10 billion views and counting: The baffling brilliance of PewDiePie, YouTube’s biggest star
Felix Kjellberg’s videos range from game reviews to conversations between him and his girlfriend
If you don’t know Felix Kjellberg, you may be in the minority.
In the past three months, the 25-year-old YouTuber has scored a lengthy profile in ESPN and the cover of Variety. He’s written a book for teens that is already among Amazon.com’s most popular – a full month before its release.
And on Sunday, he added a new record to his resume: He’s the first person to ever reach 10 billion YouTube views.
Despite all this, Kjellberg isn’t exactly a household name. The majority of his fans are teenagers with a keen, pre-existing interest in video games. When another YouTuber asked adults to watch Kjellberg’s YouTube channel for a reaction video in 2012, he caught a mix of incredulity, bewilderment ... and annoyance.
“The humour, I just don’t understand it,” Kjellberg’s own mother once said. “I’ll see in the comments, ‘Check out 4:26. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.’ I’ll go there and don’t find anything that resembles a joke.”
Kjellberg, who goes by the moniker “PewDiePie” online (“pew” for the sound laser guns make, “die” for death, pie for ... no particular reason), was born in Gothenberg, Sweden, in 1989. His parents are both high-powered corporate executives.
While he did study industrial engineering for a time, Kjellberg far preferred making art and playing video games. Dropping out to play games full-time on YouTube was, he has said, “not easy” to discuss with his parents.