PewDiePie Increases Monthly YouTube Channel Subscribers By 700 Percent

If I asked you who Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg is, you'd probably say you have no idea. You may then be surprised to learn he boasts the most popular channel on YouTube - at least, until you put two and two together and realise Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg is better known as PewDiePie.

PA

But the Swede's channel is only the most popular by a narrow margin, thanks to a 700 percent surge in monthly subscribers.

In October, the 29-year-old launched a campaign to boost his following in a bid to stave off competition for his crown. The competition arose in the form of T-Series, an Indian company that primarily shares Bollywood music videos.

Analysis from Tubular concluded that PewDiePie would be knocked off his perch by 29 October - but he wasn't willing to take this lying down.

PewDiePie implored viewers to 'smash subscribe', with fans even sticking up posters in cities across the world encouraging people to follow his channel.

Yes, this is what the kids do now. They don't stick posters of Jimi Hendrix on their walls, they stick up posters of their favourite YouTubers in public places, in the hope of ensuring their channel continues to have the most subscribers.

Sigh.

But arguably of even greater benefit to PewDiePie's campaign than a few posters was the support of other big name YouTubers.

Logan Paul and Mr Beast threw their substantial weight behind the campaign. The former said he would donate to charity if people subscribed, while the latter paid for radio ads and billboards promoting PewDiePie, according to Business Insider.

He even did a 12-hour live stream in which he said 'PewDiePie' 100,000 times. The video has been watched more than nine million times.

Truly, there is no hope.

Why these guys went to such lengths to support him, rather than say, harness their huge audiences to combat one-use plastics or rhino poachers, is unclear. But basically it seems they're showing solidarity with a fellow individual YouTuber over a large company.

Whatever the reason, it worked.

Business Insider calculated that PewDiePie gained 13 million subscribers between September and December - almost double the amount gained in the entirety of 2017. In December alone, 6.62 million people subscribed to his channel, representing a 700 percent acceleration in growth on September.

Consequently, he remains top of the pops with 81,653,000 subscribers. But the wolf is not far from the door, with T-Series boasting 81,529,000 subscribers.

So the war is not over, kids. Print off flyers, posters, leaflets... whatever you need to do to keep fighting the good fight.

Topics: Viral, Celebrity, YouTube

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey