PewDiePie

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg ( , ; born 24 October 1989), better known as PewDiePie ( ), is a Swedish YouTuber known for his Let's Play videos and comedic formatted videos and shows. Kjellberg's popularity on YouTube and extensive media coverage have made him one of the most noted online personalities and content creators. He has been portrayed in the media as a figurehead for YouTube and as being almost synonymous with YouTube gaming.

Born and raised in Gothenburg, Kjellberg registered his YouTube channel "PewDiePie" in 2010, primarily posting Let's Play videos of horror and action video games. His channel gained a substantial following and was one of the fastest growing channels in 2012 and 2013, before becoming the most-subscribed on YouTube on 15 August 2013. From 29 December 2014 to 14 February 2017, Kjellberg's channel was also the most-viewed on the platform. During this period, his content shifted focus from Let's Plays and diversified to include vlogs, comedy shorts, formatted shows, and music videos. In 2016, ''Time'' magazine named him as one of the world's 100 most influential people. His popularity online was also noted to boost sales for the titles he plays, and has allowed him to stir support for charity fundraising drives.

Kjellberg's content was already noted for its polarizing reception among general audiences online, but in the late 2010s, it became more controversial and attracted increased media scrutiny. In 2019, following a public competition with Indian record label T-Series, Kjellberg was overtaken as the most-subscribed YouTube channel. Shortly after, ''Minecraft''-related videos emerged as popular entries in his video catalog. Subsequently, Kjellberg became more reserved online, uploading less consistently and taking frequent breaks from Internet use. He also semi-retired from YouTube, choosing to upload for fun, rather than as a career. Meanwhile, in his personal life, he moved to Japan with his wife, Italian YouTuber Marzia.

With over 111 million subscribers and 28.7 billion views, his channel still ranks as one of the most-subscribed and viewed on the platform.

Early life and education

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg was born on 24 October 1989 in Gothenburg, where he was also raised.
* He was born to Lotta Kristine Johanna (née Hellstrand, born 1958) and Ulf Christian Kjellberg (born 1957), and grew up with his older sister, Fanny. His mother, a former chief information officer (CIO), was named the 2010 CIO of the Year in Sweden. His father is a corporate executive.

During his childhood, Kjellberg was interested in art and has detailed that he would draw popular video game characters such as Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as play video games on his Super Nintendo Entertainment System, such as ''Star Fox'' and '' Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest''. During high school, he frequently played video games in his bedroom and would skip classes to join at an Internet café with friends. During his last year of high school, he bought a computer with the money he made selling artwork through his grandmother's gallery.

Kjellberg then went on to pursue a degree in industrial economics and technology management at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, but left the university in 2011. While it has been reported that he left Chalmers to focus on his YouTube career, Kjellberg clarified in 2017 that he had left due to a lack of interest in his course of study. He further expressed that, in general, leaving university to pursue a YouTube career would be "fucking stupid".

Kjellberg has also discussed an enjoyment of Adobe Photoshop, wanting to work on photo manipulation art using the program rather than be in school. Following this passion after he departed from Chalmers, he entered Photoshop contests and almost earned an apprenticeship at a prominent Scandinavian advertising agency. He was also interested in creating content on YouTube; after not earning the apprenticeship, he sold limited edition prints of his photoshopped images to purchase a computer to work on YouTube videos.

Internet career

2010–2012: Early years

Kjellberg originally registered a YouTube account under the name "Pewdie" in December 2006; he explained that "pew" represents the sound of lasers and "die" refers to dying. After initially forgetting the password to this account, he registered the "PewDiePie" YouTube channel on 29 April 2010. Following his exit from Chalmers, his parents refused to financially support him, so he funded his early videos by working as a harbor captain, selling prints of his Photoshop art, and working at a hot dog stand. Kjellberg stated that the ability to make videos was more important to him than a prestigious career. Five years later, Kjellberg recalled, "I knew people were big at other types of videos, but there was no one big in gaming, and I didn't know you could make money out of it. It was never like a career that I could just quit college to pursue. It was just something I loved to do."

In his early years as a YouTube creator, Kjellberg focused on video game commentaries, most notably of horror and action video games. Some of his earliest videos featured commentaries of mainstream video games including ''Minecraft'' and ''Call of Duty'', although he was particularly noted for his Let's Plays of '' Amnesia: The Dark Descent'' and its related mods. On these videos, Kjellberg has stated "I was so shy back then," and added, "It was so weird to me, sitting alone in a room talking into a microphone. That was unheard of back at the time. No one really did it." Kjellberg's oldest video available for viewing is titled " Minecraft Multiplayer Fun". Uploaded on 2 October 2010, the video is noted for containing mainly Swedish commentary from Kjellberg, rather than the English language he would later employ in his videos. The video has amassed over 21 million video views as of August 2022.

Starting on 2 September 2011, he also began posting weekly vlogs under the title of ''Fridays with PewDiePie''. The series was a weekly deviation from the Let's Play videos that formed most of his content output at the time, and often featured vlogs, and Kjellberg completing viewer requests.

