PewDiePie is one of the biggest names in Internet history. The YouTube personality, born Felix Kjellberg, has amassed 98 million subscribers and over 22 billion views by July 2019. At the peak of his popularity, he was the most-viewed and most-subscribed channel on YouTube: not bad for someone who just recorded himself playing video games.
Felix began the “PewDiePie” empire in 2010 while attending Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. He dropped out the following year and focused more on making content. As a popular “Let’s Play” personality – the genre of YouTube videos that feature people playing video games while offering commentary – PewDiePie expanded into the realm of vlogs, live-action and animated comedy shorts.
It hasn’t all been fun and games. Felix was criticized in 2017 over some of his non-gaming videos. In one, he allegedly used a racial slur, causing #PewDiePieIsOverParty to trend worldwide. Following this controversy, PewDiePie posted a video that contained an anti-Semitic statement (which prompted him to apologize for crossing the line.) The controversy – along with a report that dug up past anti-Semitic jokes and Nazi imagery – resulted in him being dropped by Maker Studios.
Despite this, Felix continued to grow in popularity. He even found love. He married Marzia Bisognin in August 2019, exactly eight years after he and the Italian beauty met.
