Micah Loewinger: Hey, it's Micah. This is the On the Media mid-week podcast. Something happened on the internet this week that was at once huge, and also a foregone conclusion. Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, has been for many years, basically the king of YouTube. As of a few days ago, MrBeast is now officially the most subscribed to YouTuber in the world, with 271 million followers at time of recording. His clickbaity game show style videos with their extravagant sets and giant payouts have come to define this era of the site.

Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast: Behind me are 100 people, and they range from the age 1 all the way to age 100, and they're going to be competing for $250,000. Everyone, go to your cube.

Micah Loewinger: Remember Squid Game, the Korean Netflix sensation? That show got around 265 million views. MrBeast's real life Squid Game video got 616 million views.

Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast: I recreated every single set from Squid Game in real life, and whichever one of these 456 people survives the longest wins 456 grand.

Micah Loewinger: That's why he's number one. There's actually a very interesting history behind the jockeying for YouTube's top spot. To get there, MrBeast had to surpass a giant Indian entertainment company, T-Series, 266 million subscribers, which had been number one for years.

In 2019, I worked with Brooke on a piece about the last time a big western YouTuber went head to head with T-Series. Back then, it was a guy who was the MrBeast of his era, a YouTuber known as PewDiePie.

Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie: How is it going everyone? My name is PewDiePie.

Clay Shirky: PewDiePie is a character played by Felix Kjellberg. He is a caustic and funny gamer.

Brooke Gladstone: Clay Shirky is a tech writer and vice provost of educational technology at New York University. He's tracked PewDiePie's nine-year rise to the top of YouTube.

Clay Shirky: He's Swedish. He lives in England. He's 29. He's one of the first generation of YouTubers who did it as a hobby and converted it to a career.

Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie: Friday with PewDiePie, on a Friday.

Brooke Gladstone: PewDiePie's subscriber counts started to rise on the appeal of a now classic genre of videos called Let's Play, as in you watch him goof around while he plays a game. He's now got 80 million subscribers, but two years ago, he started dipping into controversy.

News clip: All right, Disney cutting ties with, what is this?

News clip: PewDiePie.

News clip: PewDiePie. The Wall Street Journal reporting that PewDiePie, the world's highest paid YouTube star posted nine videos featuring anti-Semitic comments or Nazi imagery.

News clip: The Wall Street Journal reported that a January 11th video showed two men holding a sign that said, "Death to all Jews," allegedly hired by the 27-year-old internet personality.

Brooke Gladstone: Google cut PewDiePie from its lucrative preferred ad program and canceled his premium YouTube original series. PewDiePie, by the way, did not respond to any of our requests for comment.

Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie: I am sorry for the words that I used, as I know they offended people. I do strongly believe that you can joke about anything. Here's the thing though, the media takes what I say out of context to portray me as a Nazi. Old school media does not like internet personalities because they're scared of us.

Clay Shirky: The context question is often used as a Get Out Of Jail card to say to people, "I don't want to be held to standards other than those held by my own audience."

Brooke Gladstone: I buy that, I do, but there's this really smart anthropologist, Crystal Abidin, and she went through a lot of the citations of PewDiePie's transgressions that were assembled by the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal circulated a still of PewDiePie supposedly making the Nazi salute, when this was actually him just extending his arm and pointing off screen.

There was another one that the Wall Street Journal did of PewDiePie donning a uniform and watching Hitler videos, when this was actually the second half of a longer snippet in which PewDiePie first refuted earlier media accusations that he was a Nazi, and then jokingly donning a British uniform while pretending to watch clips of Hitler's speech to depict how he thinks the media views him. This isn't just casual context.

Clay Shirky: No, that's right, but I don't think there's any claim of being out of context that saves the Death to all Jews stunt.

Brooke Gladstone: Actually, I watched that entire thing. He was asking a whole bunch of people-

Clay Shirky: On Fiverr.

Brooke Gladstone: -to do things that he knew they wouldn't do. This was one that he had put in that group on Fiverr, who for a certain amount of money will do something on video that you request. He'd asked that for outrageous things. No one did it. For five bucks, two guys from India did this, “Death to all Jews thing,” and you see his reaction.

Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie: I am sorry. I didn't think they would actually do it. I feel partially responsible, but I didn't think they would--

Brooke Gladstone: He looks genuinely shocked. He just never expected it. Now, should he have done that? Was it really obnoxious and creepy? Yes, but I think he kind of conceded that himself.

Clay Shirky: Yes, but that to me says he can sort of have it both ways.

[MUSIC - Rucka Rucka Ali: Hitler Is Pewdiepie]

Clay Shirky: The problem with PewDiePie is not that he's a Nazi, the problem is that he's an ass--. He wants to be both edgy and not upsetting people because his audience expects edginess, but his advertisers expect not upsetting people. One of his constant complaints about people pushing back on his edgy content, which often involves racial slurs or using the word retarded, casual homophobia, these kinds of things, is that he's being held to a standard that his own audience doesn't have. He's now finally being treated as a cultural figure who says something about the larger society. He's not just a gamer mouthing off to amuse other gamers.