By December 2011, Kjellberg's channel had around 60,000 subscribers, before rapidly increasing in 2012. Around the time his channel earned 700,000 subscribers, Kjellberg spoke at Nonick Conference 2012. July 2012 saw his channel reaching 1 million subscribers, and it reached 2 million subscribers in September. In October, OpenSlate ranked Kjellberg's channel as the No. 1 YouTube channel. Kjellberg signed with Maker Studios in December, a multi-channel network (MCN) that drives the growth of the channels under it. Prior to his partnership with Maker, he was signed to Machinima, which operates as a rival to Maker. Kjellberg expressed feeling neglected by Machinima, and frustrated with their treatment; he hired a lawyer to free him from his contract with the network.

Early in his YouTube career, Kjellberg used jokes about rape in his videos. A satirical video mocking Kjellberg's content highlighted his usage of such jokes. Shortly after, Kjellberg attracted criticism and controversy for the jokes, and in October 2012, he addressed the issue through a Tumblr post, writing, "I just wanted to make clear that I'm no longer making rape jokes, as I mentioned before I'm not looking to hurt anyone and I apologise if it ever did." ''The Globe and Mail'' stated "''unlike'' many young gamers, he listened when fans and critics alike pointed out their harmful nature, and resolved to stop making rape jokes."

2013–2014: Becoming the most-subscribed user and continued growth

On 18 February 2013, Kjellberg's channel reached 5 million subscribers. In April, he was covered in ''The New York Times'' after surpassing 6 million subscribers. In May 2013, at the inaugural Starcount Social Stars Awards in Singapore, Kjellberg won the award for "Swedish Social Star". Competing against Jenna Marbles, Smosh, and Toby Turner, he also won the award for "Most Popular Social Show". In July 2013, he overtook Jenna Marbles to become the second most-subscribed YouTube user, and reached 10 million subscribers on 9 July 2013. In August, Kjellberg signed with Maker's gaming sub-network, Polaris. Polaris functioned as a relaunching of The Game Station, Maker's gaming network.

Kjellberg's subscriber count surpassed that of the leading channel, Smosh, on 15 August. Kjellberg received a certificate from Guinness World Records for becoming the most subscribed YouTuber. In November, YouTube's Spotlight channel overtook Kjellberg's as the most-subscribed. Later in the month, Kjellberg proclaimed his dislike of YouTube's new comment system, and disabled the comment section on all of his videos. On 23 December 2013, his channel overtook the YouTube Spotlight channel, to once again become the most-subscribed on YouTube. Throughout 2012 and 2013, Kjellberg's channel was one of the fastest-growing on YouTube, in terms of subscribers gained. ''Billboard'' reported that the channel gained more subscribers than any other channel in 2013.

In 2014, Kjellberg's commentaries, originally best known for featuring horror video games, began to feature games that interested him regardless of genre. ''Kotaku'' wrote: "Instead of limiting himself to horror games, Pewdiepie is now actively playing more things that interest him."

In March 2014, he updated his video production output, announcing he would be scaling down the frequency of uploads. In August 2014, Maker Studios released an official PewDiePie app for the iPhone, allowing audiences to view his videos, create custom favourite video feeds, and share videos with others. Later in the month, Kjellberg uploaded a video, announcing he would permanently disable comments on his YouTube videos. He cited most comments being spam and self-advertising and was not what he wanted to see. After disabling comments, Kjellberg continued interacting with his audience through Twitter and Reddit. On 13 October, he decided to allow comments on his videos once more, albeit only after approval. However, he expressed that he toggled his comment settings this way so that he could redirect viewers to instead comment on the forums of his Broarmy.net website. He stated in a later video that disabling comments made him happier. In the same year, Kjellberg began streaming videos of his co-hosted series, ''BroKen'', onto MLG.tv. He co-hosted the series with Kenneth Morrison, better known as CinnamonToastKen, who is also a video game commentator.

In October 2014, Kjellberg hinted at the possibility that he would not renew his contract with Maker Studios upon its expiration in December 2014. He had expressed his frustrations with the studio's parent company, Disney. Kjellberg mulled the option of launching his own network. However, in light of news outlets reporting his disinterest with Maker, he tweeted, "I feel like I was misquoted in The ''WSJ'', and I'm really happy with the work that Maker has been doing for me." Kjellberg would ultimately continue creating videos under Maker. His relationship with Maker saw the network launch an official PewDiePie website, app, and online store to sell merchandise, while Kjellberg promoted Maker's media interests, and gave the network a share of his YouTube ad revenue.

In 2014 alone, Kjellberg's account amassed nearly 14 million new subscribers, and over 4.1 billion total views; both figures were higher than any other user. According to Social Blade, on 29 December 2014, Kjellberg's channel amassed over 7 billion views, to become the most-viewed channel on the website.

2015–2017: YouTube Red, Revelmode, and style change

''The New York Times'' retrospectively noted that around 2015, Kjellberg's video content experienced a change in style: "He began to take more risks. He continued playing video games, but he started experimenting. He did viral challenges, made fun of other YouTubers, and reviewed meme submissions from his fans." Kjellberg has attributed his content around this time as a result of immaturity, boredom with playing video games, YouTube's platform incentives, and the belief that his channel's growth had plateaued. One video cited as being representative of this change featured Kjellberg reading erotic fan fiction about characters from the Disney film '' Frozen''. Then-CEO of The Walt Disney Company Bob Iger was reportedly angered by the video, putting Kjellberg's deal with Maker Studios, a Disney subsidiary, in jeopardy.

On 6 September, his YouTube account became the first to surpass 10 billion video views. Later in the month, Kjellberg teased about having a role in a web television series, stating that he was in Los Angeles for the show's shooting. Although not many details were revealed at the time, it was later announced that the series would be an original YouTube Red series, titled ''Scare PewDiePie''. The series premiered the following February.

