Main | Gallery | Trivia |
“ | How's it goin' bros? My name is PEEWDIEPIEE | ” |
— PewDiePie's intro
|
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie is a Swedish YouTuber. He is known for his comedy revolved around things found on the Internet and more formerly his Let's Plays on horror-themed video games, as well as playing many other types of games, including flash and indie games, and records his reactions through audio and webcam recording and the main protagonist of his videos.
Since 2015, more vlogs have been present on his channel on a consistent basis but has returned to gaming via his Minecraft Let's Play in 2019. Though the months following the death of the Ender Dragon, he has subsequently returned to his vlogging videos by reviewing Reddits or play games other than Minecraft.
The name of PewDiePie's fan base was first called "Bro Army" named after his brofist. As of March 11th, 2019, he refers the name rarely but rather prefers to call them "9-year-olds", which includes, as of, more than 100 million subscribers on YouTube. Felix's first YouTube account was Pewdie. He joined YouTube there on December 19, 2006, and on that account, he initially published gaming videos that have been deleted ever since early 2012 when he figured out its password after forgetting it, and since posted 14 additional videos before becoming inactive on the account in 2013.
Early Life
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg was born on October 24, 1989, in Gothenburg, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. He is the son of Ulf and Johanna Kjellberg, Ulf is a CEO of an unknown company while Johanna was the former CIO of the clothing company KappAhl. He has a sister Fanny and a nephew named Arnold (Fanny's son). His ancestors came from Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland.
Felix was interested in art as a child, and he described drawing popular video game characters like Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as playing video games on his Super Nintendo Entertainment System like Star Fox and Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
During high school, he frequently played video games in his bedroom and skipped classes to play video games with friends at an Internet café. During his senior year of high school, he purchased a computer with the proceeds from his grandmother's gallery. Felix then went on to Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg to study industrial economics and technology management, but dropped out in 2011.
While it was previously reported that he left Chalmers to focus on his YouTube career, Felix clarified in 2017 that he left due to a lack of interest in his course of study. He stated that leaving university to pursue a YouTube career would be "fucking stupid" in general. Felix has also expressed a desire to work on photo manipulation art using Adobe
Photoshop rather than attend school. After leaving Chalmers, he pursued this passion by entering Photoshop contests and nearly earning an apprenticeship at a prominent Scandinavian advertising agency. He was also interested in creating YouTube content; after failing to obtain the apprenticeship, he sold limited edition prints of his photoshopped images to fund the purchase of a computer to work on YouTube videos.
Personal Life
Marzia and Felix began dating in August 19th 2011, and started to make it public around October of 2011. She learned of him when her best friend watched PewDiePie on YouTube at the end of May and shared the videos with her. Marzia found Felix really funny and wrote to him at the end of June. He responded back and they started communicating for a while on Facebook until Felix visited her in Italy in August, and then in September as well as October. After Marzia's birthday, she moved to Sweden to live with him.
On March 28th, 2012, Felix did his first newspaper interview with the Swedish site Expressen.se, in which he noted his intention to have a full-time job and while making YouTube videos as a secondary job as well as moving to Italy with Marzia.
While still living in Sweden, Felix and Marzia went overseas to Los Angeles for the first time.[1]
Following Felix's move to San Paolo, Italy, he stayed as a guest in Marzia's parents' house.
On November 30th, 2012, he noted in a video of going aboard to Brighton with Marzia from December 3rd to December 7th.[2]
Felix announced in an impromptu video monologue on March 11th, 2013 of saddening news about the death of his grandfather, who suffered from prolonged skeletal cancer and was returning to Sweden for the funeral rites.[3] He also made mention of plans of going to Los Angeles at the end of March to stay for a month as well as searching along with Marzia for a permanent residence in the United Kingdom.[3].
For the summer of 2013, he and Marzia left Italy to stay in the United Kingdom for 3 months. Felix cited reasons behind the move; such as the necessity for personal space (as both himself and Marzia have been staying in the home of her parents in Italy) and also slow internet was interfering with the upload rate of his YouTube videos.[4]
On April of 2018, he and Marzia are engaged.
On the 19th of August 2019, Felix and Marzia Kjellberg got married on their 8th anniversary at the Kew Gardens.
Felix was inspired to move to Japan after visiting the country in 2018, and he bought a home and announced his decision the following year. Because of Japan's restrictive relocation regulations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the move was postponed. In 2022, Felix and Marzia arrived in Japan on a five-year business visa.
Internet Life
Before YouTube
PewDiePie's Internet history remains unclear. All we know is that Felix has been active on chat forums before Youtube even existed. The earliest known post from PewDiePie on a forum dates back to October 2, 2004. He later created his first YouTube channel in December of 2006.
