He’s totally unpolished, but at the same time his timing is consistently spot-on. He’s self-assured but not arrogant, vulnerable but not pathetic, handsome but not vain. He’s pleasantly confident (“How’s it going, bros!”), but then he takes it too far (“The ladies like it”) then he shows a little desperation (“Please keep watching”), which is also a joke (that’s the confidence again). It’s actually kind of complicated what Kjellberg is doing here. Then he adds, with a very slight trace of pleading in his voice, “Please keep watching.” The ladies like it.” The camera zooms in, and he winks, deadpan. Kjellberg grandly announces the topic for this video: he’s going to play a horror game in VR. It’s his impression of a minor character in South Park called Mr. “Why do I always sound so creepy? How’s it going, bros! My name is PewDiePie!” (He has a signature style for pronouncing his name: in falsetto, with something approximating a Southern accent, while closing his eyes and wiggling his fingers. He’s wearing a sheer, flesh-colored one-piece bodysuit with nipples drawn on it. He has on headphones and VR goggles pushed up on his forehead. As far as I can tell there was no HTC Vive–Part 02.) (If you’re curious, HTC Vive–Part 01 was Teabagging in VR, and if you don’t know what teabagging is, do yourself a favor and don’t Google it. On April 13, Kjellberg uploaded a video called Kill yourself in VR?!–(HTC Vive–Part 03). His videos mostly show him playing video games and talking about them, and–as he would be the first to admit–he’s not even that good at playing video games. They asked to have their picture taken with him, and he agreed very graciously.Īs popular as he is, it’s hard to explain exactly what Kjellberg is famous for. In spite of the beard, a bunch of passing middle-school students recognized him. And I just don’t want to give them the satisfaction.” “But the thing is, my fans wanted me to shave so bad–so bad. Also like a lot of Swedes, Kjellberg is really good-looking, with prominent cheekbones and ghostly pale-blue eyes, though on the day I met him, at a coffee shop in Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River, the effect was somewhat mitigated by a big comedy Viking beard. Like a lot of Swedes, he speaks near perfect English with an American accent, only occasionally betraying his Swedishness by enunciating slightly too well, the way they do in ABBA songs. In person, Kjellberg is affable, articulate and low-key. Forbes estimated that in the 12-month period ending in June 2015, he made around $12 million before taxes. He has no easily defined talent–he can’t sing, can’t dance, can’t act–but over the past six years Kjellberg has uploaded around 2,800 videos to YouTube, which collectively have amassed more than 12 billion views. Most people over 30 haven’t heard of him, but he is a bona fide global celebrity of an entirely new kind: if you track his numbers on Google Trends, which is admittedly a very rough metric of fame, he ranks only slightly below Tom Cruise. He’s 26 and lives in Brighton, U.K., though he grew up in Sweden. PewDiePie’s real name is Felix Kjellberg. PewDiePie had, at press time, 44,426,617 subscribers. The top spot is owned, and has been since 2013, by PewDiePie. 2 channel belongs to HolaSoyGerman, a Chilean comic and musician with 28 million subscribers. 3 is YouTube Spotlight–new and trending videos (24 million). 4 is the online sketch-comedy duo Smosh (22 million subscribers). You pass through a kind of YouTube-fame singularity where the rules of normal real-world celebrity no longer apply. VEVO also owns the sixth through the 10th spots on the list, the other ones being, in descending order, RihannaVEVO, OneDirectionVEVO, TaylorSwiftVEVO, KatyPerryVEVO and EminemVEVO.īut go the other way, up the list, and something strange happens. The channel with the fifth most subscribers on YouTube is Justin Bieber’s VEVO channel–all Justin Bieber videos, all the time.
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