Online battle for YouTube dominance

PewDiePie and T Series battle it out for YouTube's most subscribed page - which T Series narrowly wins owing to its wide Bollywood appeal in India, today in 2019.

A YouTube thumbnail discussing the sub war; Source: Public Domain

Online competitions are fun. YouTube online competitions are funnier. Thus, it came as no surprise that when there was a race to reach 100 million subscribers on YouTube, there was to be a competition.

It was quite ironic that the battle was to be fought between Felix Kjellberg, (channel PewDiePie), the most subscribed YouTuber since 2013, and an Indian record label company, T Series. YouTube’s foundation of independent creators making content seemed to be ending in a corporate takeover.

But if this online battle was something, it was quite dirty. PewDiePie’s followers, despite having been given explicit urging by Felix himself, resorted to malware, vandalism and other illegal acts at times - and there was also appropriation by the 2019 Christchurch Shooter, who spoke ‘subscribe to PewDiePie’ before proceeding to massacre a mosque. Allegations of racism and stereotypical hatred and portrayal of Indians was also undertaken.

But apart from this darker side, the competition was also a fun way, with Diss Tracks - a form of jeering and insulting via song, and small games, bots, public campaigning, and the YouTube community gathering together - in a classic fashion expected out of online platforms like these, which was heart-warming to see.

Nonetheless, the corporate power of T Series, along with harnessing the Indian populace with its large media base -  and genuine support as T series had a long history in India itself, as a music CD producer and tied to the nostalgia of many Indians, could garner significant numbers of fans and subscribers.

The Indian YouTube came out in support of T Series, and the race went back and forth for a number of times - till on the 30th of March 2019, T Series surpassed PewDiePie’s subscribers and has remained so since. Both channels are now more than a 100 million subscribers over, and the race has ended.