YouTube career
After forgetting his password on his original channel (channel by the name of PewDie), Felix opened his second YouTube account under the name PewDiePie on April 29th, 2010 with several COD videos that were deleted and then later a Minecraft playthrough video showing a zombie that had spawned in a minecart in a shed with another player. Following the Minecraft video, he started doing Call of Duty 3 commentaries, and Let's Plays on Alone in the Dark and Wolfenstein. Then, PewDiePie began uploading many Let's Plays and playthroughs on horror-themed videos, including Amnesia custom stories, flash games and other types of games such as Façade. PewDiePie spawned a fanbase named the "Bro Army", and references his subscribers as "bros".
On most Fridays, PewDiePie uploaded videos known as Fridays with PewDiePie, which included vlogs, doing Q&As, opening fan mail (known as "bro mail"), however, he stopped opening fan mail ever since mid-2013 when moving to Brighton and generally talking about what is currently going on in his life. On several Fridays with PewDiePie in 2012 and 2013, he recorded videos of surprising fans by video chatting with them on Omegle, and has edited a collection of his own in-game reactions in videos commonly known as "Funny Gaming Montage" or "Scariest Moments in Gaming".
In his 1000th video, PewDiePie showed appreciation and gratitude for his rapidly growing fanbase by compiling an assortment of video material from the beginning to the present of the last two years since his YouTube channel has gained notable popularity.
King of the Web
PewDiePie was nominated in February 2012 to run in the internet phenomena King of the Web, coming first in the leader board as overall king. PewDiePie intended on using the money of $7,500 to donate to WWF to save the tigers. It was until WhatDaFuq Show had a meteoric uprise on the leader boards, stirring up the bro army, causing controversy, claims of cheating, and verbal bashing on both sides. Though placing second on his first try, he is also the first campaigner in the history of the King of the Web to gain support and forwarded votes from so many campaigners within the top 10, including Syndicate, JPMetz, and Scary Snowman. Nevertheless, he still placed first as the King of Gaming.
Two weeks after the last nominations, PewDiePie was crowned King of the Web, getting a $500 voucher at Game Stop and receiving $7,500 in cash. PewDiePie showed his generosity through one of his Fridays with PewDiePie episodes and donated all of the money received into WWF to save the tigers.
Charity: Water
On July 12th, 2013, PewDiePie made a video in the campaign to bring public knowledge of the necessity of providing clean water to people around the world. The goal of the charity is a total of $250,000 and he asks that those who can afford to donate do so. PewDiePie pledged to give a dollar for every 500 views the video receives. Additionally, his YouTube network, Polaris, will be donating two dollars for every 500 views on his video.[5] Furthermore, PewDiePie began a live stream on July 14th, 2013 with guest YouTubers Markiplier, Ken and Cry for the charity. A second live stream for Charity: Water followed on July 21st, 2013 with guest YouTubers Sean, Ken, Cry, Minx and Martyn.[6]
Becoming the biggest YouTuber
During 2013, PewDiePie was already rising up on the most subscribed YouTubers leaderboard, making it in the top 10. At the time, Smosh was the most subscribed channel on the platform, with having that rank since the previous year. In August 2013, PewDiePie's subscriber numbers were getting up to Smosh's numbers, with them both having the sub count of 11 million. On August 15th, 2013 7:30 PM EST, whilst PewDiePie already filmed and uploaded the supposed video for that day, he officially surpassed Smosh's subscriber count of 11,915,062 with his sub count of 11,915,435. It was revealed on Twitter that he was predicting that day he would get #1 most subscribed and would celebrate by sleeping, in which he did around 2 or 3 AM. On the next day, he made a video relating to the event, joined by Smosh who although lost their #1 rank, they were happy that PewDiePie achieved it. PewDiePie was the Longest #1 most subscribed channel. He was the #1 for 5-6 years.
YouTube Rewind 2013
PewDiePie was expected by some people to be in YouTube Rewind 2012 but was not in it. Then during YouTube Rewind 2013, he appears as the last scene in the video, burying the rewind logo beneath a rocky beach until next year's YouTube Rewind.[7]
Disabling Comments
On August 29, 2014, PewDiePie uploaded a video titled Goodbye Forever Comments. This was to talk about the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and to announce that he's been noticing a lot of problems amongst bros and non-bros in the comments, and it's been bothering him for a while, so after waiting to see if things would change which they didn't get any better, and nothing changed, he came to the conclusion to disable comments on all videos for good. He's apparently done it before, and then re-enabled the comments, but now, he says, they will be disabled for good and will resort to Twitter, Reddit, and other outlets to communicate with his bros. This hasn't gone over well with fans so far, creating some controversy and creating a major change in PewDiePie's YouTube channel, although there are a lot of his loyal fans that support the decision. Almost 2 months later, he finally decided to change his mind and re-enable the comments again.
