PewDiePie becomes world’s first solo creator to top 100m subscribers on YouTube

Despite losing the battle to become the first channel to hit 100 million subscribers to Indian music channel T-Series, Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg has now crossed the milestone himself – the first solo content creator to do so.

Despite an often difficult working relationship even YouTube stopped to publicly congratulate Kjellberg, acknowledging the success of his recent Minecraft videos. 

“Married to marziapie. Revived our love of Minecraft. Reached 100 million subscribers on YouTube. What a month to celebrate and congratulate PewDiePie,” said a tweet from its official Twitter account (thanks, Eurogamer).

https://twitter.com/YouTube/status/1165444428988743680

PewDiePie’s rise hasn’t been without its controversies, though. Just weeks after claiming he was distancing himself from racist humour, he shouted a racial slur on a livestream of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, prompting Campo Santo co-founder, Sean Vanaman, to issue a DMCA takedown request of PewDiePie’s Firewatch Let’s Play videos.

In February 2017 he used anti-semitic words in a video he claimed satirised the absurdity of gig economy sites like Fiverr where people will say or do anything for money. The event led to Disney and YouTube pulling sponsorship from PewDiePie’s channel, after which the influencer claimed he was going to become a family-friendly channel given YouTube’s rule changes leading to video demonetisation.