The Great Subscriber War — PewDiePie in green headphones between T-Series logo and Brofist logo with crossed swords and YouTube play button

The Great Subscriber War

2018eventclassic

Published October 1, 2026

The Great Subscriber War was the 2018-2019 campaign by PewDiePie's fans to keep him ahead of Bollywood music label T-Series as the most-subscribed YouTube channel. What began as a Social Blade projection spiraled into diss tracks, Times Square billboards, printer hacks and a shooter's reference, before T-Series finally pulled away for good and became the first channel to hit 100 million subscribers.

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Overview

The Great Subscriber War, also known as the Subscribe to PewDiePie movement, was the roughly nine-month pile-up of stunts, songs and hacks organized by Felix Kjellberg's fans to defend his spot as the most-subscribed YouTube channel against the Bollywood music label T-Series1. The fight played out as a live spectator sport, with Social Blade tracker graphs, FlareTV side-by-side counters and fan subreddits watching the gap tighten and widen in real time1.

The campaign ran on two tracks. On the content side, PewDiePie answered with diss tracks like 'Bitch Lasagna' and 'Congratulations,' both of which an Indian court later ordered pulled in India as defamatory2. On the fan side, the escalation went well beyond retweets: billboards, Super Bowl shirts, Chromecast and printer hijackings, and even a middle-school poster campaign that pulled in Seattle police and Alex Jones34. The energy is what made it a meme in itself, a creator-vs-corporation underdog bit that stopped being a joke by March 2019.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube / Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
PewDiePie fanbase
Date
2018

The catalyst was a Social Blade comparison page published on August 30th, 2018, which projected that T-Series' subscriber growth would overtake PewDiePie's by October5. T-Series was already an older channel, founded by Gulshan Kumar in 1983 and uploading Bollywood music videos and film trailers on YouTube since 2006, while PewDiePie had held the top spot since December 20132.

PewDiePie's first on-camera response came on October 5th, 2018, with the satirical diss track 'Bitch Lasagna,' which framed the race in meme terms his audience could rally around4. The 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' call to action spread from there into Reddit's r/PewdiepieSubmissions and across YouTube, turning the subscriber count itself into a shared scoreboard4.

How It Spread

The campaign went physical almost immediately. On November 30th, 2018, YouTuber Justin Roberts bought a reported $1 million Times Square billboard for PewDiePie, and MrBeast ran his own billboard stunt in a video that pulled over 9 million views24. That same day, Twitter user @HackerGiraffe hijacked around 50,000 internet-exposed printers through Shodan.io to spit out 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' notes, a stunt PewDiePie covered in a December 2nd video that cleared 7.6 million views in 24 hours4. Markiplier followed with a marathon 'I Literally Won't Shut Up Until You Subscribe To PewDiePie' stream, and in late December a second HackerGiraffe operation pushed the message onto Chromecast devices through a UPnP router flaw4.

The fight turned ugly in March 2019. On March 15th, the Christchurch mosque shooter said 'subscribe to PewDiePie' during his livestreamed attack, and PewDiePie tweeted that he was 'absolutely sickened' his name had been invoked6. T-Series pulled ahead for good shortly after, with The National reporting a roughly 100,000 subscriber lead by March 31st, driven in part by the Holi festival and the PM Narendra Modi trailer release2. PewDiePie answered with 'Congratulations' on March 31st, a sarcastic rap that an Indian court later blocked inside India alongside 'Bitch Lasagna'74.

On April 28th, 2019, PewDiePie uploaded a video calling the Subscribe to PewDiePie movement to a close and asked fans to stand down8. r/PewdiepieSubmissions moderators pivoted the energy into a #ThankYouPewdiepie hashtag the same day4. On May 29th, 2019, T-Series became the first YouTube channel to reach 100 million subscribers, a milestone the label announced on its own Twitter account and that outlets including LADbible and The Independent covered as the final chapter of the war910.

Timeline

2018-08-30

Social Blade publishes a comparison chart projecting T-Series will overtake PewDiePie by October.

2018-10-05

PewDiePie releases the diss track 'Bitch Lasagna' in response to the gap closing.

2018-11-30

Justin Roberts buys a $1M Times Square billboard and @HackerGiraffe hijacks ~50,000 printers with 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' notes.

2018-12-02

Markiplier runs an all-day 'I Literally Won't Shut Up Until You Subscribe To PewDiePie' livestream.

2018-12-17

The Wall Street Journal homepage is compromised with a fake PewDiePie apology urging viewers to subscribe.

2019-02-22

T-Series briefly surpasses PewDiePie for about eight minutes before PewDiePie regains the top spot.

2019-03-15

The Christchurch mosque shooter says 'subscribe to PewDiePie' on livestream; PewDiePie condemns the reference the same day.

2019-03-31

T-Series' lead reaches roughly 100,000 subscribers and PewDiePie releases the sarcastic rap 'Congratulations.'

2019-04-08

The Delhi High Court orders 'Bitch Lasagna' and 'Congratulations' blocked on YouTube in India as defamatory.

2019-04-28

PewDiePie uploads a video calling for an end to the Subscribe to PewDiePie campaign.

2019-05-29

T-Series becomes the first YouTube channel to reach 100 million subscribers.

2019-08-24

PewDiePie reaches 100 million subscribers.

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