Scare PewDiePie
In September 2015, PewDiePie announced that he was going to work on a YouTube Red show, which later revealed to be Scare PewDiePie. Shooting started during that month and ended sometime in October or November 2015. The show premiered on YouTube Red in February 2016.
Revelmode
In January 2016, PewDiePie launched Revelmode, a network affiliated with Disney's Maker Studios, and hired other YouTubers in that network such as Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, Emmablackery and more.
In December 2016, PewDiePie along with Jacksepticeye, Markiplier and more done a Revelmode Charity live stream for Red. The goal was successfully reached.
Deleting Channel At 50 Mil Joke
On December 2, 2016, PewDiePie uploaded a video titled "DELETING MY CHANNEL AT 50 MILLION." where he talks about issues with YouTube in which he states it started to get chaotic such as users being unsubscribed from channels without their consent, and other issues relating to sub counts. He then began to think it was the right time to announce the joke saying he would delete his channel and start fresh with a new one. On December 9, 2016, he uploaded a video titled "DELETING MY CHANNEL." showing that he actually deleted his more satirical channel, Jacksepticeye2.
Media controversies
On January 5, 2017, PewDiePie uploaded a video titled "I WON AN AWARD! where he notices he was placed at #18 on the video titled "The 100 Most Handsome Faces of 2016 and reacted with excitement whilst turning in his chair, saying "18! 18! 18 n***a" with the last part of the word being cut off. PewDiePie soon got criticism after this and #pewdiepieisoverparty became trending on Twitter, although a lot of others explained it was a joke and weren't offended. PewDiePie uploaded a video a week later titled In my defense. stating that the n-word kind of slipped out but was in a sarcastic manner, and said he would decide to quit using the word as he realizes it seems to be more offensive now.
On January 11, 2017, PewDiePie uploaded a video talking about the Fiverr website and shows users doing certain acts that seemed crazy enough to do that PewDiePie paid them $5 for. At the last segment of the video, the user Funny Guys was shown which are two Indian guys, and PewDiePie paid them to write "Death to all Jews" on a sign, which he did to describe how crazy he thought the website was, but the thing is that he didn't expect them to write that on the sign at all. When the two guys did so, PewDiePie opened his eyes and covered his mouth in shock, later feeling sad and telling the audience that he doesn't support anti-semitism and that he didn't think they would do it at all. This created some drama, but not as much as before. Later that week, the Funny Guys revealed on YouTube that they had been banned from Fiverr and revealed they don't know the story of the Holocaust or what Jews were.
In February 2017, the Wall Street Journal examined recent videos of PewDiePie allegedly containing Nazi imagery, which they showed to Disney's Maker Studios and YouTube, concluding that PewDiePie is indeed a Nazi who engages in anti-Semitism, and recommending that he be removed from his YouTube Red show and network Revelmode. The Wall Street Journal achieved their goal of convincing Maker Studios to drop PewDiePie from Maker Studios and Scare PewDiePie on YouTube Red on February 14, 2017. It was officially announced on the same day, and they published an article attacking PewDiePie and portraying him as a Nazi. On February 16, 2017, PewDiePie officially responded by uploading a video titled "My Response" in which he basically talks about the situation and how unfair it is, and at the end of the video, he gives the WSJ the middle finger for attempting to kick him off his show and network and possibly wanting to destroy his career, while still stating that he is making videos.
On September 10, 2017, PewDiePie was live streaming Playerunknown's Battle Grounds, when he came across a player who made him so angry that he said the n-word to them. He later apologized for the language he used during the live-stream in a video titled "My Response," saying, "I'm disappointed in myself, because it seems like I've learned nothing from all these previous controversies, [using the slur] was not okay. I'm really sorry if I offended, hurt, or disappointed anyone with all of this. Being in the position that I am, I should know better."
T-Series and the Great Subscriber War
In January 2018, when the channel of the Indian record label and film production company T-Series became the second most subscribed YouTube channel with over 30 million subscribers; T-Series was growing much more quickly than PewDiePie. It took until August 29, 2018, for PewDiePie to heed this warning—he declared war on T-Series; thus, the Great Subscriber War started. PewDiePie ended the war on April 28th, 2019, deciding it had gone too far.
YouTube Rewind 2018
Ever since the disaster of YouTube Rewind 2018 and it becoming the most disliked video on YouTube, Felix uploaded his own YouTube Rewind in collaboration with FlyingKitty, Grandayy, Dolan Dark and Party In Backyard. The video had a lot of positive feedback towards the community as the video shares iconic moments, YouTubers and memes from 2018, as is seen as the more accurate YouTube Rewind. Felix's YouTube Rewind became the most liked YouTube video apart from music videos and surpassed YouTube Rewind 2018 in likes.
Minecraft
Since Minecraft's recent growth had been occurring and also surpassing Fortnite in search, Felix decided to start making Minecraft Let's Plays. It started off as a Gaming Week but turned out to be a Minecraft Month (throughout July 2019).
On June 21st, 2019, Pewds uploaded the first episode of his Minecraft playthrough known as MINECRAFT EPIC. Throughout his Minecraft lets play, he becomes increasingly more hooked to the game, and soon dedicates Gaming Week to Minecraft. Because of this Minecraft series, Felix has consistently been gaining 40,000 subscribers daily.
His player character sub2pewdiepie12, or just Pewds, is the main character in MINECRAFT EPIC.
YouTube shadowban allegations
In October 2020, fans noticed that his channel did not appear when searching for it on YouTube, and that his recent uploads also failed to appear, leading them to believe that Felix had been "shadowbanned." YouTube responded to the shadowban allegations on Twitter, claiming that the issues were caused by YouTube's system somehow flagging his recent uploads, and that YouTube was taking longer to review videos, including PewDiePie's, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
YouTube issued an apology and stated that they were "working on fixing the issue."
"Coco" video
On 14 February, PewDiePie released "Coco," a diss track about Cocomelon, a kids-oriented channel that had been growing in subscribers for several years and was growing by nearly two million subscribers per month, on February 14th. The song includes lines mocking Cocomelon, swearing, kids dancing and singing along with Kjellberg, and disses rapper 6ix9ine and author J. K. Rowling.
Felix clarified that the children in the music video were given a clean version of the lyrics to mime to while they were being filmed, and that their parents gave their permission for them to participate.
YouTube later removed the video, claiming that it violated their harassment and child safety policies. Felix stated that he "[didn't] actually care about Cocomelon" and that he did not want the pretend rivalry with the channel to "get out of hand," as it had previously with T-Series.
Subscriber Milestones
- 100 December 16, 2010 Call of Duty: Black Ops: Wager Match: Gun Game
- 2.5k February 17, 2011, 2500 SUBS, 100th VIDEO THANK YOU + SHOWING MA GAMING RIG
- 100k January 18, 2012 [FUNNY TOP SCARIEST MOMENTS OF GAMING! 100'000 Subs Special! (Episode 6)]
- 500k May 18, 2012 THANKS FOR 500'000 BROS :D - (Fridays With PewDiePie - Part 28)
- 900k July 6, 2012 THANKS FOR 900'000 SUBSCRIBERS/BROS! - (Fridays With PewDiePie - Part 34)
- 1 Mil July 13, 2012 1'000'000 SUBSCRIBERS!!! WE DID IT, BROS! :D - (Fridays With PewDiePie- Part 35)
- 8 Mil May 26, 2013, 8 MILLION BROS!
- 13 Mil September 13, 2013, A WORLD RECORD! - (Fridays With PewDiePie - Part 64)
- 39 Mil September 3, 2015 39 MILLION // MY TATTOOS // SHOUT-OUT COMPETITION!
- 45 Mil June 18, 2016, REACTING TO OLD VIDEOS (45 Mil Subs) (Fridays With PewDiePie - Part 118)
- 50 Mil December 16, 2016, 50 MILLION
- Ruby Playbutton December 18, 2016, THE RUBY PLAYBUTTON / YouTube 50 Mil Sub Reward Unbox
- 69 Mil November 6, 2018, We made history!!!! LWIAY - #0054
- 70 Mil November 13, 2018, We made history!!! *again* LWIAY - #0055
- 100 Mil August 24, 2019, Best Week Ever.
Games Played
PewDiePie is best known for making Let's Plays of horror-themed video games, although he also plays flash games, indie games, adventure games, and many others. Here is a complete list of all of the games PewDiePie has Let's Played (including downloadable content, mods, and custom maps).
|
Amnesia Custom Stories
PewDiePie has played many Amnesia: The Dark Descent custom maps/stories, wherein the player is able to play a customized map created by another person. Here is a complete list of all of the Amnesia: The Dark Descent custom stories PewDiePie has Let's Played.
|
Virtual Reality
PewDiePie has also created Let's Play videos of games using the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, virtual reality devices. Here is a complete list of all the VR games PewDiePie has Let's Played.
|
Quotes
“ | How's it goin' bros? My name is PEWDIEPIE! | ” |
— Intro (2011-2016; returns circa September 2020)
|
“ | Stay awesome bros, I know you will. | ” |
— Outro (2012-2015)
|
“ | It's not called being gay, it's called being fabulous! | ” |
— How to smile
|
“ | I just scream and everyone laughs. | ” |
— How to be funny? BroKen Podcast 9
|
“ | I was at this point where my channel was just not moving anywhere at all, like I was kind of stuck. And I felt like my videos where -are- the best videos in the world -which they are- obviously. No. It's just, I felt like a lot of people were responding really well to my videos, and they were like: 'This is great! You deserve more subs or whatever' Why am i not getting more subs then! I only care about subs! Obviously. Look at me now. | ” |
— BroKen Podcast 9
|
“ | But can you do this? | ” |
— Running gag about PewDiePie's chair
|
“ | It's ya boi PewDiePie! | ” |
“ | Skrattar du forlorar du mannen! | ” |
— You Laugh You Lose in Swedish, running gag
|
“ | Very nice! | ” |
— When reacting to something "pleasant" in recent videos
|
“ | SquadFam out! | ” |
— Outro (August 2017-February 2018) parodying Jacksfilms
|
“ | What? You've never played Tuber Simulator? | ” |
— First sentence of PewDiePie's outro advertising Tuber Simulator, which became a meme on the channel.
|
Name
- The name "Pewdie" was created from pew, the sound a laser makes, and die, what happens when you get hit by a laser. However, after forgetting the password to his original YouTube account under the name Pewdie, he created a similarly named one by adding the word pie because he "fuckin' loves pie," thus forming "PewDiePie". Later on, in January 2012, he remembered the password for his channel Pewdie, and it has been uploaded 14 videos since.[8]
Trivia
- His favorite video game character is Sho Minamimoto from the Nintendo DS game The World Ends With You.[8]
- He has a dislike for octopi.[9]
- He has on at least two occasions stated that his favourite movie is A Clockwork Orange, however; in one of his Fridays with PewDiePie, he stated that he changed his favorite to Donnie Darko..[8]
- PewDiePie's most-watched video is Bitch Lasagna with 305 million views, as of June 2022.
- He can play guitar.[10]
- He was a Caesarian section birth.
- He used to send private messages to users telling them to subscribe to him.
- One of the first horror games he ever played was Dead Space.[11]
- Some of his older jobs include working on a tennis court, being a sailing instructor, and working at a hotdog stand.[12]
- He likes playing tennis, golf and going sailing.[13]
- In games, he used the name poodiepie, in small letters, which probably came from the mispronunciation of his nickname, PewDiePie.
- He admitted that he hates eggs in the Wolf Among Us.
- He had admitted that he's not able to play horror games by himself, so he got the idea to record it to defeat his fears.
- It's also revealed that he over-exaggerates himself getting scared just to make his reactions more humorous to viewers.
- The scariest game he had played before Amnesia: The Dark Descent was BioShock.
- In the BroKen Podcast #11, he tells Ken that he doesn't like Pokemon because he's 25 and that Pokemon is just the same game over and over.
- The Beastmaster 64 videos were inspired by the fact that some people take Pokemon GO too seriously.
- He has a pet cane toad called Slippy named after the Starfox series.
- He passed away on December 2017, as PewDiePie claims, and reveals that he was old when he got him.
- In January 2017, he reveals that in the past he forced himself to be happy sometimes to bring more positivity to his channel and has quit.
- In January 2018 he goes more into depth into the past, his emotions during the time and how he feels about YouTube.
- He is a fan of Swedish rap, he stated that he mainly listens to Drain Gang and has mentioned Yung Lean in a video. [14]
External links
- PewDiePie on YouTube
- HPewDiePie FAQ inquiries
- PewDiePie Business Inquiries Form
- PewDiePie on DeviantArt
References
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwBQPpGPves
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZB4zxvGAQk
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3nfFpp6uxM
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuffWCjhxII
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mxA4VSQ18o
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Nt2cns2zs
- ↑ http://youtu.be/H7jtC8vjXw8?t=4m19s
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj-68mx4We4
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ckQm6RpwsA
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22cnFdn2VKI
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bleWDHyzoVs
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxEFwyfZyt0
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DXzJ6jxhOM
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=508&v=ggsqvFsgoKk