Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg has finally achieved the goal of reaching 100 million subscribers on YouTube. While he may have lost his meme-filled battle with Indian music channel T-Series, he still remains the first individual YouTuber to reach 100 million subs, putting himself far above the rest. For reference, the next channel to come close is 5-Minute Crafts, with a sub count of "only" 60 million.
While PewDiePie himself has yet to put out a statement at the time of writing, his fellow YouTubers have tweeted out congratulations and support for the historic milestone.
PewDiePie has quite the legacy, being one of the earliest content creators on the platform and an early trailblazer for the "Let's Play" style of video. While this style of video was created by users of the "Something Awful" forums, PewDiePie helped to popularize it.
Pewds reached one million subscribers in 2012, and a year later became the most subbed YouTuber on the website. He was surpassed early this year by T-Series, leading to a half-serious half-friendly feud between the two channels. Fans started the meme "subscribe to PewDiePie" and the man himself created several diss tracks about the Indian record label, including the popular "B***** Lasagna." In April 2019 T-Series took legal action against the Swedish Youtuber over the song, but eventually, they settled out of court. The star's friends and fans also bought massive billboards, including one in Times Square. At the backbone of this offensive was Jimmy "Mr. Beast" Donaldson, a fellow YouTuber who urged his own fans to support PewDiePie and uploaded himself saying PewDiePie's name 100,000 times.
Despite his success on the platform, PewDiePie and Youtube have their own rocky history following past controversies. YouTube canceled PewDiePie's YouTube red show and removed him from Google Preferred advertising after he paid men on Fiverr to hold up an anti-Semitic phrase as a joke. Still, YouTube tweeted out their own congratulatory message.
Lately, PewDiePie has managed to avoid controversy as he has stuck to making Minecraft videos almost non-stop.
This news comes just days after the YouTuber married his longtime girlfriend, beauty vlogger and fashion designer Marzia Bisogin. The pair kept the wedding a secret until a day after, when PewDiePie uploaded a short YouTube video with highlights from the ceremony.
PewDiePie hasn't shown any signs of slowing down, and for now, it looks like he'll remain hugely relevant for the foreseeable future.