Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (shel-burg, Swedish: born on 24 October 1989), better known by his online pseudonym PewDiePie (pew-dee-py), is a Swedish web-based comedian and video producer. He is known for his Let's Play commentaries and vlogs on YouTube.
Born in Gothenburg, Sweden, PewDiePie originally pursued a degree in industrial economics and technology management at Chalmers University of Technology. In 2010, during his time at the university, he registered a YouTube account under the name PewDiePie. The following year, he dropped out of Chalmers after growing bored with his degree field, much to the dismay of his parents. After failing to earn an apprenticeship with an advertising agency in Scandinavia, he then decided to focus on creating content for his YouTube channel. In order to fund his videos, PewDiePie began selling prints of his Photoshop art projects and working at a hot dog stand. PewDiePie soon gathered a rapidly increasing online following, and in July 2012, his channel surpassed one million subscribers.
Early on, PewDiePie was signed under the multi-channel network Machinima. After dissatisfaction with the network, he signed with Maker Studios, having his channel under Maker's sub-networks Polaris, and later, Revelmode. Throughout his time on YouTube, PewDiePie has produced content that has been praised as genuine and unfiltered, but also been received as abrasive, and in some cases, met with controversy. As a result of an early 2017 controversy regarding allegations of anti-Semitism in several of PewDiePie's videos, the Disney-operated Maker Studios ended their partnership with him, dropping him from their network. While he criticised the coverage of the situation and defended his content as jokes that were taken out of context, he conceded its offensiveness.
Since 15 August 2013, PewDiePie has been the most subscribed user on YouTube, being surpassed briefly in November and December 2013 by YouTube's Spotlight channel. Holding the position since 22 December 2013, the channel has over 54 million subscribers as of April 2017. From 29 December 2014 to 14 February 2017, PewDiePie's channel held the distinction of being the most viewed of all time, and as of April 2017, the channel has received over 15 billion video views.
PewDiePie refers to his fanbase as the "Bro Army", and individual fans as "bros". Through his Bro Army fanbase, PewDiePie has raised money for charities. Due to his popularity, PewDiePie's coverage of indie games has created an Oprah effect, boosting sales for titles he plays. In 2016, Time named him one of "The World's 100 Most Influential People."[ PewDiePie lives in Brighton with his girlfriend, Italian YouTube personality Marzia Bisognin.
Early life
PewDiePie was born and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden.He was born to Lotta Kristine Johanna (born 7 May 1958) and Ulf Christian Kjellberg (born 8 January 1957), and grew up with his sister Fanny. His mother, a former KappAhl CIO, was named the 2010 CIO of the Year in Sweden. His father is also a Chief Executive of another company.
During his early schooling life, he was interested in art, and has noted that he would draw popular video game characters such as Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. During high school, he would skip classes to play video games at an Internet cafe with friends; on this topic, PewDiePie has commented, "Sweden has a great culture around gaming." In 2008, he graduated from Göteborgs Högre Samskola. He then went on to pursue a degree in industrial economics and technology management at Chalmers University of Technology, but left the university in 2011. On his decision, PewDiePie has stated, "Thinking about it now, it was utterly absurd. To get into Chalmers for industrial economics you need straight A's, but somehow I was happier selling hot dogs and making my own gaming-videos." While his reason for leaving Chalmers has often been reported as a want to focus on his YouTube career, in 2017, PewDiePie clarified, "Why does everyone get this story wrong? [...] I dropped out of university because I didn't like it. To drop out of university to pursue YouTube, that'd just be fucking stupid." He added that "industrial management and economics [was] boring as hell [...] [and] I couldn't relate to fucking anyone."
