Why PewDiePie?

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg is Swedish YouTuber, actor, comedian, and gamer – commentator, and is famous among Gen Z as PewDiePie. In 2013, he was the most subscribed user on YouTube, and currently (2019 July) he has over 98 million subscribers and 22 billion video views, ranking as the second-most subscribed and eleventh-most viewed on the platform.

Talking to Gen Z on their obsession with PewDiePie, we were curious to know why he’s so popular, and why when the T Series YouTube channel surpassed PewDiePie, the fans rebelled and went campaigning to bring PewDiePie back as the most subscribed YouTube Channel.

‘He makes a joke a better joke’

Gen Z believes that PewDiePie offer good content that is interesting. A fan we spoke to explained how PewDiePie takes an existing joke and elevate it to be more hilarious. Even with news, PewDiePie would take obscure news floating around the internet and add an element of comedy. Not only is he funny, but another highlighting factor was that PewDiePie has got charisma. It was obvious by the comments made by people; ‘his character is really nice’, ‘He’s not mean, he’s ironic’, and ‘His videos really help get through bad times.’.

PewDiePie has always created an environment of family among his fans, and his content – goofy but thought provoking – has created one of the largest fan bases in the world on a social media platforms. It might not be to your taste, and he might not be for your generation, but it would not hurt to find out what he’s doing, why he’s doing it, and why are people responding to him. He must be doing something right, right?

 Images courtesy of PewDiePie YouTube channel : https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie