Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie, has announced the end of the long-lasting campaign to support him as the number one YouTuber in his latest video, uploaded on 28 April. In it, he praised the efforts of his multimillion fan base, whose support was "humbling" for him, but noted that not all of his fans had behaved properly.
He brought up the case of the Christchurch shooter, who used the phrase "subscribe to PewDiePie" as he streamed his attack on the New Zealand mosques. Kjellberg once again disavowed the efforts of "a few degenerates", as he called them. Pewds said that he had decided to end his campaign to prevent the actions of these few from casting a shadow on the rest of the community's efforts.
"This movement started out of love and support. So let's end it with that", he said.
For the last half a year, PewDiePie has been in a race to outpace the fast growing YouTube account of Indian music titan T-Series in the number of subscribers. He successfully managed to mobilise the efforts of other content creators, as well as fans to keep his channel on the top — although at one point, T-Series managed to steal the pedestal from him.