Felix ”Pewdiepie” Kjellberg is 24 years old. Last year he made 4.2 million US dollars playing computer games and uploading his videos to Youtube.
Two years ago, I named him Sweden ‘s hottest internet star. Now, he is number one in the world – and says in an interview:
- I have worked for this, it’s not something that happened overnight.
In March 2012 I wrote a column in the swedish newspaper Expressen about Felix Kjellberg and his Youtube success story. That was the first time Pewdiepie was featured in a newspaper. In his weekly show on the web a few days later, he proudly showed the page in the newspaper and gave his thanks to my teenage kids for telling their dad about this crazy and funny guy on Youtube.
Back then Felix Kjellbergs channel had 300,000 subscribers. Today, it has 25.8 million subscribers, which makes him number one in the world, way beyond Rihanna, Justin Bieber and Ellen DeGeneres. His videos have been viewed 4.1 billion times to this day, according to statistics site Vidstatx. The numbers change rapidly; this past week Pewdiepies videos had 56 million views.
Felix Kjellbergs company is so successful that the swedish business newspaper Dagens Industri publishes a ten pages article about the 24-year-old from Gothenburg, who is currently living in Brighton in southern England with his italian girlfriend Marzia Bisognin, 21.
His company Pewdie Productions, registered on 4 June 2012, had a turnover of 7.2 million swedish kronor in the first six months. Last year, it rose to 27 million (which is about 4.2 million US dollars), and the profit margin is nearly 100 percent. Felix Kjellberg says to Dagens Industri:
- I have no costs and give myself only 30 000 swedish kronor in monthly salary.
Felix Kjellberg hesitates when it comes to collaborating with sponsors. Except for the headphones he is wearing he’s got no sponsors. He says it doesn’t feel right. Instead he builds credibility by working with charities like Charity Water and Save the Children.
Pewdiepies unprecedented success shows the Internet’s enormous impact for those who are doing the right thing at the right time and then have the ability to continue to build a business.
Youtube is overflowing of video game players, but Felix Kjellberg’s comic talent, uncontrollable screaming, mad laughter, shameless comments – and perhaps above all, his sincere concern for his fans – has made him a legend among teens worldwide.
He speaks about when he a few years ago dropped out of university studies in Gothenburg:
- That I studied industrial economy was just because I had good grades, not because I really wanted to do it. I wanted to make my own decisions and this was what I wanted to do: Youtube movies. It was pretty damn complicated back then. I don’t really what I was thinking when I dropped out of Chalmers, but it was incredibly liberating, even though I had to work in a fast food place to afford the flight ticket to Marzia in Italy.
In a few weeks Pewdiepie will launch a new website where new movies are posted one day earlier than on Youtube. Maybe he will make it look like a computer game: fans that watch a certain number of videos level up. Everything for the fans, just as Pewdiepie likes it.