Kjellberg buckled down in high school and got into a competitive college, but it didn’t take. “Only when I was sick, we would rent one. “I wasn’t allowed to have a Nintendo,” he says. As a kid Kjellberg was, according to him, pretty much the same as now, though a bit shyer and more introverted. He grew up in GÖteborg, which is Sweden’s second largest city. His father is the CEO of a Swedish company his mother is head of IT at an accounting firm. Kjellberg’s parents are both successful professionals. For the big finish, Kjellberg dies on the floor, in slow motion, with stirring movie-soundtrack music and stock footage of a white dove fluttering. On the right is in-kitchen footage of Kjellberg flailing around looking ridiculous in the way that only somebody wearing VR goggles and a skintight onesie can. The rest of the video, seven minutes of it, is mostly split screen: on the left is in-game footage of PewDiePie shooting monsters and shrieking in terror and yelling slightly Swedish-accented action-movie taglines (“You want some?”). But they tend to ignore the fact that PewDiePie is actually very funny.
![pewdiepie thats gay meme pewdiepie thats gay meme](https://funvizeo.com/media/memes/54d29e3f5961dfe1/tells-my-friends-furry-friends-wouldit-that-make-you-gay-meme-6594206a897bfc2f-b9ca9d4dae44aff5.jpg)
Most of the critical literature about PewDiePie focuses on the bad language and crude physical humor–and admittedly there are a lot of both–and the fact that he is, at the end of the day, just a guy playing video games and yelling. He’s totally unpolished, but at the same time his timing is consistently spot-on. He’s self-assured but not arrogant, vulnerable but not pathetic, handsome but not vain. He’s pleasantly confident (“How’s it going, bros!”), but then he takes it too far (“The ladies like it”) then he shows a little desperation (“Please keep watching”), which is also a joke (that’s the confidence again). It’s actually kind of complicated what Kjellberg is doing here. Then he adds, with a very slight trace of pleading in his voice, “Please keep watching.” The ladies like it.” The camera zooms in, and he winks, deadpan. Kjellberg grandly announces the topic for this video: he’s going to play a horror game in VR. It’s his impression of a minor character in South Park called Mr. “Why do I always sound so creepy? How’s it going, bros! My name is PewDiePie!” (He has a signature style for pronouncing his name: in falsetto, with something approximating a Southern accent, while closing his eyes and wiggling his fingers. He’s wearing a sheer, flesh-colored one-piece bodysuit with nipples drawn on it. He has on headphones and VR goggles pushed up on his forehead. As far as I can tell there was no HTC Vive–Part 02.) (If you’re curious, HTC Vive–Part 01 was Teabagging in VR, and if you don’t know what teabagging is, do yourself a favor and don’t Google it. On April 13, Kjellberg uploaded a video called Kill yourself in VR?!–(HTC Vive–Part 03). His videos mostly show him playing video games and talking about them, and–as he would be the first to admit–he’s not even that good at playing video games. They asked to have their picture taken with him, and he agreed very graciously.Īs popular as he is, it’s hard to explain exactly what Kjellberg is famous for. In spite of the beard, a bunch of passing middle-school students recognized him. And I just don’t want to give them the satisfaction.” “But the thing is, my fans wanted me to shave so bad–so bad. Also like a lot of Swedes, Kjellberg is really good-looking, with prominent cheekbones and ghostly pale-blue eyes, though on the day I met him, at a coffee shop in Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River, the effect was somewhat mitigated by a big comedy Viking beard. Like a lot of Swedes, he speaks near perfect English with an American accent, only occasionally betraying his Swedishness by enunciating slightly too well, the way they do in ABBA songs.
![pewdiepie thats gay meme pewdiepie thats gay meme](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGKWUG6WYAAdeEu.jpg)
![pewdiepie thats gay meme pewdiepie thats gay meme](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/dc/60/db/dc60dbd9983db7b8e201b0aea379f3f3--pewdiepie-funny-gay.jpg)
In person, Kjellberg is affable, articulate and low-key.
![pewdiepie thats gay meme pewdiepie thats gay meme](https://i.redd.it/j8nr9qnr68j61.jpg)
Forbes estimated that in the 12-month period ending in June 2015, he made around $12 million before taxes. He has no easily defined talent–he can’t sing, can’t dance, can’t act–but over the past six years Kjellberg has uploaded around 2,800 videos to YouTube, which collectively have amassed more than 12 billion views. Most people over 30 haven’t heard of him, but he is a bona fide global celebrity of an entirely new kind: if you track his numbers on Google Trends, which is admittedly a very rough metric of fame, he ranks only slightly below Tom Cruise. He’s 26 and lives in Brighton, U.K., though he grew up in Sweden. PewDiePie’s real name is Felix Kjellberg.