YouTube is a way for people to display their talents, thoughts, and opinions and is filled with thousands upon thousands of video content. Whether its a cute British kid getting his finger bit by his brother or a girl filming her drunk cooking excursions, YouTube has it all.
Founded by Paypal employees in 2005, YouTube has more than 1 billion users that visit the site each month with over 6 billion hours of video content watched monthly. In other words, YouTube is huge and is essentially a world wide broadcasting company with over 80% of its viewers “tuning in” from outside the U.S.
There are all types of popular channels most of us know of like Epic Meal Time, Smosh, Rooster Teeth and Machinima. Each are unique and fall under different categories, but who is the most watched YouTuber of all? Well, that would be none other than Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg…basically some guy from Gothenburg, Sweden. You might know him as his more pronounceable name Pewdiepie.
What type of videos does “Pewds” make? He specializes in video game-play commentaries, otherwise known as “Let’s Play” videos. The videos feature a face-cam showing his reactions as well as the game-play. They are no doubt interesting to watch but why is he the number one subscribed individual out of every other channel? The answer would be timing, content, and productivity.
Felix made his first channel on Youtube in 2010. He got a few subscribers and then made a new channel because he didn’t like the other one’s name. He came up with Pewdiepie and started making videos. His first videos are very similar to the new videos he comes up with each week, but when he first started out Youtube was relatively new and not many people had really established their channels. Also Youtube hadn’t completely figured out how to cipher out good content from bad. When Youtube figured out how to do this through filters like rating videos by views, amount of thumbs up, time watched, and making playlists an option, Pewdiepie had a channel that was already developed and had some support from subscribers.
Next is the content of his videos; gaming. Gaming makes up 16 of the top 100 most subscribed channels. Not impressed? Looking at it from the perspective that 20 of the top 100 are large companies like Redbull, the NBA, and Youtube itself and another 15 are music artists like Britney Spears, One Direction, and Katy Perry, you can see just how much power video-gamers have. The reason why this is so is because of theproductivity factor.
The key difference of gaming channels from others is that gaming allows for many video uploads fast. In a let’s play, for example, the video could consist of over 20 videos depending on how long the game is. Also when one of those videos are done, the viewer can instantly click the next video in the playlist. This allows for seamless, constant viewing and is why gamer channels have an easier time finding viewers and subscribers. Other channels may have to make more of a production out of their videos, like Smosh for example who comes up with funny skit like routines. Gaming channels simply hit record and play a game.
With new consoles already out and the amount of new games coming to the market, it looks like gaming channels will continue to dominate Youtube.