# The Great Subscriber War 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. ## Origin 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 October[5]. 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 2013[2]. 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 around[4]. 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 scoreboard[4]. - **Platform:** YouTube / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** PewDiePie fanbase (collective) - **Date:** 2018 ## 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-Series[1]. 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 time[1]. 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 defamatory[2]. 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 Jones[3][4]. The energy is what made it a meme in itself, a creator-vs-corporation underdog bit that stopped being a joke by March 2019. ## 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 views[2][4]. 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 hours[4]. 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 flaw[4]. 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 invoked[6]. 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 release[2]. PewDiePie answered with 'Congratulations' on March 31st, a sarcastic rap that an Indian court later blocked inside India alongside 'Bitch Lasagna'[7][4]. On April 28th, 2019, PewDiePie uploaded a video calling the Subscribe to PewDiePie movement to a close and asked fans to stand down[8]. r/PewdiepieSubmissions moderators pivoted the energy into a #ThankYouPewdiepie hashtag the same day[4]. 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 war[9][10]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is The Great Subscriber War? It was the fan-driven campaign of 2018-2019 to keep PewDiePie ahead of Bollywood music label T-Series as the most-subscribed YouTube channel[1]. ### Where did The Great Subscriber War come from? It started after Social Blade published an August 30th, 2018 tracker projecting T-Series would overtake PewDiePie by October[5]. ### What does The Great Subscriber War mean? Fans framed it as creator vs corporation, with 'Subscribe to PewDiePie' becoming shorthand for defending an individual YouTuber against a corporate music label[2]. ### How do you use The Great Subscriber War? Participation ranged from literally subscribing to PewDiePie to stunts like billboards, Times Square ads, Super Bowl shirts and printer or Chromecast hijackings that forced the message onto other people's screens[4]. ### Is The Great Subscriber War still popular? No, PewDiePie asked fans to stop on April 28th, 2019, and T-Series pulled away for good, becoming the first channel to hit 100 million subscribers on May 29th, 2019[8][9]. ## References 1. [https://socialblade.com/youtube/compare/t-series/pewdiepie]() 2. [https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/india-s-t-series-overtakes-pewdiepie-as-the-most-subscribed-youtube-channel-1.843620]() 3. [https://www.kuow.org/stories/why-Alex-Jones-obsessed-about-this-Seattle-school]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-great-subscriber-war]() 5. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PewDiePie_vs_T-Series]() 6. [https://twitter.com/pewdiepie/status/1106419935390171136]() 7. [https://iprmentlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Super-Cassettes-vs-Pew-Die-Pi.pdf]() 8. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah5MYGQBYRo]() 9. [https://twitter.com/TSeries/status/1133672603460128768]() 10. [https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/t-series-youtube-pewdiepie-100-million-subscribers-most-popular-channel-a8934391.html]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/the-great-subscriber-war Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library