In January 2016, Kjellberg announced a partnership with Maker Studios to produce Revelmode, a sub-network of Maker, that would showcase Kjellberg and his friends on YouTube in original series. After the deal, the head of Maker Studios, Courtney Holt, stated, "we're thrilled to be doubling down with Felix." Along with Kjellberg, eight other YouTubers signed to the network upon its creation: CinnamonToastKen, Marzia, Dodger, Emma Blackery, Jacksepticeye, Jelly, Kwebbelkop, and Markiplier. Three YouTubers – Cryaotic, KickThePJ, and Slogoman – would later join the sub-network after its launch.

Throughout 2016, Kjellberg's video style change became more apparent. While producing fewer Let's Play videos about horror games, his style of humour changed; he commented that he had shifted to drier humour, which was often not understood by younger viewers. He examined his older videos, and while noting the stylistic changes he had undergone, he expressed specific regret for his casual use of words like ''gay'' or ''retarded'' in a derogatory sense. In December 2016, ''Kotaku''s Patricia Hernandez wrote about his stylistic changes, explaining that "over the last year, the PewDiePie channel has also had an underlying friction, as Kjellberg slowly distances himself from many of the things that made him famous. He's doing fewer Let's Plays of horror games like ''Amnesia'', and adding, "the PewDiePie of 2016 can still be immature, sure, but ..a defining aspect of recent PewDiePie videos is existential angst, as he describes the bleak reality of making content for a machine he cannot fully control or understand."

On 2 December, he uploaded a video in which he discussed his frustration with the issue of YouTube accounts experiencing an unexplained loss of subscribers and views. He expressed many people working with YouTube "have no idea of the struggles that came with being a content creator." On this issue, a Google representative provided a comment to ''Ars Technica'', stating "Some creators have expressed concerns around a drop in their subscriber numbers. We've ..found there have been no decreases in creators subscriber numbers beyond what normally happens when viewers either unsubscribe from a creator's channel or when YouTube removes spammed subscribers". As Kjellberg's channel approached 50 million subscribers, he stated he would delete his channel once it reached the milestone. On 8 December, his channel reached 50 million subscribers, becoming the first YouTube channel to do so. On 18 December 2016, he received a custom Play Button from YouTube as a reward for reaching this milestone.

Ultimately, Kjellberg did not delete his PewDiePie channel, and instead deleted a smaller second channel he had then-recently created. In addition, he expressed discontent over YouTube's changing algorithm negatively affecting viewership for content creators. In response to YouTube's algorithm changing to focus more on a video's watch time statistics, Kjellberg uploaded a string of videos during late 2016 and early 2017. Some of these videos addressed what Kjellberg saw as negative effects to viewership for content creators caused by the new algorithm. In one of these videos, he stated he would be deleting his channel once it reached 50 million subscribers, a milestone that was soon approaching. As a satirical knock on the changing algorithms, Kjellberg made a video asking viewers to help the video reach 1 million likes, which it promptly did. He followed that video with one asking his viewers to have the video reach 1 million dislikes. The video accumulated over 5 million dislikes before YouTube made dislike counts private in November 2021; the video ranks as Kjellberg's most-disliked, as well as one of the most-disliked on the entire platform.
* Another video featuring Kjellberg asking his viewers to have it reach 1 million comments also garnered traction; at one point, the video was noted for having over 5 million comments. However, many of the comments have since been removed, and as of August 2022 the video now has approximately 1.7 million comments.

2017–2018: Media controversies, streaming, and formatted shows

In January 2017, Kjellberg uploaded a video where he used the racial slur "nigger". The video garnered criticism and widespread attention on Twitter. In another video, Kjellberg featured two paid individuals on Fiverr, asked to hold a sign that read "Death to all Jews". He alleged his intent was not against Jews, but to "showcase how crazy the website was". The video received negative attention and caused a media backlash, with various publications writing critically of Kjellberg's defense of his controversial content as jokes taken out of context, and opining that his content helps normalise ideologies such as fascism, neo-Nazism, and white supremacy. ''The Wall Street Journal'' alleged that this was not the first time Kjellberg had used anti-Semitic language and imagery in his videos. Kjellberg and the two individuals later apologised, but the event led Maker Studios to cut their ties with Kjellberg and Google to drop him from the Google Preferred advertising program and cancel the upcoming second season of the ''Scare PewDiePie'' YouTube Red series. Ultimately, he apologised for his jokes, but strongly rebuked media coverage of the event, with particular criticism aimed at ''The Wall Street Journal''.

According to Social Blade his channel's total view count was surpassed by the Indian record label T-Series at the top of YouTube's view rankings on 14 February.

In April, while still continuing to upload new content onto YouTube, Kjellberg created Netglow, a crowdsourced channel on the livestreaming service Twitch. On Netglow, he started streaming ''Best Club'', a weekly live stream show. ''Best Club'' premiered on 9 April, with its first episode featuring Brad Smith alongside Kjellberg. Kjellberg commented that his decision to create Netglow was in the works prior to the aforementioned allegations of anti-Semitic themes in his videos. ''Business Insider'' detailed that Kjellberg's first stream amassed around 60,000 viewers, and that Netglow had accumulated 93,000 subscribers to that point.

