It’s been a while since I wrote about PewDiePie (here) and there has been a lot of tea after that. Today I came across an article on internet and I could not wait to share my thoughts on it… This blog must be the longest one that I have ever written.
If you spend fair amount of time on social media, you might have heard something about “PewDiePie vs. T series battle”.
Those of you who don’t know, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg better known as PewDiePie is a Swedish Youtuber with the highest number of subscribers on the platform(93 million at the time of writing this post). He has been on the throne since 2012 with no other individual creator being able to challenge him. Felix’s channel started off as a gaming channel and has gone through a lot of evolution since the beginning. Now he is all about reviewing memes and making light-hearted content mostly with occasional game-plays and videos on serious issues.
On the other hand T series is an Indian music producing company. It came into existence back in 1980’s but T-series’s popularity was not really felt by the international audience of YouTube until the time socialblade predicted that T-series’s subscriber count is gonna surpass PewDiePie soon considering the fast growth of the channel in late October, 2018.
Now there are two of the many ways to look at this “issue”.
- PewDiePie, a young guy making videos since 2009-2010, uploading videos every single day. He has pushed through the limits of the individual creators, he has paved the path for a lot of indepent creators on the platform. Felix’s human appeal, genuineness and constant hard work has established an emotional bond with his audience.
On the other hand, there is T-series, that came out of nowhere(that’s how international audience perceive it) and is going to “dethrone” Pewds. Most of the individual creators and young audience of YT see this as an individual creator vs. corporate company battle and they support the side of individual creator for obvious reasons.
Before jumping into point number 2, I must make it clear. I am a fan of Pewds, I have watching him since 2016 and also I am Indian. Now it will help you understand what I’m gonna put in front of you next.
2. This is the first time an Indian entity is going to be on the top on YT. Forget about the individual creator vs massive corporation logic for a moment.
Nobody saw that coming… right? Would you not want your country to come forward in a place, where rest of the world can recognise it in a good way?
Put an identity of your country in place of T-series and reimagine the whole situation, it might not make you change your opinion and I hope it helps you see this from my point of view. Now there are a lot of things that happened around the whole PewDiePie vs T-series drama… I’m gonna address a few here.
Drama alert #1
Pewds releases a song called “B—- lasagna” to diss T-series
Quoting some lines of the song-
“I don’t like you T-series, nothing personal kid but I must go all out just this once
…
You trynna dethrone me from spot on number one
But you India, you lose
So best think you haven’t won”
Felix makes a song to roast T-series. He refers to his video on Indian men on internet (“You India, you lose” which is just another episode of “You laugh, you lose” series on his channel, like “You slav, you lose”)
“I’m a blue eyes white drangon
while you’re just dark magician
You got a fifth of the population in your nation
but I got nine yr olds of world so hold your defecation
Motu patlu what the f is that supposed to mean?
Your language sounds like it came from mumble rap community”
…
“B- lasagna, B- lasagna
T-series is nothing but b—- lasagna”
Most of the song is written around the memes made on Indian people. Not sure if it is roasting T-series or Indian people in general.
To be honest, I loved that song at first, it had the nice beat and cool visuals… just like another diss-track. I took it as a light hearted joke made by someone who knows hardly anything about India. The catch-phrase is not even an insult, it’s just taken out of a meme.
But there are certainly some bits of the song who aren’t that nice to say… just silly offensive jokes.
Drama alert #2
Birth of “Subscribe To PewDiePie”
Individual creators from all around the world came to save Pewd’s place on the top. “Subscribe to PewDiePie” became a popular trend. From hacking printers to buying bill boards- Pewd’s fans went all wild to “defeat T-series”. While some of it was for fun, some of it turned into controversies. A young guy with millions of followers cannot take responsibility of every stupid thing his fans do.
Media has always been desperately looking out for more controversies to make him look bad. But Felix has stood strong against it everytime… He has learnt from his mistakes, he has become more responsible. From what I have seen for 3 years, I feel that Felix is a nice and down to earth person actually who likes to make stupid jokes.
Drama alert #3
PewDiePie Fans Turning Against India
A lot fans actually turned against India and there are lot of disrespectful comments made on India. Things were turning into a negativity towards India.
I am in a lot of fan-pages and groups on FaceBook and yes, I do see a some hateful comments now and then. Felix had addressed this in one of his video not to look down upon the country for all this. Not all of his fans are racist though.
Meanwhile Felix collaborates with an Indian NGO CRY (Child Rights and You) to raise funds for Indian children. While few says it is just a show-off, a publicity stunt, an intelligent move at the right moment to project the good image… we as Felix’s fans feel it was an act of generosity. Felix has raised a lot of funds in the past as well which he does not show-off…
Surprisingly this did not get as much media coverage as the other events.