PewDiePie has also shared that he "loved Photoshop", wanting to work on photo manipulation art using Adobe Photoshop rather than be in school. Relating to this passion, he entered Photoshop contests and almost earned an apprenticeship at "one of the best advertising agencies in Scandinavia." He was also interested in creating content on YouTube, and after not earning the apprenticeship, he sold limited edition prints of his Photoshopped images in order to purchase a computer to work on YouTube videos. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PewDiePie
YouTube career
Channel format
The main focus of PewDiePie's videos is his commentary and reactions to various games as he plays through them. Due to this, his videos fall under the Let's Play umbrella. Unlike conventional walkthroughs, his Let's Play videos are devoted to "sharing gaming moments on YouTube with my bros". Variety details that "PewDiePie acts like he’s spending time with a friend. He begins each video introducing himself in a high-pitched, goofy voice, drawing out the vowels of his YouTube moniker, then delves into the videos."
In his early years as a YouTube personality, PewDiePie was known for playing horror and action video games, most notably Amnesia: The Dark Descent and its related mods. PewDiePie also began posting weekly vlogs starting from 2 September 2011.These vlogs are uploaded under the title of Fridays with PewDiePie. He typically performs a "Brofist" at the end of each of his videos.[26]As his channel grew, he began to branch out in terms of his video content, uploading live-action and animated comedy shorts. In 2014, he began to more actively play games that interested him, regardless if they were of the horror genre or not. In addition, he is also known to support video games from indie developers.
PewDiePie has also been noted for his frequent upload output, something he scaled down in 2014. By early 2017, he had uploaded almost 3,500 videos to his channel, around 400 of which have been made private. In March 2017, PewDiePie noted that his channel was running on a daily output, on which he commented, "[there's] a lot of challenges in doing daily content, it's stupid. I really shouldn't be doing it, I really should just fucking go back and upload twice a week or some shit, and then take a step back, but I still really, really love the daily challenge—the daily grind—of just being like, 'hey, I'm gonna make a video today, no matter what.' And sometimes it really works, and sometime's it doesn't."
During the early portion of his YouTube career, PewDiePie refused to hire any editor or outside assistance to help with his video output; stating, "I want YouTube to be YouTube." In October 2014, however, while speaking to Rhett and Link on their Ear Biscuits podcast, PewDiePie expressed that he would seek an editor in 2015. In February 2017, PewDiePie stated in his My Response video, "I'm just a guy. It's literally just me. There's not a producer out there [...] there's no writer, there's no camera guy."
Style of content
The nature of PewDiePie's video content has been described by various outlets as goofy, energetic, obnoxious, and filled with profanity. However, many of the same outlets concede that PewDiePie's content is genuine and unfiltered. Sarah Begley of Time said his clips contained "charismatic narration". Chris Reed of The Wall St. Cheat Sheet said it contained "off-the-cuff running commentary that's characterised by goofy jokes, profanity, and loud outbursts." Another reporter noted PewDiePie's "chosen mode of sharing his critique happens to be ribald entertainment, an unmediated stream of blurted jokes, startled yelps, goofy voices, politically incorrect comments, and pretty much nonstop profanity." Reed adds that these aspects of PewDiePie's videos are what critics find most abrasive, but what fans love the most. PewDiePie resorts occasionally to gameplay, resulting in silent or emotional commentary; his playthrough of The Last of Us, it was noted, left the usually vocal gamer speechless at the ending.
In 2016, he examined his older videos and while noting the stylistic changes he had undergone, he expressed specific regret for his casual use of words like gay or retarded in a derogatory sense. In December 2016, Kotaku's Patricia Hernandez wrote about his stylistic changes, explaining that "over the last year, the PewDiePie channel has also had an underlying friction, as Kjellberg slowly distances himself from many of the things that made him famous. He's doing fewer Let's Plays of horror games like Amnesia," and adding, "the PewDiePie of 2016 can still be immature, sure, but [...] a defining aspect of recent PewDiePie videos is existential angst, as he describes the bleak reality of making content for a machine he cannot fully control or understand." On the technical aspect of his videos, PewDiePie spoke about how his early videos would feature raw footage, although he later began to dedicate time to edit his videos. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PewDiePie
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