PewDiePie

Felix Kjellberg — PewDiePie — is the most important YouTuber who ever lived.

The Swedish creator didn't just ride YouTube's rise; for six years he was YouTube. The most-subscribed channel on the platform from August 2013 to 2019 — 2,254 days at number one — the first individual creator to hit 100 million subscribers, the face of an entire era of internet culture. As of 2026, the channel sits at roughly 110 million subscribers and 29.5 billion lifetime views, still one of the largest channels on Earth.

It started absurdly small. Kjellberg registered the PewDiePie channel in 2010 while studying industrial economics at Chalmers University in Gothenburg, dropped out, and — after his parents cut off support — sold hot dogs to stay afloat while the channel grew. The early videos were Let's Plays: horror games, action games, and the unhinged, high-volume commentary style that became his signature. "I'm not gonna ask you to subscribe, but if you want to, that would be awesome" became the sign-off an entire generation imitated.

The rise was unprecedented. By August 15, 2013, at age 23, he was the most-subscribed YouTuber on the planet — and he stayed there through the platform's golden age. Time magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2016. His book, This Book Loves You, landed on the New York Times bestseller list in 2015. He co-launched the Revelmode network and starred in YouTube Red's Scare PewDiePie. The "PewDiePie effect" — games he played seeing their sales explode — made him the most powerful tastemaker in indie gaming.

The controversies were equally enormous. In 2017, Wall Street Journal reporting on the content of some videos cost him his Disney Maker Studios deal and got his YouTube Red series cancelled — a reckoning about the line between edgy internet humor and something darker that defined the platform's growing pains. Kjellberg acknowledged some content as inappropriate while defending it as humor taken out of context. The media coverage split sharply: some outlets painted him as adjacent to hateful ideologies; others called the framing unfair. Either way, it was the biggest story in creator culture that year.

Then came the subscriber war. In late 2018 and early 2019, Kjellberg's channel went head-to-head with Indian record label T-Series for the most-subscribed crown — and the internet turned it into a global event. "Bitch Lasagna" and "Congratulations" became anthems; the "Subscribe to PewDiePie" meme went from joke to movement to genuine cultural phenomenon, with everyone from hackers to late-night hosts getting involved. T-Series ultimately overtook him. He lost with a song, on purpose, and came back to regular gaming uploads — Minecraft, of all things — that generated record viewership.

The 2020s brought the quiet pivot. Kjellberg grew more reserved online, uploading less consistently and taking long breaks from the internet. The personal life took center stage: he married Italian internet personality Marzia Bisognin at Kew Gardens in London in August 2019, moved with her to Japan full-time in May 2022 after falling in love with the country years earlier, and welcomed their son Björn on July 11, 2023. The channel's content shifted toward family life and personal interests — cozy monthly vlogs from Tokyo, side projects, and eventually a very public semi-retirement.

The goodbye was characteristically honest. In September 2026, Kjellberg posted "Thank you and Goodbye," announcing he was ending the family vlogs to protect three-year-old Björn's privacy: "For Björn, I want him to make his own choices. He deserves his own privacy." He was blunt about fame itself — "I love making videos, and I'm going to keep making videos obviously. But I do not love being famous. I actually kind of hate it." The couple continues a monthly newsletter instead. The videos stay; the childhood stays private.

The charity record deserves its own chapter. Across his career, Kjellberg used his enormous reach for fundraising drives — clean water, children's hospitals, disaster relief — proving that the biggest audience in internet history could be pointed at something good. The Bro Army, as his fans called themselves, showed up every time.

Why he matters: PewDiePie is the proof of concept for the entire creator economy. He showed that one person with a camera and a personality could build an audience bigger than television networks — and then, just as importantly, showed that you could walk away from the machine on your own terms. Every YouTuber working today is, in some sense, working in a world he built.

Previously covers PewDiePie because the king of YouTube earned his crown twice: once by taking it, once by giving it up. Brofist.

The legacy is still being written. Semi-retired in Tokyo, a father, a Linux convert with a home AI lab, uploading for enjoyment instead of the algorithm — the most famous YouTuber alive finally gets to be a person. After sixteen years of defining the platform, he's earned the quiet.