Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) has now overtaken Felix Kjellberg (Pewdiepie) as the most-subscribed YouTube content creator ever. According to Dexerto, MrBeast surpassed Pewdiepie’s 111,846,079 sub count a little after 4 PM EST on November 14.
Pewdiepie has been one of the most influential creators on the platform and has been holding the title of most-subscribed YouTuber since August 2013. He lost his position as the most subscribed channel back in 2018 when Bollywood’s T-Series surpassed him. However, Kjellberg remained the most-subscribed creator until this year.
MrBeast and Pewdiepie have been friends for some time. Back in 2018, during the “subscribe to Pewdiepie” campaign, MrBeast put thousands of dollars into a marketing campaign to get Pewdiepie more subscribers.
Since then, major brands like T-Series and Cocomelon do have more subscribers, but they belong to companies and not individual content creators.
MrBeast has seen major growth over the past few years. Likely in part to his understanding of the YouTube algorithm and his approach to making clickable, viral content, he has become one of the most widely known names on the platform.
Donaldson now also has a burger brand and snack line. He reinvests constantly into growing his channel and his brand. Most notably, he recently recreated the Squid Game set from Netflix’s hit Korean series, Squid Game.
Pewdiepie began as a gaming content creator back in the early days of YouTube and made “let’s play” videos. Over time, he has become more of a commentary channel, but with his recent move to Japan, he’s pushed into more vlog content.
Back in August, a viewer asked Pewdiepie if he thought MrBeast would surpass his subscriber count. Pewdiepie said: “He definitely will. Come on, Iv’e been retired for two years now. I can’t wait for it to be over. He [Donaldson] definitely deserves it, I hope he does it.”
