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Dec. 16, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
11:11
What is Driving the Subscribe to PewDiePie Phenomenon？
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So I've been watching the subscribe to PewDiePie event and it's it's really really interesting and yes, all of my YouTube channels are now subscribed to PewDiePie because I'm weirdly invested in seeing him win this, and it seems that millions of other people are as well, and it's really weird.
But I really think it speaks to the main problem that we're having at the moment and I think there's something about the, the schism in the West that is being played out here, and I know that's going to be so easy to be critically theoried out of existence.
That statement, as I'm sure you're already aware, because these channels have tens of millions of subscribers and billions of views.
These two channels, PewDiePie and T-Series, an Indian Bollywood company that makes music and videos and whatnot are competing for the most subscribed YouTube channel in the world.
Currently it's PewDiePie and he's been there since 2013, but T-Series has come out of apparently nowhere due to the internet boom that's currently taking place in India, in a relatively poor country, when people start getting online and hundreds of millions of Indians have recently been coming online effectively and so they go to somewhere like T-Series on YouTube for free content and why not?
That's exactly the purpose of it, and T-Series, of course, get paid, everyone wins.
And because there's not that much competition in the genre that T-Series is in, then it means that there isn't much stopping T-Series from basically hoovering up everyone's subscriptions.
And T-Series is a company that runs 29 different channels and they're a big, big operation and good for them for being successful.
This really isn't about them.
What this is about is the principle of the thing.
As weird and almost silly as that sounds right, the principle of the thing is that PewDiePie is just a guy.
He might have a bunch of employees he probably does.
It's PewDiePie, the brand, he is the person that is PewDiePie.
It is in him very much Youtube, whereas it with T-series, it's a corporation that appears to be kind of faceless to people on the outside of it, because there's no one with which we can readily identify the.
The story behind T-series is actually pretty good as well, to be fair, and it's a really great example of the market providing massive opportunities, because it was founded by some guy who's like a fisherman or something and he was.
You know, he's a young guy still as well and he was just like you know what?
I just I just want to make this music or whatever, and he just worked hard and he succeeded.
He took advantage of the opportunities presented to him and now he's doing great which again, is fantastic.
This is like it's the story of success stories, which is fantastic in my opinion.
Thank god for capitalism, eh.
But it leaves us in this weird position in the West where we have a a distinction between our global elites and our parochial commoners, and I think this is genuinely a conflict that's being played out in the subscribe to Pewdiepie meme, because when people heard that he was going to be dethroned, they were like non-Marwatch, we're actually going to do something about this.
And so PewDiePie's fanbase started the subscribe to PewDiePie meme, and because PewDiePie had tens of millions of subscribers anyway, this has mean this has meant that he's gained millions more subscribers than T-Series has.
In fact, if we look at the numbers at the moment, you can see how they go up, PewDiePie is on 77 million.
T-Series is on 75 million 700,000.
So this has had a demonstrable effect and has kept PewDiePie comfortably in the lead for at least for now.
And the thing is, this is going to be a fight that's going to be very difficult for people to keep up in the long run, because PewDiePie gets about 391 million views a month, which is amazing.
He is a man of phenomenal reach and influence, but T-series gets billions of views each month because T-series just spam out about five or six videos a day and they're music videos.
So there's a reason for people to watch them over and over and over again.
But, like I said, Pewdiepie's fans are not willing to let him go quietly into that good night and be second place to a corporation, and so they've been going for it in every way that they can think of.
And I mean I suppose when you've got tens of millions of people following you, it's inevitable you're going to get a lot of creative ideas, but some of these have been genuinely like incredible and remarkably wholesome.
You've got people making like subscribe to Pewdiepie music, subscribe to Pewdiepie.
Lawn signs as if he's a politician.
Snapchat lenses that replace every T-series logo with subscribe to Pewdiepie.
And someone hacked 50 000 printers to say subscribe to Pewdiepie.
And then it happened again today with another like 80 000 printers printing out subscribe to Pewdiepie.
And then you have youtubers from the popular blogger genre, sort of this guy who bought a bunch.
He literally bought every billboard in his town to write calling all bros, you can save youtube.
Subscribe to Pewdiepie, unsubscribe from T-series.
That is just.
That's what a strange thing to happen.
And then one of Logan Paul's friends I don't know who.
