If you’ve never heard of the name Felix Kjellberg, chances are you’ve heard of his online moniker, PewDiePie. 

For the longest time, PewDiePie has reigned as the most-subscribed independent content creator on the website, having only been passed by Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) last year. Of his 111 million followers, a considerable amount resides here in the Philippines. As revealed in one of his videos, the Philippines places second for his viewership analytics. Let’s have a look into how the Swedish YouTuber has risen through the ranks and cemented himself as an Internet icon.

The birth of PewDiePie’s channel.

Felix found his start on YouTube as far back as 2010. During this time, he had dropped out of college after his interest in his initial career choice of becoming an industrial engineer faded. He went on to do various odd jobs, including being a hotdog stand vendor, selling t-shirts he made, and being a harbor captain, as he shifted his focus to making videos during his spare time. His earliest uploads were gameplay videos of Call of Duty paired with his commentary. Slowly he would find himself building up a following through his gameplay videos of the horror video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent. People found it funny how he would often react to the jumpscares within the game and how he’d create characters from in-game objects to calm down. As his fanbase grew, Felix decided to refer to his followers as “bros.” He would start each of his videos with a greeting to his bro army and end each video by looking into the camera and giving it a “brofist” (fist bump) to say goodbye.

The growth of the Bro Army.

By 2012, he would find himself starting to gain more recognition after hitting the YouTuber milestone of 100,000 subscribers. It would only take the rest of the year for his growing fanbase to reach the next milestone of having one million subscribers. Throughout this time, Felix started to experiment more with his videos and upload more than just his gaming videos and vlogs. Venturing into new territory, Felix would try out viral online challenges, collaborate with other big YouTubers, and even create his own skits. YouTube would even sign him on for his own series, Scare PewDiePie, for their YouTube Red subscription service. Finally, by 2013 he would find himself crowned as the most-subscribed YouTuber, a title he would hold for over half a decade before eventually bowing down to the Indian music network T-Series in 2019.

A barrel of controversies.

For a journey filled with many highs, Felix has also faced his fair share of controversies throughout his career. Much of his earliest videos, now unlisted or deleted, often had rape jokes. It’s worth noting that such jokes, while inexcusable, were common in the Internet culture at the time (the “Pedobear” meme comes to mind). Nevertheless, Felix apologized and made sure not to joke about such matters in his future uploads. It wouldn’t be until 2017 that a flurry of controversies would strike the Swede. 

Throughout the year, PewDiePie’s content had centered around edgy humor and conspiracy theories. Such themes attracted the likes of alt-right and far-right conservatives to start praising Felix and enjoying his content. Felix has also been faced with allegations of being an antisemite after posting a video where he paid people on Fiverr to write, “death to all Jews.” He defended the segment by pointing out the video was made to shed light on how such ridiculous requests are permitted on the website, not as an attack on Jewish people. 

Perhaps his largest controversy would be the so-called “bridge incident.” During one of his live streams of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Felix made use of an ethnic slur toward another player at a bridge setting in-game. An apology video was posted shortly after wherein he explained he was disappointed at how he used such language and that he owed it to his large following to set a better example.

Where is he today?

After learning from his controversies, Felix has decidedly stepped away from the limelight. Although he still uploads commentary and gameplay videos, his more recent uploads come out less frequently and focus more on his life in Japan. Through his vlogs, viewers get to see how he spends his time with his wife Marzia, and their newborn son Björn. It’s admirable to see how Felix has grown past his mistakes and learned to improve as a person by steering clear from problematic content. Perhaps that’s why even now, 13 years since he had started his channel and through all the controversies, audiences continue to throw their support toward him.