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Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (/ˈʃɛlbɜːrɡ/ SHEL-burg, Swedish: [ˈfěːlɪks ˈǎrːvɪd ɵlf ˈɕɛ̂lːbærj] ;born 24 October 1989), known online as PewDiePie (/ˈpjuːdiːpaɪ/ PEW-dee-py), 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. In 2016, Time magazine named him as one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Born and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden, Kjellberg registered his YouTube channel "PewDiePie" in 2010, primarily posting Let's Play videos of horror and action video games. His channel experienced substantial growth in popularity in the following years, being one of the fastest growing channels in 2012 and 2013, and becoming the most-subscribed on YouTube on 15 August 2013. Over time, his style of content diversified to include vlogs, comedy shorts, formatted shows, and music videos. From 2015 to 2018, his content also shifted away from Let's Play content and became increasingly subject to media controversies.

In 2019, following a public competition with Indian record label T-Series, Kjellberg was overtaken as the most-subscribed YouTube channel. His channel currently holds the title of the fourth-most subscribed, albeit remaining the most-subscribed owned by an individual. Kjellberg had the most-viewed channel on YouTube from 29 December 2014 to 14 February 2017, and the channel currently ranks as the 24th-most-viewed, and the sixth among those owned by an individual. As of February 2022, his channel has over 111 million subscribers and has received 28.1 billion total views. His popularity online boosts sales for the titles he plays, and has allowed him to stir support for charity fundraising drives.

Early life and education[]

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 play video games 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, in 2017, Kjellberg clarified that he left because of his lack of interest in his course of study. He expressed that, in general, leaving university to pursue a YouTube career would be "****ing 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 carrer[]

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. Starting on 2 September 2011, he also began posting weekly vlogs under the title of Fridays with PewDiePie. By December 2011, Kjellberg's channel had around 60,000 subscribers, and on 9 May 2012, it reached 500,000 subscribers. 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."

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 20 million video views as of October 2021. His early content mainly consisted of Let's Play-styled videos. 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." Fridays with PewDiePie is a notable set of videos uploaded by Kjellberg towards the beginning portion of his YouTube career. 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.

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.

PewDiePie vs. T-Series[]

On 5 October 2018, Kjellberg uploaded a diss track against Indian record label T-Series titled "TSERIES DISS TRACK" (later renamed "***** 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; as of 25 April 2020, the video has accumulated over 245 million views. It included some lines mocking the Indian background of T-Series, such as the line "Your language sounds like it come [sic] from a mumble rap community" which have been described as racist in media publications, as well as in a court ruling from the High Court of Delhi. 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 [the] March 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.

Minecraft[]

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."

Trivia[]

  • He's not the most subscribed channel but still, the most subscribed person
  • In his old Minecraft series, he stated that if his Minecraft dog, "Sven" dies. The series ends.
  • He is 32
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