PewDiePie, a name synonymous with YouTube. Many have heard this name not just on the website, but on social media, news outlets, and so on. While there were times where this YouTuber faced some controversies, the man is still held in respect and the channel has the most amount of subscribers out of all individual YouTubers. To this day, he still remains one of the most well known and beloved YouTuber on the platform.
The man behind the channel is Felix Arvid Kjellberg. He began to rise in fame due to his famous videos of recording himself playing horror games and freaking out from all the jumpscares. This entertainment caused Kjellberg to grow dramatically, to the point where he eventually earned the title of being the number one subscribed YouTube Channel on the platform in August of 2013.
Despite being one of the most well known YouTubers on the website, PewDiePie faced hot waters of controversy. Back in 2017, he faced accusation of featuring Nazi and Anti-Semitism imagery in a couple of his own videos. Due to this, Kjellberg suffered a loss with a deal with Disney and made his relationship with YouTube more rocky as the Wall Street Journal reported. (Winkler, Nicas, & Fritz, 2017). However, even with the controversy, he still remained as one of the biggest influencers on the website.
One of the biggest contributions PewDiePie made was to begin doing charity through livestreams on YouTube. In total, he has helped raise over 3 million dollars throughout his different charities as ListFit posted. The largest amount Kjellberg managed to raise was during a livestream with other fellow YouTubers which Tubefilter stated that he “raised more than $1.3 million for the nonprofit organization RED.” (Gutelle, 2016).
Not only has PewDiePie helped in raising awareness to certain issues, he helped raise popularity toward games he enjoyed playing. The gaming industry has received many bonuses with Kjellberg. One example has been Minecraft where back in 2019, he began to play it again which helped with the resurgence in people wanting to play that game.
This is added on due to PewDiePie’s drive toward making fun and entertaining videos all for the sake of bringing joy to those who watch the content. It was thanks to this goal, that helped Kjellberg to become the most subscribed YouTuber out of all individual content creators. As TurboFuture wrote, “He may be loud and outrageous, but it’s better having a personality than not having one at all. His style made him interesting to a lot of people, and it continues to draw millions to his channel everyday.” (Willman, 2019).
To this day, PewDiePie still replies to many of the comments made on his videos and enjoys hanging out with his community. His livestreams allow him to be able to interact with his audience in real time. Kjellberg inspired many YouTubers to rise up on the platform and he did do collaborations with some rising stars like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, Smosh, and so on. All of this is what led to him still being widely known as the face of YouTube.
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