Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research Volume 8 Article 4 2020 The 3 P's: Pewdiepie, Popularity, and Profitability Lea Medina Pepperdine University, [email protected] Eric Reed Pepperdine University, [email protected] Cameron Davis Pepperdine University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/pjcr Part of the Communication Commons Recommended Citation Medina, Lea; Reed, Eric; and Davis, Cameron (2020) "The 3 P's: Pewdiepie, Popularity, and Profitability," Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research: Vol. 8 , Article 4. Available at: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/pjcr/vol8/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Communication at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research by an authorized editor of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]. 21 The 3 P’s: Pewdiepie, Popularity, & Popularity Lea Medina Written for COM 300: Media Research (Dr. Klive Oh) Introduction Channel is an online prole created on the Felix Arvid Ul Kjellberg—more website YouTube where users can upload their aectionately referred to as Pewdiepie—is original video content to the site. e factors statistically the most successful YouTuber, o his channel that will be explored are his with a net worth o over $15 million and over relationships with the viewers, his personality, 100 million subscribers. With a channel that relationship with his wife, and behavioral has uploaded over 4,000 videos, it becomes patterns. natural to uestion how one person can gain Horton and Wohl’s Parasocial such popularity and prot just by sitting in Interaction eory states that interacting front o a camera. It seems that Pewdiepie’s with mediated gures, such as YouTube more controversial actions such as using personalities, can cause viewers to feel like oensive language have ultimately only added they have formed real relationships despite to his popularity; these moments o criticism that relationship being one-sided. Parasocial show that he is a character o resilience in an Interaction eory helps to answer the industry o ever-changing trends. While uestion o why Pewdiepie is so protable. gaming has been widely overlooked in the For starters, Pewdiepie has created an past, it became the “most popular and atmosphere in his online community in which protable form o entertainment” (D'Argenio, subscribers believe they are interacting with 2018). Content creators stand to gain him in a meaningful way. Subscribers can post nancially from brand deals, sponsored on his subreddit (an online hub to talk about videos, and other ways o promoting video shared interests) and hope Pewdiepie displays and mobile games. By 2021, the gaming their post in his newest video. Pewdiepie has industry is set to make 180.1 billion dollars been committed to posting once a day for (Dobrilova, 2019). Not only can Pewdiepie be over six years which ensures a constant seen as a character o resilience but the presence in his subscribers’ lives so as not to gaming industry, through which Pewdiepie be forgotten. Finding ways to connect with made a name for himself, can also be seen as a and support Pewdiepie has never been so easy. powerful force o resilience. By studying what From wearing his merchandise to buying his factors make Pewdiepie’s videos so popular sponsored gamer energy drink, there seems to and how he obtains money from that online be no limit to how Pewdiepie can inuence success, it will be easier to understand how his large subscriber base. content creators will prot on YouTube in the e uestion is both relevant and future and how others can mimic such signicant because YouTube is continuing to resilience. is research also helps to better grow and expand its user base. Within this understand the mind o a consumer and what modern context specically, YouTube has a they value in an online personality. reliable audience who watch their favorite Many terms need to be conceptualized channels regularly as i tuning in to a network within this research uestion. A YouTube show. YouTube stars are making so much o 22 their online content that the pursuit o a centric creation to its now YouTube career is becoming increasingly professionally-generated content selection. more common and desirable. In the United e content uploaded to YouTube in 60 days Kingdom and United States alone, being a is the same amount o content that would be YouTuber is about 3 times more likely to be broadcast over a span o 60 years (Figueiredo, chosen as a career amongst children than Benevenuto, & Almeida, 2011). e being an astronaut (Berger, 2019). Looking at astonishing rate o content available to the the Parasocial Interaction eory, it can be online world is oen overlooked because only seen how modern consumers turn to YouTube some content creators and videos are deemed to be entertained through the most mundane as popular. Online celebrities arise from the means. e shi in entertainment from creation o YouTube as these created professionally generated content (PGC) to personalities begin to post their videos at a user-generated content (UGC) is important constant rate. As YouTubers gain more views, to professional industries (entertainment, they increase in popularity. e most popular lm, advertising, etc.) as this reveals YouTuber, in terms o the number o views, is consumer behavior. e increasing use o Felix Arvid Ul Kjellberg otherwise known as YouTube signies an interest in varying forms Pewdiepie. Using the Parasocial Interaction o content. eory, Hegemonic Masculinity eory, In conclusion, this study will research Inclusive Masculinities eory, it becomes the factors that make Pewdiepie successful on possible to understand why he can gain such a the YouTube platform by analyzing the following as well as indicating what makes relationship between his popularity and him protable. Discovering why Pewdiepie’s protability. By studying these aspects o the videos are so popular is important as these are most popular YouTube channel, the goal is to personalities that greatly inuence large further understand what garners nancial populations. It is important for many success on YouTube so future users o the industries to better understand the platform and researchers can better predict relationship between content creator and what makes or breaks a new YouTube viewer. Looking to Parasocial Interaction personality. is research seeks to nd how eory, it is important to know what can social media personalities, specically make a subscriber so loyal to someone they YouTube stars, can become resilient gures o have never met. inuence over their viewers despite their Social Media is something that is shortcomings. By understanding this, our commonly used but it is dicult to dene. To study will gain insight into how content conceptualize such a medium, it is useful to creators, namely Youtubers, can create view social media as a “proto-industry” made relationships with their audience and, up o content creators who “engage in content through that, gain a prot. innovation” to a global community (Craig & Cunningham, 2017). is is an ever-growing Literature Review industry that allows for anyone to gain a YouTube is a social media platform following via the follow-button through that has transformed the world o new media. platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, It aects how viewers nd entertainment (i.e. Facebook, etc. e increase in the use o social “Vloing, gaming, style tutorials”) (Craig & media also brings an inux o social media Cunningham, 2017). YouTube, itself, has had a inuencers. ese are “organizational transformation since its user-generated advocates in the new medium o social media 23 for strategic communication” (Au, Pang, & created (Kim, 2012). A big part o viewing Sng, 2019). In this case, social media is the content on YouTube is being able to platform by which Pewdiepie can experience more o a realistic sense o communicate with his viewers. humanity unlike the high production world o Social media and its inuencers create studio television. Stuart Cunningham and a world in which a select number o David Craig, in their research, found that individuals can gain a position o power over there seem to be three types o content genres their followers. Dr. Mingyi Hou, a that viewers tend to enjoy from amateur communication researcher at Tilburg content creators: “vloing, gameplay, and University, notes that there is a dierence style tutorials” (2017). Pewdiepie is most between traditional celebrities and a social known for his gameplay videos which show media celebrity. is new version o celebrity him playing video games, an interesting found online can avoid jumping through choice seeing as he is not known for being many hoops to achieve a more temporary and very good at playing these games. Parasocial limited level o fame. Hou writes that since Interaction eory, as described by Donald social media inuencers are native to online Horton and Richard Wohl, is the theory that platforms, it is harder for them to break out helps explain why people can form “real” to other levels o fame beyond the internet relationships with distant mediating gures (Hou, 2018). Amongst the many platforms o (Rihl & Wegener, 2019). Because Pewdiepie is social media, there is one channel in not an exceptional gamer, his lack o skills particular that can innovatively produce come across as relatable and create a inuencers: YouTube. comfortable atmosphere that viewers respond YouTube is a platform that generally well to. ey can form a pseudo friendship allows anyone to upload videos online that with him. anyone in the world can view. It is also the Mingyi Hou looks to beauty and platform through which Pewdiepie has found lifestyle YouTuber, Zoe Su.