PewDiePie Joked About Deleting His Channel, Proves He’s A Marketing Genius

Well, internet. I am never right, so let me savour this.

Back in the annals of the other day, I wrote a piece in response to PewDiePie’s promise to delete his channel. In case you missed the news, he promised to delete his channel if it reached 50 million subscribers. The announcement brought him widespread media coverage, both positive and negative, and did a lot to boost his profile and that of the YouTubers currently embattled by the service’s poor relations with them.

At the time, I said that it was nothing but a marketing strategy perpetuated by a guy that too many think is just a babbling simpleton. With a simple statement of intent, PewDiePie did a lot to raise awareness for struggling YouTubers and, even if he denies it, his own profile.

I was right: Felix Kjellberg is not deleting his channel, rather his second channel that many (including myself) thought would be his go-to if he followed through on his promise.

“You know when you make a joke, and it just blows up way bigger than you ever imagined? That was it, that was the joke.”

Translation:

“I wanted to get to fifty million subscribers so I used the pretext of deleting my channel to get there while also raising a couple of issues.”

Fans may be relieved, but it’s pretty callous of Kjellberg to play around with them like that. Whether he knows it or not, his channel is a big part of a lot of people’s lives, so any marketing tactic designed to manipulate them and his “haters” is going to cause some problems.

PewDiePie is still comfortably the most popular YouTuber on the platform and this “boost” does no harm in making him reach a wider audience. It’s probably unethical and definitely a bit of a dick move, but it proves without doubt that he didn’t reach the summit of YouTube thanks to nothing more than loud noises and jump cuts.