PewDiePi vs T-Series: Has the Idiot Subscribers War Come to end?

The Indian music label T-series now has the most subscribed channel on YouTube. The news comes after a long going cat and mouse chase with the Swedish YouTuber Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (aka PewDiePie).

At the time of writing, T-Series had 92,019,496 subscribers, and PewDiePie had 91,918,147, making the former ahead by 101,349. And to achieve that mark, it has taken a lot of effort on both sides.

While Kjellberg’s fans have been trying hard to gather support for PewDiePie to save his title of the biggest YouTuber since 2013, T-Series has caught up really fast in the past one year due to the increasing internet penetration in India, thanks to cheaper data services from mobile carrier Reliance Jio. It didn’t take much time to catch the attention of the controversial YouTuber.

Often called the Great Subscribers War, different YouTubers have also voiced their support for their favorite channel. To name a few, PewDiePie has got supporters like MrBeast, Logan Paul, and Jacksepticeye. T-Series, on the other hand, has got support from the likes of CarryMinati and Jus Reign.

Earlier this year, the PewDiePie Vs T-Series rivalry became a talking point when YouTube launched its 2018 edition of YouTube Rewind. The video received a heavy backlash for ignoring the PewDiePie vs T-Series rivalry and many other prominent YouTubers, in general.

One argument given on this topic, as explained by Polygon’s Julia Alexander, is that the competition is unfair because it’s a single person vs. an entire organization which can upload more content every day.

Also, PewDiePie even said in a video last year that he “genuinely” doesn’t care about T-Series. He said that such competitions, where indie YouTubers are trying to challenge corporations, make them lose their authenticity and get influenced by commercialism.

But we have seen the solo YouTuber making dedicated videos to promote his subscriber count and his loyal fans doing whatever they can (even buying billboard signs). Surprisingly, the PewDiePie Vs T-Series rivalry has also attracted the hacker community on numerous occasions. In late 2018, a hacker with the pseudonym “HackerGiraffe” targeted more than 100,000 printers and printed messages like “PewDiePie is in trouble and he needs your help to defeat T-Series!” A similar incident took place in January 2019 when a ransomware named PewCrypt started locking users’ documents and files until PewDiePie gained 100 million subscribers.

And so it happened that both PieDiePie and T-series outperformed each other so many times. It might have also been a pain for Wikipedia who had to edit their list of the most subscribed YouTube channels for like 100 times.

For some context, here are the past 11 other instances when T-Series surpassed PewDiePie. On each of these occasions, T-Series managed to hold the lead ranging for few minutes to hours (Source: Wikipedia) —

February 22nd, 2019
March 9th, 2019
March 11th, 2019
March 13th, 2019
March 19th, 2019
March 20th, 2019
March 21st, 2019
March 22nd, 2019
March 22nd, 2019
March 25th, 2019
March 26th, 2019

Moving on to T-Series, initially, the music label didn’t seem to be doing much in the PewDiePie Vs T-Series race. But, earlier in March, T-Series went full on and started their “call to subscribe” campaign on social media to “create history by making India win.”

Just a few steps away from becoming the world’s biggest YouTube channel. Lets create history by making India win. Click here & subscribe to T-Series: https://t.co/uUaiWykbbb #BharatWinsYouTube @itsBhushanKumar pic.twitter.com/ZgEsXgvzy2

— T-Series (@TSeries) March 6, 2019

Many famous Bollywood celebrities joined the campaign. It turns out people did listen to the call.

Anyway, it’s for the first time in months that one of the two channels has maintained the lead for so long. It can’t be said that this PewDiePie Vs T-Series race will end right here. What we need to wait for is that YouTube is soon to get its first 100M subscriber mark because of this tug of war.