The famous YouTuber PewDiePie has now also tackled Fortnite: Battle Royale. However, behind it lies a well-calculated campaign and his desperate struggle against an Indian production company. It is about who is number one on YouTube.
Who is PewDiePie? Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is a Swedish YouTuber and has long been number 1 on the video platform. He currently has over 84 million subscribers who follow his videos.
This has repeatedly led to controversies, for example, because there were racist statements during a challenge or because some fans wanted to force the termination of a developer from The Division 2.
Currently, PewDiePie is embroiled in a fierce battle against an Indian production label.
PewDiePie vs. T-Series
This is behind PewDiePie’s subscription battle: For a long time, PewDiePie was the sole king on YouTube. No one approached his huge subscription numbers. But then the Indian production and music company T-Series came and steadily caught up.
On February 3, 2019, PewDiePie was nearly finished in the fight for first place, with only about 50,000 subscribers separating him from the Indians.
This is why PewDiePie streamed Fortnite: But PewDiePie had an ace up his sleeve: Fortnite. He grabbed three friends and set off to play a few hours of Epic’s Battle Royale in squad mode.
Already after an hour, the Swede had gained over 90,000 new subscribers with his, in his own words, “desperate” action. And there were more to come.
Tens of thousands watched him during the Fortnite livestream on YouTube and made him, at that time, the Fortnite streamer with the most viewers. Before the stream, he had around 83 million subscribers, now he has a good million more with over 84,128,751.
Fortnite is the most popular game in the world with over 100 million players. It is especially popular among children and teenagers, who are also a target audience of PewDiePie’s YouTube channel. Therefore, the YouTuber’s action attracted a lot of previously untapped subscribers to his channel and allowed him to expand his lead a bit.
However, his competitors are closing in again and are currently (as of February 5, 2019) once again at 84,002,925 subscribers.
Fans and Friends Help PewDiePie
This is all that has happened: In his battle against T-Series, PewDiePie is not alone. His fans and friends are actively helping. For example, hackers hacked the online game GTA Online in December 2018 and added a request to subscribe to PewDiePie in the game. Back then, it was also about the duel with T-Series.
For the last Super Bowl, the friendly YouTuber MrBeast appeared visibly with friends. Everyone wore shirts saying “Subscribe to PewDiePie.” MrBeast is also said to have launched a city-wide PewDiePie advertising campaign in New York.
Another YouTuber named Justin Roberts is said to have paid a million dollars for a billboard in Times Square.
Despite everything, it seems only a matter of time before PewDiePie’s throne wobbles again and T-Series finally takes his place.
