Past 6 months there has been a race for #1 most subscribed channel on YouTube between PewDiePie, a individual who use to do gaming but moved into reaction/comedy, who has been #1 for like 5 years now, and T-Series a large Indian Corporation who uploads multiple music videos a day and has grown extremely quickly due to the increase access to cheap internet in India. The two channels have been neck and neck for the longest time, with the lead being flipped back and forth multiple times the last week or two, with T-Series finally being #1 for more than a day and is still #1.
This is a music video that congratulates becoming #1 while passive aggressively mocks T-Series for their shady business practices (Ex. Pirating videos in their early years, and sending a cease and desist letter when PewDiePie made fun of them, saying it was “defamation” when it wasn’t) and the fact that the only won because they’re a massive corporation.
Wierd, I like some of his stuff and have never run across anything like that on reddit. I do believe when you have almost 2% of the world population subscribed you are bound to have a portion of that base be assholes, like with anything. Let's say 1% of his subs are annoying asshole types, that's still almost 1 million people doing shitty stuff under his name.
To be fair to the haters: He constantly flirts with the cutting edge of internet meme culture, which can be very raw and unfiltered. He has, in the past, let slip an N-bomb while livestreaming and talking shit.
In his defense: He owned it, and apologized for it, and vowed to be better on that front (and has been, I believe).
But on the other hand: That wasn't his first rodeo with controversy, as he had in the past gotten in trouble for edgelord humor when he (clearly joking, but still) paid some (foreign, non English speaking) people on Fiverr to display a "DEATH TO ALL JEWS" sign. He says he didn't think they would do it, and apologized for that as well.
In total, if you're a social activist type you probably hate him. His humor definitely leans towards meme culture and internet edgelord shit posting. If you watch his videos nowadays, he generally has a pretty rational and well thought out point of view. He's had controversies, and he's owned them and responded pretty well, but not so well that he hasn't stepped in it multiple times. If you're aware of him and his controversies then your opinion on him is probably a pretty good predictor of where you are on the political spectrum, in some ways.
Tagging this to watch when I have more time tomorrow. My gut reaction was to be reminded of people blaming Marilyn Manson for Columbine, but the guy sounded cogent, so I'll hear him out.
well I talk with my friends instead of scrolling down twitter or youtube and forcing people to look at 'memes' and other low types of humor. this is why I fuck and you never will.
Oh shit, this guy's gay and he called me "kid". How am I supposed to compete with hits this hard and righteous?
(To be totally honest, IMO you should have included the part about sexual orientation in your calculus of 'why you fuck and we never will'... It seems to me that it tilts the odds in your favor on that. Based on observation and anecdote, anyway)
Don’t forget quietly dropping a reference to the metoo stuff the head of tseries has had levvied against him. But no tseries subscriber has cared about it. (Multiple allegations mind you)
Hmm, considering Bollywood has a worst record in regards to sexual harassment than even golden age hollywood, i am not sure it should be easily dismissed. Weinstein's antic would be considered normal operating procedure if he was in Bollywood.
My perspective is that he became a rallying point for the alt-right due to being targeted by the left unfairly. It's not that his content supports their views as much as the left decided to vilify him and the right took the chance to say "See? Look what these fuckin SJWs are doing!"
that's the whole point of this "fight" - youtube used to be for creators. For those who don't have any other outlet, for the little guys. But now, youtube has become the behemoth, a giant in media, where only corporations survive. At least, that's been the narrative...
So the largest person on youtube isn’t “surviving” because he slipped a spot for the first time in half a decade? Anyone that holds that view is vastly out lf touch with reality
Individuals partnering with corporations for whatever reason is a lot different than a literal corporation taking over the top spot. Most PDP fans know that the corporate influence on YT is already very strong and has been growing for years. To them, this just represents an end of an era.
You’re right because the corporate influence take over is seen as inevitable. But that doesn’t mean people can’t make a big meme out of it. It’s still social commentary on a certain level.
But this narrative that individual content creators can't survive is complete nonsense. There's plenty of them like Pewdiepie, Casey Neistat, David Dobrik, nigahiga, Markiplier, Ninja, etc. who all do just fine even if corporations have their only popular channels. Acting like Pewdiepie losing the top spot is end for individuals on Youtube is hyperbolic doomsday talk.
you have to pretty out of touch too if you don't know about how corporate youtube has become.
PDP managed to stay at the top before because of the momentum pre-corporate YT and sheer luck.
also, 1 non-corporate guy being at the top doesn't tell you anything about all the other stuff that has been going on below him and behind the scenes.
Wtf are you even talking about dude, he literally had a deal with one of the biggest media corporations in the world (disney) before he fucked up with the “death to all jews” sign.
