PewDiePie: A Media Marvel

Felix Kjellberg, a 28 year old YouTuber known online as PewDiePie, has long been an outlier in the world of media. Since 2013, Felix has been the platform’s most subscribed content creator. Along the way, he never stayed with the same format. He started by uploading his first person shooter gameplay. However, he later evolved into the comedy genre when he started uploading gameplay of horror games. Recently, for the most part, Felix has shifted away from gaming. Now more focused on comedy commentary, he has since entered arguably his most successful stage. While most content creators tend to cater towards their demographics, following a very strict professional protocol, Felix has abandoned this protocol for the most part. This fresh indifferent attitude towards his popularity has lead to his continued growth.

This “protocol” can be seen as Malcolm Gladwell’s notion of stickiness as mentioned by Henry Jenkins. Stickiness is the focus on creating content that is proven to attract the current viewership, with the hopes that deep audience engagement will lead to eventual spread. With Felix shifting away from this model he can be seen as trending towards another concept brought up by Jenkins, spreadability. Spreadability, although not an opposite to stickiness, is a model which attempts to capitalize where the stickiness model lacks. Spreadable media concerns itself with creating content that is easily shareable by the audience, in both the technical and cultural sense.

Felix seems to break every rule when it comes to sticky media. He often shifts his content after building an audience accustom to a very specific subject matter. This content change allows him to be more spreadable in terms of exposure to different online cultures. Anytime that Felix follows the stickiness model it tends to be done in a parody-like way. One proven way that someone can boost their revenue on YouTube is by extending their videos past 10 minutes long. This method of gaining ad revenue closely follows the stickiness model.  Through making a video longer it, by nature, relies on deeper engagement, not shareability. Felix has also adopted making videos past 10 minutes long. However, through the self-aware ironic tone he does this with, him appeasing to the stickiness model becomes the underlying joke.

Despite fighting against the stickiness model which is becoming so prevalent in the YouTube industry, Felix himself still relies on it. What makes Felix so popular is his near cult following. Having such a following heavily relies on deepening audience engagement. He does this through creating inside jokes and by encouraging his fans to post submissions he will respond to. It is through this blend of spreadable content with an underlying stickiness model that makes Felix the online enigma that he is.