Brooke Gladstone: PewDiePie's mounting controversy had little effect in his ranking as the most subscribed to YouTuber until the rise of the Indian super channel T-Series.

News clip: It's on course to become the most subscribed channel on YouTube and is about to pass the controversial personality, PewDiePie.

Clay Shirky: Out of nowhere comes this channel T-Series. There are like 60 million subscribers and their channel is going insane. I'm thinking, "Who are these guys? What is T-Series?"

[MUSIC - Guru Randhawa: Lahore]

Brooke Gladstone: T-Series is like India's Disney. Almost synonymous with the films and music it produces like the viral song Lahore by Guru Randhawa.

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: T-Series is, I guess, everywhere. Every part of the country, there is T-Series.

Brooke Gladstone: This is Indian YouTuber, CarryMinati, who has 5.5 million subscribers.

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: YouTube came in India very late. Before YouTube there, we had CDs, DVDs. We had VHS, we had cassettes. Every Bollywood movie has a song in it.

Brooke Gladstone: Of course.

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: Most of them were released by T-Series. I think it's been there forever.

Brooke Gladstone: Forever? Coming from a YouTuber who knows his way around the entertainment industry.

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: Okay, so I've been doing this for a long time. It's been like 10 years, I guess now.

Brooke Gladstone: How old are you?

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: I'm 19.

Brooke Gladstone: Wait a minute, you've been doing it since you were 9?

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: Yes, kind of. I've been making a lot of content, from like football tricks, to PSP tutorials, to game plays, a lot of things. I've done a lot of things.

Brooke Gladstone: Gulshan Kumar, son of a juice seller, started what became T-Series in 1983, growing it into what's now the ubiquitous emblem of Indian pop culture, and so it remains, though Kumar was murdered by the Mumbai underworld in 1997. Today the company distributes Bollywood, Bhangra, and hip hop in a variety of Indian languages, all of which is available on a YouTube channel. The subscribership of which has sometimes briefly even overtaken PewDiePie's.

Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie: For failing another YouTube channel is taking over. That's right. In no less than in November this year, PewDiePie will not be the biggest channel on YouTube. No! we must fight back.

Brooke Gladstone: YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat were flooded with PewDiePie's calls to action.

Justin Roberts: I want to put "subscribe to PewDiePie" on the largest billboard in Times Square.

Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast: In this video, I will say PewDiePie 100,000 times to stop T-Series.

News clip: People around the world doing campaign for PewDiePie. In Bangladesh, it's not different people. They're sticking posters on the trees and the walls.

YouTuber: PewDiePie, PewDiePie, PewDiePie, PewDiePie, PewDiePie, PewDiePie--

Vilonious TV: I am going to destroy my body with a subscribe to PewDiePie tattoo.

News clip: Everyone's doing their part. Have you been doing your part?

News clip: They have taken control of printers around the world to create posters supporting the vlogger PewDiePie.

Sarah Moore: The other day I was sitting at work and the printer started printing something.

Brooke Gladstone: While 23-year-old Sarah Moore was working her job at a hair salon in Wilson, North Carolina, the office printer, one of 50,000 hacked worldwide, spread out posters promoting PewDiePie.

Sarah Moore: It was honestly one of the best thing that's ever happened, because I never thought it would actually come to my salon that I work at and everything. Basically, I've always been a fan of PewDiePie, since like just forever.

Brooke Gladstone: What does the war represent to you?

Sarah Moore: The Wall Street Journal and these other publications. Basically, they are just taking things completely out of context.

Brooke Gladstone: Mm-hmm.

Sarah Moore: To rise up and defend him, I guess, and have this battle for him. To me, it represents that YouTube still has this really nice, deep-seated community of people who know what's right and what's wrong. We live in a world where cancel culture is so strong. Somebody does one thing wrong and then you want to cancel them forever.

Brooke Gladstone: Sarah disavows the anti-Semitic joke video but believes his apologies are genuine, and her fear of cancel culture is shared widely on the platform. To many of his fans, PewDiePie is the David up against YouTube with the Goliath, against the media Goliath, against the T-Series Goliath.

Jus Reign: While everyone else is just moaning and complaining and turning our beloved T-Series into a tyrant, into this big music industry typhoon that's coming in and taking away the little guy, which, don't get me wrong, definitely, definitely is all those things, but it's our evil corporation, okay? For once, our evil corporation gets to win and gets to take the number one spot.

Brooke Gladstone: Canadian-Indian YouTuber, Jus Reign.

Jus Reign: Because maybe it is our time now. Maybe your karma of colonizing us is finally catching up through us beating you and completely unnecessarily racially motivated subscriber race on YouTube.

Brooke Gladstone: Meanwhile, the diss track, Bitch Lasagna, with over 100 million views is PewDiePie's most popular video. The song takes its title from a meme of ridiculing the broken English of Indians online. Other YouTubers like Ethan Klein of h3h3Productions have fanned the flames.