Any of these people are right, so if i'm saying something that sounds silly, then it is.
But one of Logan Paul's friends, apparently called Justin Roberts, bought a billboard in Times Square.
Look at that.
Keep Pewdie Pie number one on youtube.
Special announcement from Justin Roberts.
I mean, that is just.
It's such a weirdly heartwarming thing to see.
It's the most goddamn wholesome thing i've ever seen from the internet.
And it's so weird how, like i'm not seeing anyone on the other side of it, i'm not seeing anyone go.
You know what I want Pewdiepie to lose?
I want Pewdiepie to fall from his number one spot.
It's really strange.
It's like Pewdiepie being the number one youtuber is somehow part of the natural order.
This is the way that God arranged the social media universe.
Facebook is full of normies, Twitter is absolutely awful and Youtube has Pewdie Pie as the biggest youtuber.
And the funny thing about it being an Indian company is that there are Bangladeshis rooting for, For PewDiePie, against T-Series.
Because why not?
Smash subscribe to PewDiePie.
Join the Nairobi.
I love it.
I don't know why.
I don't know why it's so funny.
But it's also so wholesome.
And I keep using that word, but it's really nice to see it.
It's nice to see people actually doing something, even if it's not important.
Because PewDiePie himself has said, look, I don't care if I'm the number two.
And that's probably why he deserves it more than anyone else.
That's probably why people are satisfied with him being the number one YouTuber.
So as the Independent point out, PewDiePie actually addressed this in a video.
He said, it's already a heated subject now that the company is taking over.
Everyone's going on a run.
YouTube is not really becoming YouTube.
It's never going to be the same now.
I don't really care about T-Series.
I genuinely don't.
But I think if YouTube does shift in a way where it feels more corporate, which it is, then something else will take its place.
I think people enjoy this connection so much.
I think something else will just show up if it feels too corporate.
Well, I think he's got a point.
And I think that's really where the impetus has come from.
Again, it's about him being just a guy.
He's just a dude.
He's a really famous dude.
And of course, I'm going to have to finish on the fact that what I'm talking about is also exemplified in the YouTube Rewind video at 12 million downvotes.
Again, a video that just felt corporate and Hollywood, polished, and expensive to make, with a bunch of very shiny, happy, Silicon Valley-friendly faces, lots of money put into it, big names, if you even knew who they were, and a bunch of small names who happen to toe the right line.
And I think that in some way that I probably don't even understand very well myself, there is a giant undercurrent of resentment between these two groups.
I think that broadly speaking, what we're talking about is two separate worldviews.
And I mean that in the broadest sense that I can mean it.
I really think that people in general, people who are outside of the power structures, the users themselves, including content creators who are users, feel like they're not being listened to.
And I think this is sort of a subconscious and pervasive attitude and mindset.
And it's so normal that people can't even see that they think this.
They just go through their lives and assume that they have no control over politics.
They have no input.
No one listens to them.
No one cares.
They go and do their job and still no one listens.
And so they have to complain about their lives to their friends and family, obviously.
And of course, on the internet.
And I think that what we're seeing with PewDiePie is someone who does listen.
He genuinely, at least as best as he can when he's speaking to tens of millions of people, whereas YouTube seem to deliberately not be listening.
And the same.
And this is generally the same for Silicon Valley and, frankly, the very idea of mass faceless corporations, at least when it comes to people who aren't part of the social justice clique.
So I honestly think that underwriting all of this is a kind of spirit of revolution, if I can be so dramatic.
But I think there is something there.
And I think that we're seeing the wellsprings of this revolution everywhere.
You know, it's the Yellow Jacket protests.
It's Brexit.
It's Trump.
It's the Yellow Jacket protests.
It's YouTube Rewind.
It's Gamergates.
It's Comics Gates.
It's all of these other resistance movements to centralized control from global authorities.
That's what people want, I think, to avoid.
And I think the best way to avoid that is to start decentralizing decision-making power and effectively what I would call localizing.
I think that's the most important thing that any of these companies can do to try and mitigate the resentment from their own user bases and from the people themselves that prop up a government, from the users that prop up a corporation.
Like, if you want to prevent resentment growing in this user base, just come lower to earth.
You're way too high up at the moment and people think that you're kind of like gods, capricious and cruel ones, that don't care about the people who believe in them and just take them for granted.
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