In September 2017, Kjellberg drew criticism again when he used the racial slur "nigger" during an outburst at another player while live-streaming ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds''. As a response to the incident, Campo Santo co-founder Sean Vanaman referred to Kjellberg as "worse than a closeted racist", announced that Campo Santo would file copyright strikes against Kjellberg's videos featuring the studio's game ''Firewatch'', and encouraged other game developers to do the same. Kjellberg later uploaded a short video apologizing for the language he used during the live-stream, expressing "I'm disappointed in myself, because it seems like I've learned nothing from all these past controversies, sing the slurwas not okay. I'm really sorry if I offended, hurt or disappointed anyone with all of this. Being in the position that I am, I should know better."

In January 2018, Kjellberg uploaded a video of him singing to Party In Backyards' remix of "Hej Hej Monika", a 2004 Swedish pop song by Nic & the Family. This video was one of the ten most popular of the year in Sweden.

In 2018, Paul MacInnes of ''The Guardian'' wrote about Kjellberg's YouTube content; he noted that each week Kjellberg posted videos featuring one of three series formats, comparing this uploading pattern to television programming. The three series listed were ''You Laugh You Lose'', which features Kjellberg watching humorous video clips while trying to not laugh; ''Last Week I Asked You'' (''LWIAY''), having begun as a parody and homage to Jack Douglass' ''Yesterday I Asked You (YIAY)'', where he challenges his audience to create content and reviews the output; and ''Meme Review'', in which he reviews popular Internet memes. Furthermore, Kjellberg began a book club-styled series, with his own enjoyment with the series also being noted. Kjellberg also began ''Pew News'', a satirical series where he presents and discusses recent news stories while in-character, often as fictional characters named after CNN hosts, such as Gloria Borger, Poppy Harlow, or Mary Katharine Ham and sometimes, an amalgamation of these names. ''Pew News'' parodies both mainstream news channels, such as CNN, and YouTube news channels, such as DramaAlert. Topics covered by Kjellberg on ''Pew News'' included culture war topics he previously avoided.

In May, Kjellberg attracted controversy for using the term "Twitch thots" in a video that featured him watching a compilation of female Twitch streamers. Alinity, a streamer featured in the video, responded by making a copyright claim against his video, which she stated was later removed by CollabDRM, a company that strikes videos on behalf of creators. Alinity stated that her reaction was caused by "the rampant sexism in online communities", arguing that Kjellberg's comments degraded women; she refused to accept Kjellberg's apology. In July, Kjellberg posted a meme with singer Demi Lovato's face; the meme jokingly referenced Lovato's struggles with addiction. The meme was posted around the same time Lovato was hospitalized after suffering an opioid overdose. As a result, he received criticism from online users. Kjellberg later deleted the meme, and apologized for the incident.

In a video uploaded in early December, Kjellberg promoted several small content creators on YouTube, recommending his viewers to subscribe to them. Among those creators was "E;R", whom Kjellberg highlighted for a video essay on Netflix's ''Death Note''. Shortly thereafter, ''The Verge''s Julia Alexander said that the video in question used imagery of the Charlottesville car attack, and that the channel made frequent use of racial and homophobic slurs. In December 2018, ''Vox'' reported that "E;R" also contained white supremacist messaging. After online criticism, he described his posting as an "oopsie" and asserted that he had posted it "recommending someone for their anime review", rather than any intention to promote anti-Semitism. Kjellberg said he was largely unaware of E;R's content apart from the ''Death Note'' video essay, revoked his recommendation of the channel, and edited his video to remove the reference.

On 27 December 2018, Kjellberg uploaded "YouTube Rewind 2018 but it's actually good", in response to the generally negatively-received '' YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind'', which was originally uploaded by YouTube's Spotlight channel.

2018–2019: Subscriber competition with T-Series

On 5 October 2018, Kjellberg uploaded a diss track against Indian record label T-Series titled "Tseries Diss Track" (stylized in all caps and later renamed " Bitch Lasagna") in response to their YouTube channel being projected to surpass his in subscribers. The video went on to replace "A Funny Montage" as Kjellberg's most-viewed video. It included some lines mocking the Indian background of T-Series, which were described as racist in media publications. Kjellberg also made allegations against T-Series using subscribing bots but failed to prove so, as YouTube claims to have a strong policy against fake-engagement. On the prospect of being surpassed by T-Series in terms of subscriber count, he stated he was not concerned about T-Series, but feared the consequences a corporate channel surpassing him would have for YouTube as a video-sharing platform. Online campaigns to "subscribe to PewDiePie" greatly assisted Kjellberg's subscriber growth; his channel gained 6.62 million subscribers in December 2018 alone, compared to the 7 million subscribers gained in all of 2017.

On 12 March, Kjellberg uploaded an episode of his show ''Pew News'' in which he mentioned the 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack, where 40 Indian paramilitary troops were killed by a member of a Pakistan-based jihadist group. Following the attack, T-Series removed several songs by Pakistani artists on its YouTube channel after being pressurised by political party MNS to isolate Pakistani artists, a course of action that Kjellberg disagreed with. The outlet Zee News reported that Kjellberg "faced strong criticism for his comments on the heightened tension between Pakistan and India in heMarch 12 issue of ''Pew News''". Kjellberg also issued a clarification on Twitter, expressing that he was not attempting to speak on the broader India–Pakistan relations, but rather on the more specific context of T-Series removing artists' songs from its YouTube channel.