[MUSIC - PewDiePie: Bitch Lasagna]

Ethan Klein: They must have 1.4 billion people in India. They are churning out YouTube views in unprecedented numbers. Bollywood is the corniest shit in the history of the earth. Aren't all Indians the goofiest people you've ever met in your life? No, I'm kidding. That was a joke.

Brooke Gladstone: In response to PewDiePie, Ethan Klein and the waves of anti-Indian hate on social media, CarryMinati made his own diss track in Hindi to capture how Indians are processing the feud.

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: I have seen a lot of comments that say that PewDiePie did it as a joke. I have seen a lot of comments that say PewDiePie did not do this as a joke, and they are offended, and they are angry, and they're showing a bit of a rage.

[MUSIC - CarryMinati: Bye PewDiePie]

Ajey Nagar, aka CarryMinati: Desh ke khilaaf hui duniya, that means the world unites against our nation. Because a lot of people are saying that it's not just PewDiePie vs T-Series, it's India is alone in this.

Brooke Gladstone: In an effort to defuse the vitriol unleashed by the subscriber war, PewDiePie asked his fans to support a charity for Indian children. Clay Shirky says the aggression exhibited by his most vocal fans suggests that for these guys, racism is the principal fuel.

Clay Shirky: He does offer lowercase W, lowercase S, white supremacy.

Brooke Gladstone: What is that?

Clay Shirky: He is in that mode of white guy gamer for whom he exemplifies a kind of freedom to be caustic and insulting without consequence. That is something that has been given to white men more than to other members of society. To hear that people who like Bhangra and Bollywood music are going to displace him, does in fact raise those cultural anxieties.

Lucian Wintrich: Do we want an American in the top YouTube spot, or do we want an Indian man succeeding better on a platform that us Americans created?

Brooke Gladstone: Former Gateway Pundit White House correspondent, Lucian Wintrich, at the right-wing American Priorities conference in DC. The neo-Nazi site, Daily Stormer, with tongue firmly in cheek, called PewDiePie the true leader of all racists, anti-Semites, and fascists, hoping no doubt to entice a few of his terminally ironic viewers while inciting hysterics in the mainstream press. PewDiePie's also gotten the nod from Canadian psychologist, Jordan Peterson, who depicts PC culture and left-wing politics as mortal threats to Western civilization.

News clip: Hey, Jordan, what are you doing right now?

Jordan Peterson: I'm subscribing to PewDiePie.

Clay Shirky: What everyone has learned, on all sides of the political spectrum now, is how to take an isolated event in the world and add it to the giant referendum on everything that we're currently living through.

Brooke Gladstone: Even if PewDiePie doesn't mean it, especially if he doesn't mean it, because he's saying that if you don't mean it, it's kind of okay.

[MUSIC - PewDiePie: It’s Just A Prank Bro]

Brooke Gladstone: Meanwhile, in the war for subscribers, the internet's Swedish emperor still claims the prize, but his grasp is increasingly shaky.

Clay Shirky: Smartphone penetration in India is less than 25%, which is to say the West has topped out. There will be incremental growth only. When India has triple the number of people online that it has now, something that's not possible in the US or Europe, T-Series will leave PewDiePie well behind. This is kind of John Henry and the machine, right? There's this last ditch attempt by PewDiePie's fans to create fake demand to push him over the 80 million mark, which they've done 80 million subscribers. A lot of that's people's second email addresses or people doing it as a joke. Like his view counts aren't going up as fast as his subscriber counts. This is not an audience anymore. It's not even a competition because the T-Series people don't care.

Brooke Gladstone: We asked Louie, media analyst and the 11-year-old son of our executive producer, Katya Rogers, to offer some perspective for middle school. Louie says that subscribing to PewDiePie is more meme than anything else. In fact, he sees the current competition as merely a temporary reprieve for a brand that was already losing its luster.

Louie: Some people, I could see them listening to one sentence of PewDiePie and just hating him, thinking he's so racist, and he is a lot. Also, sometimes, I could see him just doing it to get more views, just to get money. I don't feel like he's actually really trying for good content. So no one really watches his videos if they subscribe to PewDiePie. They just press subscribe, leave his channel.

[MUSIC - PewDiePie: I Still Got Paid]

Louie: Right after this whole PewDiePie vs T-Series series thing, he's going to be gone, and no one's going to care about him.

[MUSIC - PewDiePie: I Still Got Paid]

Micah Loewinger: Very prescient, Louie. PewDiePie is still around and still making videos, but with just 111 million subscribers. He's no longer a contender for number one.

[music]

Thanks for listening to the mid-week podcast. On this week's big show, I'm speaking with The Onion's new CEO. Brooke's back, and she'll be discussing PSYOPs, real and fake. In the meantime, you can keep up with the show by following us on Instagram and X. See you Friday. I'm Micah Loewinger.

[music]

 

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