Drama alert #4
India’s Reaction
Through out all these drama, people were certainly curious about what Indians think about this battle.
Indian kids mostly support Pewds because they personally love his content. Bollywood music has less appeal to the generation than memes and lets-plays.
On the other side, T-series comes up with #BharatWinsYouTube tagline (means India wins YT), it calls out all the Indians to support its battle against Pewds.
Subscribing to T-series is being sold out as being patrotic and true to our nation.
Here again, I would like to tell you 2 of the many ways to look at it…
- Indians are sentimental people. If proving patroitism and love for country is as easy as subscribing to a YT channel why not?
From T-series’s part it is a clever marketing tactic. - As viewers we hardly care about from country it is from… I did not know Felix is Swedish for a long time, I stick to his channel because I enjoyed his content. Nobody can force me to watch him if I don’t like it.
Same with T-series… the people who subcribed to T-series in the first place did so because they love Indian music.
Does anyone go on YT and be like, “Okay this channel is from my country, I’m gonna subscribe to this even if I don’t like it.”?? I don’t think so.
Now people are doing it more in the hype than in original intention to watch the videos (be it pewds or T-series)… that’s kinda crazy.
As said by many other people, I would also say…
There is no actual competition between PewDiePie and T-series cause they have very different kind of content and target audience. T-seies has around thirteen thousand videos on YT wheras Pewds as an individual creator has 3.5 thousand. This guy is unbelievable, he is uploading video every single day (thannks to his editors Brad and Sive) and no matter how stupid those videos are, I watch every single of them.
T-series has music videos in hindi and many other regional languages, some are albums, some are in bollywood movies. There is a shit ton of songs, there are really bad songs and there are gems too… You can’t just straight away hate on the content, a lot of people put their heart and soul into it even though you would never know the music producer, the singer, the lyricist and all the people who were behind it.
Like Pewdiepie or T-series, never compare them… they are not meant to be compared…
Drama Alert #5
Congratulation Song
T series surpasses Pewds and stayed on top for around a day, Pewds uploads a song named “Congratulations” to congratulate T series.
Quoting few lines of it-
“T-series! It’s your big day! Incredible job! I know we had our differences
But today I just wanna tell you
Ay Congratulations, it’s celebration…
A congratulation to you corporation
Guess to beat one Swedish boy, you need a billion Asians”
Pewds did not hold any of it inside and went to take deeper dig on T-series and India…
He points out T-series’s shady history, T-series’s owners personal background also talks about the legal notice he received from T-series for defaming their image.
“A constructive criticism” for India (Really?)
“India got YT figured out, that’s sick son
How about next you figure how to fix the caste system?
Maybe all those ads will solve your crippling poverty…”
The song was made in collaboration with Roomieofficial and Boyinaband. As usual people are jamming on it… I too heard it a couple of times but the controversial undertone was hard to ignore this time.
While Felix thinks T-seies has earned nothing but fame and popularity from the “PewDiePie vs. T-series” drama(or whatever you may like to call it), I could not agree to that. Yes people has known about T-series now… and before knowing what it’s all about they started hating it ‘cz why not? Be it “YouTube’s algorithm” or “India getting easier access to internet”, T-series has reached the top to challenge Pewds.
I think I am more biased to Felix because I have watching him for so long… He has earned his fame and that’s fine. But not everything he says is one hundred percent correct as any other normal human being.
The last but not the least : The Ultimate drama alert
Petition To High Court Against PewDiePie
Pewdiepie made the song long back when T-seies was predicted to become the most subscribed channel on YT. But thanks to the 9 year old army (PewDiePie’s fans) and all the hypes, that kept him on the throne for longer than expected differing the upload of the Congratulations song.
Soon after uploading the song, Pewds won back his position on top. T-series had to literally remove their YT Cover that said “Thanks for making us Number 1″…
On a serious note, a petition was filed again PewDiePie’s channel in Supreme Court of India. Supreme court has ordered YouTube for the removal of the two videos (B lasagna and Congratulations) targeting T-series and India.
After reading the article, I rushed to YT to find out the truth. Yes, the videos have been made unavailable in India. I am not sure if they are still available in the rest of the world. It is an irony because the songs have been so popular and people are using it freely ’cause Felix has mentioned that he won’t be claiming the copyright of it because he wants people to be able to enjoy it… There are tons of reactions videos still available where the audio is available, which would be outside of the YT’s action.
Poverty and caste systems are real problems in India… bringing out such intense topic calls for serious consequences.
As an PewDiePie’s fan and an Indian who loves Bollywood music, I hope I have done a fair job of explaining the situation. Now you need not pick a side at all or pick whoever you like but don’t do it for the sake of the so-called battle…
Image credit : Congratulations by PewDiePie (watch here)