On 15 March, the perpetrator of the live-streamed Christchurch mosque shootings said "remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie" before carrying out the attacks. In response, Kjellberg tweeted his disgust after having his name associated with the attack, and offered condolences to those affected by the tragedy. Various journalists covering the shooting reported that Kjellberg was not complicit with the shootings. ''The New York Times'' suggested that Kjellberg's mention in the shootings was a ploy for the news media to attribute blame to Kjellberg, and to otherwise inflame political tensions.

After briefly gaining the title several times in early 2019, on 27 March, T-Series surpassed Kjellberg in subscribers to become the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. On 31 March, Kjellberg posted another diss track music video, titled "Congratulations", ironically congratulating T-Series for obtaining the title. Many of the song's lyrics were performed in a sarcastic tone, at the expense of T-Series. In the music video, Kjellberg mocked T-Series and its actions, alleging T-Series was founded to sell pirated songs and mocking them for sending him a cease and desist letter after "Bitch Lasagna". Following the video's release, Kjellberg temporarily regained the most-subscribed position over T-Series.

On 9 April, Kjellberg announced that he would live-stream exclusively on streaming service DLive, as part of a deal with the company.

On 11 April, T-Series started to seek court orders to remove Kjellberg's "diss tracks" from YouTube. The alleged court order was ruled in favor of T-Series. It was allegedly stated that the complaint against Kjellberg claimed that his songs were "defamatory, disparaging, insulting, and offensive", and noted that comments on the videos were "abusive, vulgar, and also racist in nature." Access to the music videos on YouTube was later blocked in India. The two parties were reported to have come to a settlement later that July, although Kjellberg's videos remained blocked in India.

Finally, on 28 April, Kjellberg uploaded a video entitled "Ending the Subscribe to Pewdiepie Meme" in which he asked his followers to refrain from using the phrase "Subscribe to PewDiePie", due to incidents such as the phrase being graffitied on a war memorial, and its mention by the Christchurch mosque shooter. The following day, during a live stream, Kjellberg showed a plane flying over New York City with a banner attached saying "Subscribe to PewDiePie". Kjellberg stated that the event was "a nice little wrap up" to the Subscribe to PewDiePie meme.

2019: Nimses, ''Minecraft'' series, and milestones

The remainder of 2019 saw further controversies for PewDiePie; in early June, Kjellberg uploaded a video on YouTube sponsored by social media application Nimses. The app spiked in popularity after he promoted it on his YouTube channel. Controversy ensued, however, when Nimses' location features and privacy settings led fans of Kjellberg and fellow YouTubers to believe that he was promoting a privacy-invasive app, with some fans suspecting the app of being a pyramid scheme due to a referral program in the app that offered more in-application currency. The Pirate Party Germany also criticized his promotion of Nimses, warning that Kjellberg was promoting a potentially harmful app to a large audience. Andrey Boborykin, the head of marketing and communications at Nimses, published a blog post denying the allegations that the app is privacy-invasive. Kjellberg himself also responded to the allegations in a video, dismissing them as "rumors", and claimed that Nimses was no more invasive than other social media apps.

Despite being surpassed by T-Series and the aforementioned controversy, Kjellberg continued to achieve high viewership on the site, mainly propelled by a return to consistent gaming uploads. On 21 June, Kjellberg launched ''Gaming Week'', during which he would focus on uploading Let's Play videos every day, for the first time in several years. Among the games played were ''Minecraft'', which he was openly surprised by how much he enjoyed playing it. Kjellberg largely centered his videos around ''Minecraft'' in the following months, with the content featured in his series ''Meme Review'' and ''LWIAY'' also becoming focused on the game. Although he had played ''Minecraft'' earlier in his YouTube career, he had very rarely played it in the following years due to his reluctance to join the trend of ''Minecraft'' YouTubers, who he felt only played the game because of its popularity rather than for their enjoyment. This transition was largely successful for Kjellberg, who received a large increase in views, achieving over 570 million views during the month of July (the most views received by the channel in a month since at least October 2016), and his daily number of new subscribers growing from 25,000 to 45,000 during that month. Despite this success, Kjellberg insisted that he played the game for his enjoyment, and did not want to become solely a "''Minecraft'' YouTuber", stating, "If ''Minecraft'' gets boring, I can just move on to other things."

On 25 August, Kjellberg became the first individual YouTuber to surpass 100 million subscribers; his channel was the second overall to reach the milestone (after T-Series, who passed the mark earlier in the year). YouTube tweeted a congratulatory post to note the occurrence, and awarded him a Red Diamond Play Button. In December, Kjellberg was acknowledged as the most-viewed creator of the year, with more than 4 billion views in 2019.

2019–2020: China ban, brief breaks, and content deals

In October 2019, Kjellberg stated in a video that his YouTube content, as well as content related to him on other websites such as Reddit, had been blocked in China. He explained that this was due to his comments about the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, and an image of Chinese president Xi Jinping being compared to Winnie the Pooh shown in a previous video.

In November, ''Business Insider'' reported Kjellberg as a client of Re6l, a Toronto-based influencer media and ecommerce company. In December, Kjellberg announced that he would take a break from YouTube the following year, and deleted his Twitter account because of his dissatisfaction with the site.

Kjellberg's hiatus ultimately proved to be brief, lasting a little over a month during early 2020. Taking short breaks from creating online content proved to become a behavior he would repeat throughout the following years.