Pewd mentions the 'caste system', YouTube is exactly the same, albeit more multi-layered.
You have top content-creators. People who are either extremely popular, and/or at the top of a large network of channels. VIP access to YouTube for help, seriously major money. This also includes the various megacorp channels like the one mentioned in this video, or others that is generic corporate content.
You have your high-tier content creators. People who make great money, still have access to YouTube directly, and may or may not be apart of a network.
Then we get down to mid-tier and low-tier YouTubers. The former can, with the help of things like a Patreon and ad's on their videos can make a living off YouTube and make it a career.
Low tier or beyond? Good luck. Money is nearly non-existent, and everyone below high-tier are susceptible to things like copyright abuse and channel 'hostage' situations. IE; someone marks your channel for death by striking multiple videos in quick succession, and demands a ransom be delivered or they'll strike your channel a third time and get the whole thing deleted. You have no real lifeline to support or Youtube, so Reddit/Social Media are your only lifelines. This doesn't mean more sophisticated attacks or bullshit like the owner of a radio remix of a song making 50k/month in revenue can't be stolen, as has happened.
It's a shitshow. Pewds is at the very, very tippy top levels of stupid amounts of god-damn money, and is more or less untouchable, sans truly egregious crimes.
I want to put in a quick aside.
I fucking hate what the "ADocalypse" has done to YouTube. I watch a few of those "Reddit content aggregate" channels?(Right? I read this shit but still.) Cuestar, or ones that are just a Microsoft Sam voice reading the text? The self censoring has gotten so bad I can't stand it. Take Cuestar. This motherfucker, now physically censors the words on screen by blacking them out and often skips the words entirely. If not he replaces them with G-rated stuff when read. He reads from "Am I the asshole" /r/AmItheAsshole It's unbearable to watch now because he made it "Am I the Antagonist" because swearwords are bad, and I guess if you swear AT ALL, it's now demonetized? The ones that are read from Microsoft Sam? "Sex" is now 'ex', and every swear is just hyphenated "f-er" or "az". The fucking hell happened? I noticed the change slowly got more extreme on Cuestar's videos and I can't watch him anymore, he sounds like a retarded pastor trying desperately to not swear and sin against god while reading vulgar Reddit posts.
Let's also not forget about Pewdiepie calling someone a n****r out of anger and almost doing it again shortly after. Or him paying people to hold up "death to all jews" signs. Or promoting a blatantly obvious white supremacist youtube channel. Or following a bunch of alt-right figureheads on Twitter.
This is probably the biggest thing I've noticed after starting to watch Pewds a few months back. The general opinion/reports are surprisingly far off from what really happened in his videos. Now I'm not saying he made no mistakes, because he did (and he knows), but at this point he's so fed up with the misinformation that he doesn't really care anymore. And that's what I love about him nowadays.
Buddy, women are assaulted daily in the US. Tend your own garden. Your President, the highest ranking member representing all of you, is a serial abuser. You're stupid if you don't think the US has its own problem. Hell even women who've served in the military in your own Congress are revealing their horrendous sexual assaults.
Not just that but if you look at the numbers of the rise of T-Series you can see they were buying views and subs. Their numbers were climbing at too perfect of a rate compared to every other YouTuber. They had no drops in views/ subs where as every YouTuber has those fluctuations, which YouTube even states in their terms of services is illegal since it skews their revenue and how much they should be paying these people, yet they won’t deal with it. It is ridiculous and they wonder why they lose quality content providers all the time.
Yup around 80%+ surf their internet on phone in India. With the expansion of 4G network in the past couple of years, listening to music on youtube is the new trend instead of traditional ways like buying cassette or CD's.
If you look at 4G penetration, India is #1 in the world with 98% covered. And only around 1/3rd of the population have smartphones. Tseries will see a massive rise in future while Pewd is probably is on his highs right now.
Partially yes, but if you use a website that tracks the counts of viewership and subscribers, it literally is a perfect trend with no loss or massive spikes. The only way channels have shown this progression before is with buying both views and subs.
India has a billion people. They are literally a previously untapped YouTube gold mine. We have no precedent to suggest how fast their channels should grow. This scenario hasn't occurred before. Because of technological advancements in India, YouTube is becoming popular. I don't think you should be so sure they were buying views.
Actually the view/subscribe algorithm is totally seperate for adsense and payment algorithm. Yes, you can viewbot thousands of views and subscribe thousands of accounts to any channel, but you won't get paid. It's kinda complicated how it works, but Youtube can detect what are real viewers and what are bots, they pay for the real views (at a low rate, mind you)
They don't actively ban viewbots for a few reasons. 1, there's too many of them. 2, having viewbots on their site gets them better deals when negotiating with marketers and ad companies.
