For those of you who simply refuse to catch up, PewDiePie is one of the biggest, and most-watched stars in the world.
That is not an understatement or hyperbole. The man is a phenomenon and, whether you like it or not, has become very, very wealthy as a result.
The YouTube demigod has been producing videos for nigh on five years now under the PewDiePie moniker (literally Swedish for “man who screams at video games“) and has a subscriber count that currently sits at a mind-boggling 43.5million.
His uploads regularly pull in more views than the highest-rated programs on Australian TV (Australia, the entire country) and his massive following, manic wi,t and nordic good looks have landed him a number of plum gigs, including a recent appearance on Conan in the US.
The stats on the bloke are incredible. In the last two weeks alone his channel has accumulated some 129million views, equating to advertising revenue somewhere in the range of $64k-$324k. In the last two weeks. His channel is, by some margin, the most popular one YouTube.
Entertaining that amount of people can’t be an easy task, and it’s definitely a tough one to do on the reg. Having started the channel five years ago, and with a five-years-younger personality to match, the man born Felix Kjellberg was not without his issues.
The “humour” he employed, for example, was always crass, childish, and lacked forethought.
The good thing is, he’s realised this.
In a new video, PewDiePie looks back at some of his older material, bemoaning his own use of words like “gay” or “retard” as derogatory terms.
In a rare moment of self-reflection, the likes of which you don’t really get to see from YouTube’s otherwise simmering cesspit of gaming let’s play videos, PewDiePie states he’s not proud of the jokes he used in the past, and he’s glad that he’s grown and owns up to his past missteps.
“Exposing myself here, but I don’t know, I really don’t like that. I still make kind of stupid jokes that I shouldn’t make, but I feel like back then I didn’t understand. I was so immature, and I just thought things were funny just because they were offensive. So I would say a lot of stupid shit.”“I’m not proud of it, I’m really not. But I’m also glad that I’ve grown past it… Back then I felt like I was very childish, and very confused.”
Then again the intro for the very next video he uploaded states that it stars PewDiePie and “dem anime titties,” so if there’s a moral to any of this it’s definitely open to interpretation.
Source: Uproxx.