In his first video uploaded following his 2020 hiatus, Kjellberg made jokes about the COVID-19 pandemic, and spoke in mock-Chinese phrases. After receiving criticism for these jokes, Kjellberg uploaded another video in which he made more jokes about COVID-19, and defended the jokes he made in his previous video.

Kjellberg signed an exclusive deal to stream on YouTube in May, as the platform was enrolling high-profile streamers to rival competitors like Twitch and Mixer. At the time of signing with YouTube, Kjellberg had amassed over 800,000 followers on DLive, but due to his deal with the former, and not having streamed on the latter in four months, ''Tubefilter'' noted that it was unclear if Kjellberg was still affiliated with DLive. Kjellberg's DLive channel was eventually deactivated.

In October, Kjellberg's fans began to suspect his channel was shadowbanned, after noticing it and his recent uploads failed to appear in YouTube's search results. YouTube responded to the shadowban allegations on Twitter, claiming that the reason for the problems was due to search results being influenced by YouTube's system somehow flagging his recent uploads, and that due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, YouTube was taking longer to review videos, including Kjellberg's. YouTube apologized for the situation and stated they were "working on fixing the issue."

2020–present: Soft retirement and move to Japan

In November, Kjellberg uploaded a Q&A video, reflecting on his YouTube career. During the video, he expressed that he views himself as "retired" from YouTube, having felt so internally since earlier in the year. He continued to upload videos fairly frequently on the platform afterwards, albeit, inconsistently. He also "committed to posting more unstructured content, like vlogs."

In January 2021, Kjellberg signed a distribution deal with Jellysmack, a content creation company. The deal entails Jellysmack optimizing and then distributing Kjellberg's content for a Facebook Watch audience. Although now having his content released onto the Facebook platform, Kjellberg continued to debut his content on YouTube.

On 14 February, Kjellberg uploaded a diss track titled " Coco" about Cocomelon, a kids-oriented channel which had been rising in subscribers for several years, and was growing by nearly two million subscribers per month. Kjellberg clarified that the children appearing in the music video were provided with a clean version of the lyrics to mime to while they were being filmed, and that their parents allowed them to participate in the video. The video was later taken down by YouTube who claimed that it violated their policies on harassment and child safety. Kjellberg stated he " idn'tactually care about Cocomelon" and did not want the pretend-rivalry with the channel to "get out of control", as his rivalry with T-Series had previously.

In May 2022, Kjellberg and his wife Marzia moved from England to Japan. Much of his content following the move centered around "vlogs about daily life around Tokyo." In September, Kjellberg explained the shift his upload philosophy underwent when he announced his "retirement" from the platform: he opted to share videos for fun, as he did when he first began uploading videos. On 14 November, MrBeast surpassed PewDiePie as the most-subscribed individual creator on YouTube. The two have been noted as contemporaries and friends. Previously, Kjellberg answered a viewer question relating to whether MrBeast would surpass his subscriber count, replying "He definitely will. Come on, I've been retired for two years now. I can't wait for it to be over."

YouTube content

Style

Early in his career, Kjellberg's content mainly consisted of Let's Play videos. His commentaries of horror games made up his best-known content during this early stage, although he eventually expanded into other genres. Unlike conventional walkthroughs, Kjellberg devoted his Let's Play videos to communicating more personally with his audience. ''Variety'' detailed that Kjellberg "acts like he's spending time with a friend. He begins each video introducing himself in a high-pitched, goofy voice, drawing out the vowels of his YouTube moniker, then delves into the videos."

Known for his idiosyncratic sense of humor, the nature of his video content has been described by various outlets as goofy, energetic, and obnoxious, yet genuine and unfiltered. Lev Grossman of ''Time'' noted that "he's totally unpolished, but at the same time his timing is consistently spot-on," adding that "most of the critical literature about PewDiePie focuses on the bad language and crude physical humor–and admittedly there are a lot of both–and the fact that he is, at the end of the day, just a guy playing video games and yelling." Rob Walker of Yahoo! wrote Kjellberg's "chosen mode of sharing his critique happens to be ribald entertainment, an unmediated stream of blurted jokes, startled yelps, goofy voices, politically incorrect comments, and pretty much nonstop profanity." Occasionally, Kjellberg resorts to just gameplay, resulting in silent or emotional commentary; his playthrough of ''The Last of Us'', was detailed to leave the usually vocal gamer speechless at its ending.

With his channel's growth, Kjellberg's content has become more diverse; in addition to traditional Let's Play videos, he has uploaded content including vlogs, comedy shorts, and formatted shows. Toward the end of the 2010s, he began uploading much reaction-style content, such as his late 2018 and early 2019 videos reacting to various compilations of TikTok videos. Kjellberg has also uploaded music onto his channel, often accompanied by animation, fan art, or live footage. Oftentimes, music videos uploaded onto his channel are collaborative in nature, as has worked with artists such as The Gregory Brothers (also known as Schmoyoho), Boyinaband, Roomie, and Party In Backyard.

Production and output

During the early portion of his YouTube career, Kjellberg did not hire any editor or outside assistance to help with his video output, stating he wanted "YouTube to be YouTube." While his early videos would simply feature raw footage, he later began to dedicate time to edit his videos. Swedish magazine ''Icon'' noted his use of the Adobe Premiere Pro editing software. On separate occasions, he later sought an editor and a production assistant to help with his content creation. Although now having an editor for his videos, in a 2017 video, he maintained that "I'm just a guy. It's literally just me. There's not a producer out there ..there's no writer, there's no camera guy." In July of that same year, Kjellberg commented that a couple of months prior, he had an office and a limited number of employees assisting him with his content creation.

