YouTuber Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is the first person on YouTube to reach 100 million subscribers. However, he gave up on the big goal of having the first channel with so many followers months ago. Nevertheless, his campaign against the Indian record label T-Series brought him tremendous growth.
This is the milestone: PewDiePie has now reached his goal of amassing 100 million subscribers on YouTube. With this, he is the 1st person to achieve this. However, he is not the 1st channel to reach 100 million fans on YouTube: This honor belongs to a company, the Indian record label T-Series.
In recent months, PewDiePie has taken it easier. Just a few days ago he got married. But between October 2018 and April 2019, there was a phase where PewDiePie did everything to gain subscribers and communicated that as well. And he was not alone.
The internet begged and shouted that one must subscribe to PewDiePie.
Campaign “Subscribe to PewDiePie” brings a crazy strong finish
How did he manage to accelerate so quickly? PewDiePie reached 50 million subscribers on YouTube in December 2016 – so he had a long way to go.
The bizarre thing is that PewDiePie’s growth from January 2017 to October 2018 was actually relatively low for a channel of this size.
PewDiePie gained most months between 350,000 and 1 million subscribers on YouTube.
However, the subscriber count exploded from the fall of 2018. Suddenly, PewDiePie gained between 4 and 6 million subscribers per month.
This is due to a clever marketing campaign around PewDiePie, arising from a YouTube rivalry with the Indian record label T-Series. Because the Indian label consistently added viewers, threatening to overtake PewDiePie, and PewDiePie declared war on the label with a “diss track”: “Bitch Lasagna” now has 213 million views.
The “real” YouTube against the fake one
What was the campaign about? PewDiePie manages in the campaign “Subscribe to PewDiePie” to portray himself as “the real, original YouTube”, as opposed to “commercial, foreign YouTube”.
During this phase, in the “War vs. T-Series”, PewDiePie is constantly present in the media. Other YouTubers organize actions and PR stunts to boost him. Hackers got involved and jumped in to help PewDiePie in GTA 5.
PewDiePie called himself “desperate” in this phase and tried everything to stay in the media and gain subscribers. His fans forgive him a lot because he is fighting for a “good cause”.
This is how it turned out: However, all the hype could not turn the tide. T-Series passed him and became the 1st YouTube channel with “100 million subscribers”.
Before that happened, already in April 2019, PewDiePie admitted his defeat and ended the campaign.
However, PewDiePie used this feud perfectly to reach a huge subscriber count on YouTube, likely much faster than would have been possible through “normal means”.
Important milestones for PewDiePie: The YouTuber’s channel reached:
- 10 million subscribers in July 2013
- 50 million subscribers in December 2016
- And 100 million now in August 2019
At a certain point in October 2018, the subscriptions were also a “sign against the false YouTube”, as well as a sign for PewDiePie.
