YouTube star PewDiePie has signed an exclusive live-streaming contract with the company after he switched to a rival platform last year.
Felix Kjellberg, or more popularly known as PewDiePie by his fans, is the biggest independent content creator on Youtube with over 104 million subscribers. This 30-year-old Swedish content creator and vlogger started building his YouTube channel in 2010.
However, just last year, he signed an exclusive deal with YouTube’s rival platform Dlive, a small live-streaming site that is based on blockchain.
According to the record-breaking YouTube views star, the platform has been his home for more than a decade now. For this reason, returning to YouTube was a natural fit since he was looking for new ways that he could connect with his fans.
A YouTube Star Is Born…
The 30-year-old YouTube star launched his YouTube channel in 2010. During the start of his career on YouTube, he uploaded videos of the games Minecraft and Amnesia on “let’s play,” his popular video series. Through the years in his YouTube career, his channel evolved and included numerous comedy and reaction videos as well as popular content about memes.
His live streams have drawn the attention of a lot of viewers. Many of his fans engage and support him through different products such as YouTube’s membership as well as Super Chat features. Back in August 2013, PewDiePies’s YouTube channel became the most subscribed YouTube channel in the whole world.
PewDiePie, found his break and success on playing and commenting on video games as well as posting daily videos for several years.
However, it was in 2019 when he announced that he would not be live-streaming on YouTube anymore. Instead, he would move to Dlive, a platform that promised better financial returns for its content creators.
In January this year, he took a short break from creating YouTube content. His reason, according to him was that he was feeling “very tired.” After his break, he went back to posting regular content on his YouTube channel.
Giant Streaming Platforms Battle to Get Deals With the Most Popular Content Creators and Live-streamers
Earlier this year, YouTube successfully got an exclusive contract with the popular gamers Valkyrae, Muselk, and LazarBeam, Typical Gamer, CouRage, and Lachlan. For YouTube, having able to ink a contract with PewDiePie into its live-streaming roster is a way to step up its rivalry against Twitch, Amazon’s live-streaming platform.
In addition, the video-sharing platform was also able to pursue PewDiePie to sign an exclusive contract with them. According to the YouTube star, one of the reasons why he decided to return to live-streaming on YouTube was the new features that the platform has.
PewDiePie also noted that live-streaming is something that he will focus on this year as well as in the coming years. He also said that it is special and exciting for him to be able to partner with YouTube and to be one of the first to try the company’s new product features.
The YouTube star’s exclusive live-streaming contract with the platform is the latest big name to join it for live-streaming.
Moreover, PewDiePie’s return to YouTube is somewhat predictable. The only question left is how much did he sign the contract for.
In addition, YouTube is not the only platform that is trying to get streamers to join them. In fact, Twitch, Facebook, and Mixer have offered several streamers with an exclusive contract as well.
PewDiePie’s Controversial Moments
Of course, just like other artists, PewDiePie had his own share of controversy while he was reaching his fame.
Back in 2017, Disney cut its tie with the content creator due to anti-Semitism allegations. The company’s decision came after it has found out that one of the YouTuber’s video contained anti-Semitism imagery as well as Nazi references.
While PewDiePie admitted that the video in question was indeed offensive, he emphasized that he do not support any kind of hateful attitudes. The YouTuber also added that the material in question was added as a joke, which should have been clear from its context.
Does PewDiePie Intend To Get More YouTube Views?
Moreover, PewDiePie stated that although it was not his intention to offend anyone, he understands that those jokes were ultimately offensive.
In addition, Scare PewDiePie, a second series of the YouTube star’s show was also dropped from the subscription video platform of Google called YouTube Red.
On the same year, he used a racial slur while he was live-streaming, to which he apologized after.
YouTube released a statement following its exclusive contract with PewDiePie. According to the company, their views were not in line with the YouTube star’s previous comments.
YouTube Star Brings More Views, Guaranteed
A spokesperson from YouTube said that if ever the video creator will violate any of the platform’s policy, they would take action accordingly just like what they do with any other video creators in the platform.
PewDiePie has remained as one of the most controversial influencers. In 2018, he gave a YouTube channel trading in white-supremacist rhetoric a shoutout on one of his videos.
The influencer created a video where he unveiled his YouTube Red Diamond Award– an award given to him by YouTube for being the very first influencer to reach 100 million subscribers. In the said video, he announced that he would give a $50,0000 donation to the Anti-Defamation League. According to him, it is his way of dispelling the alt-right claims that have been thrown against him. However, the YouTuber backtracked a day after releasing the video. He called his decision a mistake and said that his donation to the anti-hate group did not feel genuine.
Conclusion
Despite all the controversies, PewDiePie was able to keep his fame. In fact, he was the most viewed video creator on YouTube in 2019 with more than four billion video views in total.
To date, PewDiePie remains as the only YouTube star who was able to amass more than 100 million subscribers. He also holds the record of being able to generate the highest video views on Youtube– 25 billion views in total– which is by far the highest among any individually-owned channels on the platform.