Kjellberg has been noted by both himself and media outlets as prolific on the platform, having uploaded videos with a high frequency. By early 2017, he had uploaded almost 3,500 videos to his channel, around 400 of which have been made private. As a result, Kjellberg has made videos and statements expressing his feelings of burnout from frequently creating content for the platform and its effect on his mental health. In March 2017, Kjellberg commented that his channel was running on a daily output, stating, "here'sa lot of challenges in doing daily content, ..but I still really, really love the daily challenge—the daily grind—of just being like, 'hey, I'm gonna make a video today, no matter what.' And sometimes it really works, and sometimes it doesn't."

Subscribers and viewership

Media writers have noted that Kjellberg's content has been largely built up "methodically," as opposed to him having risen to fame through a viral video. At the same time, the growth of Kjellberg's channel has been described as rapid by various sources; Douglas Holt of the ''Harvard Business Review'' commented that "the power of crowdculture propelled jellbergto global fame and influence in record time." Additionally, Kjellberg's channel appeals strongly to a group of viewers which Google refers to as "Generation C" for their habits of "creation, curation, connection, and community". This demographic has been more commonly referred to as Generation Z by researchers and popular media. In the 2010s, the channel attracted younger viewers, such as teenagers and those in the 18–24 age range; various surveys conducted throughout the decade highlighted that Kjellberg's online influence within these age demographics was comparable to that of mainstream celebrities'.

By December 2011, Kjellberg's channel had around 60,000 subscribers, and on 9 May 2012, it reached 500,000 subscribers. In March 2012, Swedish newspaper ''Expressen'' reported that Kjellberg had uploaded at least one video per day for the seven months preceding their report. Additionally, the publication noted that Kjellberg's channel accumulated 71 million total video views to that point and 25 million video views in February 2012 alone. The channel reached 1 million subscribers in July 2012, and 2 million subscribers in September.

Throughout 2012 and 2013, Kjellberg's channel was one of the fastest-growing on YouTube, in terms of subscribers gained. In 2013, the channel grew from 3.5 million to just under 19 million subscribers, and by the end of 2013, it was gaining a new subscriber every 1.037 seconds. ''Billboard'' reported that the channel gained more subscribers than any other channel in 2013. In June 2013, ''Tubefilter'' began a monthly listing of the most viewed YouTube channels. In 2013, Kjellberg was consistently toward the top of this listing, ranking #1 in June, July, August, October, and December of that year.
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* Analyzing ''Tubefilter''s data, ''The Guardian'' reported that Kjellberg's channel earned 1.3 billion video views in the second half of 2013. The channel had two of the ten most-viewed gaming videos in 2013: the sixth-part of his '' Mad Father'' Let's Play was the third-most viewed of the year, earning 27 million views, and an entry in his ''Funny Gaming Montage'' series ranked as the eight-most viewed gaming video of 2013.

On 18 February 2013, Kjellberg's channel reached 5 million subscribers, and in April, he was covered in ''The New York Times'' after surpassing 6 million subscribers. Many of Kjellberg's most-viewed videos are highlight compilations of his Let's Play videos. One of these compilations, "A Funny Montage", was uploaded in June 2013, and spent a considerable amount of time as Kjellberg's most-viewed, with publications citing it as such through 2018.

In July 2013, he overtook Jenna Marbles to become the second-most-subscribed YouTube user, and reached 10 million subscribers on 9 July. Kjellberg's subscriber count surpassed that of the leading channel, Smosh, on 15 August 2013. On 31 October 2013, his channel became the first to reach 15 million subscribers. Shortly after, PewDiePie was surpassed by YouTube's Spotlight channel in subscribers. After jostling for the top position during the next month, PewDiePie's channel took firm hold of the most-subscribed title on 23 December.
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* On 9 January 2014, the channel reached the 20 million subscriber milestone.

In 2014, Kjellberg's channel was the most-viewed in January, and then for seven consecutive months from March to September.*
* In August 2014, ''Tubefilter'' reported that the channel surpassed the Rihanna VEVO channel on 19 July as the most-viewed on YouTube at around 5.2 billion video views. Data from Social Blade, however, shows that the channel still had less video views than the emimusic channel. According to their data, the channel surpassed emimusic on 29 December 2014, at over 7.2 billion views, to become the most-viewed channel on the website. According to ''Tubefilter'' and ''The Guardian'', the channel amassed nearly 14 million new subscribers and around 4.1 billion video views in 2014; both figures were higher than any other user. The latter figure was a reported 81% increase from the channel's video views in 2013; the channel was the most viewed in that year, as well.

During July 2015, his videos were documented to receive over 300 million views per month. It eclipsed the 10 billion video view milestone on 6 September 2015, becoming the first channel to do so. At that time, "A Funny Montage" (then-titled "Funny Montage #1") was Kjellberg's most-viewed video, with approximately 68.8 million views; a partial reason it accumulated many views was due to its status as the PewDiePie channel trailer. In 2016, the channel experienced decreased viewership, which was similarly experienced by other content creators across the platform, due to changes in YouTube's algorithm. On 8 December, it reached 50 million subscribers, becoming the first YouTube channel to do so.

