Background

Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg was born on October 24, 1989, in Gothenburg, Sweden, to the family of Ulf Christian Kjellberg and Lotta Kristine Johanna. The parents are both successful chief executives.

Education

Felix Kjellberg attended Goteborgs Hogre Samskola. In his early life, Kjellberg would spend his time drawing and playing video games. His school results were good. He got admitted to the Chalmers University of Technology to study industrial economics and technology management. But later he dropped out because he was more interested in making a career as a YouTuber.

Career

During his last year of high school, Felix Kjellberg bought a computer with money he made selling artwork through his grandmother's gallery. He set up his first YouTube channel, PewDie, in 2006 - "pew" being slang for the sound of a laser gun firing - but as his interest in the channel waned, he forgot his password, so when he returned to YouTube in 2010, he was forced to set up a new account, PewDiePie.

By now, Kjellberg had learned to edit videos from an online tutorial and uploaded his first "Let's Play" video - of him playing Minecraft. He registered his PewDiePie account while at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.

PewDiePie began to take off after Kjellberg filmed himself screaming his way around the horror game Amnesia, and began to receive requests from viewers for more of the same. He was soon uploading several clips a day, and eventually, to his parents' horror, he dropped out of Chalmers in 2011 to work at a hotdog kiosk while he developed his channel.

He reached his first 1 million subscribers in July 2012. Two months later, he had 2 million. By December that year, he had signed with Maker Studios - a talent network for video-makers that provides resources, expertise and help with promotion and marketing, in return for a share of ad revenue - and saw his channel quickly grow from 100 million to 200 million views per month. On August 15, 2013, PewDiePie became the most-subscribed YouTube channel in the world.

But by November 2014, his tone had changed again: he threatened to delete his channel once it reached 50 million subscribers, venting his frustration at YouTube over an allegedly unexplained loss of subscribers. Soon enough, he reached 50 million subscribers on December 8 - but did not delete the channel; instead, he deleted a secondary channel, Jack septiceye2, on which he had only ever posted two videos, claiming that the whole thing had been "a joke." The main PewDiePie channel would be an extremely lucrative source of income to give up, after all - according to Forbes, Kjellberg earned $15 million in 2016 (the total also included ad revenue from his YouTube Red channel and sales of 112,000 copies of his book, This Book Loves You).

Although PewDiePie was overtaken by the Indian record label T-Series for the most-subscribed YouTube channel by spring 2019, he retained the top spot for an individually operated channel, surpassing 100 million subscribers in August.

In December 2019, PewDiePie announced that he was taking a hiatus from the platform that had propelled him to fame.

"I am taking (a) break from YouTube next year," he said in a video. "I wanted to say it in advance because I made up my mind. I'm tired, I'm feeling very tired. I don't know if you can tell... early next year I'll be away for a little while. I'll explain that later but I wanted to give a heads up."

Achievements

• PewDiePie runs one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube. Most of his videos are famous for comedic appeal and funny commentaries. Since 2013 he has been constantly dominating for the most subscribed YouTuber position. Felix has almost 110 million subscribers for his YouTube channel PewDiePie. He also runs some other youtube channels. He won a Most Popular Social Show web personality award that fellow internet star Jenna Marbles was also nominated for.

Works

More photos

• book

  • This Book Loves You

    (In This Book Loves You, PewDiePie delivers advice and wis...)

    2015

Religion

Felix Kjellberg is an agnostic. He has already explained years ago that, while he don't subscribe to any religion, he believes there are higher powers at work. He regularly shouts "Jesus Christ" in his videos when he was jumpscared. He has also prayed at a Japanese Shinto Shrine and a Buddhist Temple before.

Politics

In August 2014, the same month Maker Studios launched a PewDiePie iPhone app, Kjellberg announced that he would be disabling the online comments under his YouTube videos, deeming them to be "mainly spam." He partly relented in October, permitting "approved" comments only. In April 2016, he addressed his use of words such as "gay" and "retard" in earlier videos: "I just thought things were funny because they were offensive," he claimed. "I would say a lot of stupid shit." It seemed as if PewDiePie was finally starting to grow up.

In December 2014, #PewDiePieIsOver and #PewDiePieIsOverParty began trending on Twitter, after Kjellberg appeared to use the n-word in a video. Days later, he caused further controversy by using the website Fiverr to pay two Indian men $5 to hold up a sign saying "Death to all Jews." He apologized, claiming: "I didn't think they would actually do it."

Nevertheless, after other videos came to light that appeared to contain anti-Semitic jokes, Maker Studios severed ties with PewDiePie in February 2017. Kjellberg posted an apology, titled My Response, on February 17 - but also criticized the media's reporting of his videos. But he found himself apologizing again in September 2017 after blurting the n-word during a live stream.

"I'm really disappointed in myself because it seems I’ve learnt nothing from these past controversies," he said. "Being in the position I am, I should know better."

Views

PewDiePie is a huge supporter of sovereign video gaming creators.

Quotations: "My parents said that sitting at home playing video games all day won't bring you anywhere in life."

"I've made some jokes that people don't like. And you know what? If people don't like my jokes, I fully respect that. I fully understand that. I acknowledge that I took things too far, and that's something I definitely will keep in mind moving forward, but the reaction and the outrage have been nothing but insanity."

Personality

Kjellberg's favorite video game character is Sho Minamimoto from the Nintendo DS game The World Ends With You. He is a big fan of Radiohead. When asked on a Reddit AMA what his top five albums were, he answered that they were all In Rainbows.

Physical Characteristics: Height: 5'9" (175 cm)

Interests

• Guitar, sailing, video games

• Sport & Clubs

  Tennis, golf

• Music & Bands

  Radiohead

Connections

PewDiePie began a relationship with Marzia Bisognin in 2011 and later moved to Italy to share a home with her and their two pugs. They became engaged on April 27, 2018, and they married in August 2019.

Ulf Christian Kjellberg and his mother Lotta Kristine Johanna. They are both successful chief executives.

Father:

Ulf Christian Kjellberg

Mother:

Lotta Kristine Johanna

Spouse:

Marzia Bisognin

(married 2019)

colleague:

Jack Douglass

References

• PewDiePie on YouTube