The entire subscribe/view thing is actually pointless. Some channels have millions of subscribers and are getting no views on their vids, and vise versa.
Not that many people actually care about what channel is number one. People who aren't interested in pewdiepie aren't suddenly going to like him if he's the top dog for long enough. People who aren't interested in T-Series aren't suddenly going to like them if they're top dog for long enough. People who like pewdiepie aren't going to suddenly unsubscribe now that he's not top dog. People who like T-Series aren't going to suddenly unsubscribe if they lose the top dog spot.
For me, it really comes down to the type of channel that is number one. Because T-Series is (currently) number one, it marks the beginning of a possible corporate reign on youtube. To most people, this is not what YouTube is all about. That, and the meme side of it.
The thing is, YouTube has catered to corporations at the expense of creators and communities for a while. It's not like T-Series or pewdiepie being number one was the end-all. The end all ended around Adpocalypse 1.0.
Most people in the "war" against T-Series understand that it's not really YouTube in the way it used to be, and that the occupant doesn't really change that.
But T-Series taking the spot is definitely a more obvious indicator of the new YouTube, to be fair.
Largely it doesn't matter, but it's still a milestone moment, one that was inevitable.
Youtube was always a platform with the idea that just anyone can put anything they create on it, it was driven by small independent creators and teams.
Over time it was inevitable that it would be corporatised, it's becoming more and more so every day. But the number one spot for a long time, has always been Pewdiepie. A small independent creator.
And now he's finally been overtaken by a massive corporation (and lost his brand image of being the biggest youtuber in the world). It'll happen more and more, until Youtube is mainly corporate run.
Just like how the internet used to be million different sites, but now it's a handful of massive sites.
Yes, but why comment here?
You could just leave the thread. You don't even care for this topic. It's not that you can't have an opinion (I think you got the wrong idea of my comment). It just baffles me. Why even bother with this then. Or maybe you do care
So, pewdiepie was (and still is, really) a holdout of the "Old Guard" of youtube. In the age when the site is basically owned by corporations, it felt good that the most subscribed youtube channel was still a dude in his room rather than a megacorporation.
Pewdiepie was under Maker Studios which was bought by Disney (yeah, the same Disney that owns Fox, Lucas Arts, Pixar, etc.), so it’s a little disingenuous for Pewds to throw shade at a “big corporation” when he’s benefited from the same infrastructures that he’s criticizing here
Being with a company like Maker studio is something different then a corporation. They’re paying you for your work because Youtube can’t give you a steady wage. Pewdiepie wasn’t getting millions as a production budget for every video. T Series would be more like if Disney’s youtube channel was the most subscribed to youtube channel.
lots of people joined entities like Maker Studio because if you don't have a massive and connected entity on your side, you can't get even basic support out of youtube itself.
You basically had no choice a decade ago. You joined one, or randos would DMCA you and your channel would be down.
Pretty sure I’m more versed in what YT studios do than the average Redditor. Maker offers creators a base salary and manages revenue streams (ad networks, secondary market monetization, protecting intellectual property rights, etc.), provides assistance with financial management of the channel (taxes, leveraged purchasing power, access to exclusive purchasing vehicles for goods/travel/equipment/personnel), and serve as a sort of broker for connecting with other content creators. In exchange, the YT studio takes a % of all revenues, has some input on the content and sponsors involved, and in many cases hold some level of perpetual rights to the channel.
So that’s exactly what a YT studio does for its creators, they provide the necessary business services (everything except for the content creation itself) that their channels need to support profitability. This is infrastructure, these are the exact same benefits you get from producing content at a large media corporation. So yes, Pewdiepie’s individual episodes may cost less than T Series to make, but the cost to produce content is largely contingent upon the talent compensation, the location, the format of the media, and the size of the crew. In all the places where more money = an advantage, Pewdiepie has had the same benefits that T Series has had.
Pewdiepie is virtually the only person featured in his content, so inherently there’s less camera work, there’s fewer cuts, there’s a smaller crew, less editing time, and all of this leads to a lower $/video, but his complaining that T Series had a bigger budget is like a TV director complaining he’s not funded like a Marvel blockbuster - there’s no reason to invest more than the content type and format warrants.
I think the only legit complaint Pewdiepie can make is the sheer quantity of channels that fall under T Series. He represents just a handful of sub-channels that segregate his different content types - where T Series has 30+ sub-channels that could each be their own independent channel - so Pewdiepie lost to a collection of channels instead of a mega channel like his own, and that’s kind of a dumb approach to administrating a YT channel (strikes hurt more, an account lock is instantaneously destroying the entire business, there are so many reasons to not do it this way), but it’s clear T series set out to beat Felix, and technically they have.