Online campaigns to "subscribe to PewDiePie" greatly assisted Kjellberg's subscriber growth; his channel gained 6.62 million subscribers in December 2018 alone, compared to the 7 million subscribers gained in all of 2017. Renewed interest in Kjellberg's videos due to his subscriber competition with T-Series resulted in his channel earning over 500 million video views in December 2018, which was then the channel's single-highest monthly view count. After briefly gaining the title several times in early 2019, on 27 March, T-Series surpassed Kjellberg in subscribers to become the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. The day after "Congratulations" was uploaded, Kjellberg temporarily regained his lead over T-Series as the most subscribed channel.

In July 2019, in large part due to Kjellberg's ''Minecraft'' gameplay videos, his channel surged in video views. ''The Verge'' noted that it was Kjellberg's most successful month in years, in terms of viewership. Data from Social Blade shows the channel received 573 million video views, a then-single-month record amount of views for Kjellberg's channel.
* Kjellberg was the most-viewed creator of 2019, with his channel receiving over 4 billion views during the year.

Along with T-Series, the PewDiePie channel is one of only two on YouTube to receive all five tiers of YouTube Creator Awards: Silver, Gold, Diamond, Custom, and Red Diamond Creator. These awards are earned upon surpassing the 100,000; 1 million; 10 million; 50 million; and 100 million subscriber milestones, respectively. Kjellberg nicknamed his Custom Creator Award the Ruby Play Button, which he received in 2016. In 2019, Kjellberg's channel became the second overall, and the first run by an individual creator, to receive the Red Diamond Creator Award.

Critical reception

Kjellberg's YouTube content has been met with mixed critical reception. Media outlets write that he is one of the most popular creators online, despite being involved in multiple media controversies. His content has been described by various outlets as goofy, energetic, and filled with profanity, and his on-camera personality has been generally received as genuine, unfiltered, and self-aware by various outlets. Kjellberg's content has also been received negatively by the media, with detractors describing it as "obnoxious" and often reporting his popularity as an "inexplicable phenomenon". Rob Walker of ''Yahoo!'' has commented positively on Kjellberg's intelligence, stating Kjellberg is "clearly" smart based on when he speaks directly to his audience. Other outlets, such as ''Time'' and ''The Verge'', have written similar sentiments, describing Kjellberg as "articulate" and "self conscious", respectively. In contrast, Andrew Wallenstein of ''Variety'' heavily criticised Kjellberg, following his channel becoming the most-subscribed on YouTube, describing his videos as "aggressive stupidity" and "psychobabble."

Lev Grossman of ''Time'' noted that "he's totally unpolished, but at the same time his timing is consistently spot-on," adding that "most of the critical literature about PewDiePie focuses on the bad language and crude physical humor–and admittedly there are a lot of both–and the fact that he is, at the end of the day, just a guy playing video games and yelling." Walker wrote Kjellberg's "chosen mode of sharing his critique happens to be ribald entertainment, an unmediated stream of blurted jokes, startled yelps, goofy voices, politically incorrect comments, and pretty much nonstop profanity." Justin Charity of '' The Ringer'' stated, "PewDiePie isn't a comedian in any conventional sense," but described his "hosting style sloopy and irreverent in the extreme: He's a little bit stand-up, a little bit shock jock, a little bit 4chan bottom-feeder."

In regards to his early Let's Play content, Swedish columnist Lars Lindstrom commented positively, stating that "Felix Kjellberg avinga comic talent is indisputable. It is both amazingly awful and amazingly funny when a father bikes around with his son in the game ''Happy Wheels'' and both get crushed and bloody again and again and PewDiePie improvises absurd comments as the game continues. The secret is that he loves to play these games and that he has fun doing it." As his content went through changes in style in 2016, Patricia Hernandez of ''Kotaku'' wrote, "the PewDiePie of 2016 can still be immature, sure, but ..a defining aspect of recent PewDiePie videos is existential angst, as he describes the bleak reality of making content for a machine he cannot fully control or understand."

Following the controversy regarding alleged anti-Semitic content in his videos, many media publications both in and outside of the gaming and tech industries severely criticised Kjellberg's content. These outlets suggested that Kjellberg's content contained and promoted fascist, white supremacist, and alt-right ideologies. A ''Wired'' article covering the controversy referred to him as a "poster boy for white supremacists". Charity opined that Kjellberg's "occasional, reactionary irreverence has become a core component of his appeal. Likewise, for critics and fans who value inclusivity — and among outside observers who view jellbergs conduct as inexplicably frequent in the news —  jellbergrepresents all that is wrong and alienating about games culture."

Censorship

In April 2019, "Congratulations" and " Bitch Lasagna" were banned in India when the Delhi High Court granted an injunction in favor of T-Series. The complaint against Kjellberg allegedly stated that his songs were "defamatory, disparaging, insulting, and offensive," and noted that comments on the videos were "abusive, vulgar, and also racist in nature." Although both parties came to a settlement later in the year, Kjellberg's videos remain blocked in India.

On 16 October 2019, Kjellberg uploaded an episode of his ''Meme Review'' series, in which he reacted to memes about the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. The video also featured his commentary on the China–NBA issue and the Blitzchung controversy, as well as memes comparing Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping to Winnie-the-Pooh. As a result, Kjellberg's channel and content were reportedly censored in China. The BBC
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