade in-jokes from it: Bro Fist greetings, Nine-Year-Old Army self-labels, and 'Floor Gang' callbacks like the ones logged on Urban Dictionary[10]. ### Is PewDiePie still popular? The channel is a classic of YouTube history rather than a trending property; T-Series overtook it in subscribers in April 2019, ending its long run at the top spot[3]. ### How much does PewDiePie earn? A Swedish company filing by his firm PewDie Productions showed roughly $7.4 million in 2014 income, which Kjellberg addressed in a video called 'Let's Talk About Money'[1]. ### What was the Great Subscriber War? It was the 2018 to 2019 fan campaign to keep PewDiePie ahead of Indian music label T-Series in YouTube subscribers, which T-Series won in April 2019[3]. ### Did PewDiePie appear on South Park? Yes, South Park built two 2014 episodes around him, ending one storyline with an in-cartoon PewDiePie saving the town from Cartman[2]. ### What games has PewDiePie released? He starred in Legend of the Brofist and the 2016 free-to-play mobile title Tuber Simulator, both from Montreal studio Outermind[4][5]. ### Why did PewDiePie threaten to delete his channel? In a December 2016 video he said he would delete the channel at 50 million subscribers as a protest over YouTube unsubscribing viewers and pushing paid content in the trending tab[7]. ## References 1. [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/08/youtube-pewdiepie-annual-earnings-responds-haters]() 2. [https://kotaku.com/pewdiepie-starred-again-on-last-nights-south-park-1669826680]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/pewdiepie]() 4. [https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/29/12697206/pewdiepie-tuber-simulator-game]() 5. [https://fortune.com/2016/08/30/pewdiepie-new-game-star/]() 6. [https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/5/17537022/pewdiepie-youtube-faze-lampshade-100-days-om-nom-tastes-like-paper]() 7. [https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/12/06/pewdiepie-threatens-to-delete-channel-as-youtubers-accuse-site-of-manipulating-views/]() 8. [https://chip-and-ironicus.tumblr.com/post/33796157826/ironicus-reacts-to-the-general-reaction-to-etc]() 9. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jeJbdVl2jI]() 10. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pewdiepie]() 11. [https://web.archive.org/web/20180305011524/https://twitter.com/pewdiepie/status/967888759172812800]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/pewdiepie Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library