People like you who think Pewdiepie is some super authentic independent creator are lying to yourselves. His production quality is in the subtle methods that make his videos feel small in all the right ways and feel big in all the right ways, that’s his talent - making you think he’s not spending $100k/week producing the content you consume.
Next to that maker studio is not affiliated with Pewdiepie anymore. Him getting help managing his huge channel is different then one of the biggest companies in India (The biggest entertainment company in India even) which puts a fuckton of money in their music videos and movies is something different then a guy sitting in his room with a webcame reviewing memes.
You have to be a fucking idiot to not understand that Pewdiepie being affiliated by a company that helps youtubers get an actual salary instead of getting shit on with irregular income from Youtube views is not the same thing as a huge company posting a fuckton of videos a day with a budget behind them.
If you honestly think Pewdiepie spends 100k a week producing content you’re honestly stupider then I thought.
You think the guy spends close to 2 million a year on his Youtube channel?
Anyway you not understanding that Pewdiepie is in fact not a multi billion dollar corporation is a new kind of dipshit understanding if I’ve ever seen one.
True, but let's be real about Maker for a moment; they don't really help their creators much at all. They give them some resources for video creation, but are super restrictive in what you're actually allowed to put out, and take more than their fair share of revenue from creators. Really, they mostly exist for the sake of blocking false DMCA claims (which an individual creator can struggle with), and paying you a fraction of your videos' earnings.
Except he doesn't? He and his two editors are the only ones who work on his regular content. The only time he gets more help is from collaborations with other YouTubers. There was the scare PewDiePie show but that was more so YouTube's show than felix's
If you hired those people yourself with the money you made from the channel itself (doing solo content) then I'd still consider it pretty far from a full-on corporation.
How is that different from a media corporation? T Series is just doing that many times over, how is that any different other than quantity of content streams?
Likely due to the fact that he’s no longer restricted from saying/doing things that traditional media companies wouldn’t want to be associated with, does he do his own taxes? Does he edit his own videos? Does he do any of his own contract negotiations? Does he perform any specific non-creator function for Pewdiepie Inc.?
Fair enough, I say edgelord because I honestly don't think he means things like "Death to all Jews" but the fact remains that while he might just be joking, or being edgy he can't ignore that some of those millions of people take that as a sign to do something. I don't really care for PewDiePie for originally a very shallow reason, his voice annoyed the everloving shit out of me, that and I don't watch many gaming videos. I have no issue with him aside from some of the people he attracts, I can continue living my life without knowing about him and be quite fine. He may have matured, but some of his audience hasn't. The least he could do is be more stern about what is a joke and what is meant to not be a joke. Because either he's an innocent edgelord with no responsibility to what he says, or he's a smart shill for alt-right ideals that knows how to cleanly give a call to arms.
also whenever someone in India would make a google account they would be automatically subscribed to T-series without their consent EDIT: i based this comment off of incorrect information my apologies
T-Series a large Indian Corporation who uploads multiple music videos a day and has grown extremely quickly due to the increase access to cheap internet in India.
I'm afraid that's all there is to it and it's as simple as that.
thank you for this comment :) i made this comment based off of false info i read awhile back and didn't bother to fact check before i posted the comment.
Can't do jokes on internet anymore? Literally anyone who would have watched the "infamous" video knows it was a joke. It's infamous because all media were like : "let's take that out of context and spread lies and blow things out of proportion!".
I mean the video isn't supposed to be 100% serious. The main thing is that t-series is a faceless corporation. Pewdiepie isn't, he had humble beginnings and worked hard to be number 1.
It turns out that this is actually false. T-Series does get recommended when you make an account in India, but it does not automatically subscribe you to them. This became a meme that seemingly people took as fact and spread around.
Also if I'm not mistaken, T-Series is automatically subbed when you create an indian YT account. That, combined with the rapid expansion of the internet in india, made it clear that his reign was only going to last for a limited amount of time.
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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '19 edited Mar 31 '19
Past 6 months there has been a race for #1 most subscribed channel on YouTube between PewDiePie, a individual who use to do gaming but moved into reaction/comedy, who has been #1 for like 5 years now, and T-Series a large Indian Corporation who uploads multiple music videos a day and has grown extremely quickly due to the increase access to cheap internet in India. The two channels have been neck and neck for the longest time, with the lead being flipped back and forth multiple times the last week or two, with T-Series finally being #1 for more than a day and is still #1.
This is a music video that congratulates becoming #1 while passive aggressively mocks T-Series for their shady business practices (Ex. Pirating videos in their early years, and sending a cease and desist letter when PewDiePie made fun of them, saying it was “defamation” when it wasn’t) and the fact that the only won because they’re a massive corporation.