Early in his YouTube career, Kjellberg used jokes about rape in his videos.

[17] A satirical video

mocking Kjellberg's content highlighted his usage of such jokes. [46] Shortly after, Kjellberg attracted
criticism and controversy for the jokes, and in October 2012, he addressed the issue through
a Tumblr post, writing, "I just wanted to make clear that I'm no longer making rape jokes, as I
mentioned before I'm not looking to hurt anyone and I apologise if it ever did." [47] The Globe and
Mail stated "unlike many young gamers, he listened when fans and critics alike pointed out their
harmful nature, and resolved to stop making rape jokes." [17]
Kjellberg's oldest video available for viewing is titled "Minecraft Multiplayer Fun".[15] Uploaded on 2
October 2010, the video is noted for containing mainly Swedish commentary from Kjellberg, rather
than the English language he would later employ in his videos. [15] The video has amassed over 14
million video views as of May 2020.[‡ 9] His early content mainly consisted of Let's Play-styled videos.
On these videos, Kjellberg has stated "I was so shy back then," and added, "It was so weird to me,
sitting alone in a room talking into a microphone. That was unheard of back at the time. No one
really did it."[12] Fridays with PewDiePie is a notable set of videos uploaded by Kjellberg towards the
beginning portion of his YouTube career. The series was a weekly deviation from the Let's Play
videos that formed most of his content output at the time, and often featured vlogs and Kjellberg
completing viewer requests.[12][48]
Many of Kjellberg's most-viewed videos are highlight compilations of his Let's Play videos. [23][49] One
of these compilations, "A Funny Montage", was uploaded in June 2013 and spent a considerable
amount of time as Kjellberg's most-viewed, with publications citing it as such through 2018. [50][51]
Becoming the most-subscribed user and continued growth (2013–2015)

Kjellberg at PAX in 2015

On 18 February 2013, Kjellberg's channel reached 5 million subscribers,[33] and in April, he was

covered in The New York Times after surpassing 6 million subscribers.[52] In May, at the inaugural
Starcount Social Stars Awards in Singapore, Kjellberg won the award for "Swedish Social Star".
[53]
 Competing against Jenna Marbles, Smosh and Toby Turner,[54] he also won the award for "Most
Popular Social Show".[55] In July 2013, he overtook Jenna Marbles to become the second most-
subscribed YouTube user,[56] and reached 10 million subscribers on 9 July.[33][57] In August, Kjellberg
signed with Maker's gaming sub-network, Polaris. [58] Polaris functioned as a relaunching of The
Game Station, Maker's gaming network.[59]
Kjellberg's subscriber count surpassed that of the leading channel, Smosh, on 15 August 2013.
[60]
 Kjellberg received a certificate from Guinness World Records for becoming the most subscribed
YouTuber.[61] On 1 November, his channel became the first to reach 15 million subscribers;[62] the
following day, the channel was surpassed by YouTube's Spotlight account in subscribers.[63] In the
same month, Kjellberg proclaimed his dislike of YouTube's new comment system and disabled the
comment section on all of his videos.[64] On 22 December 2013, his channel overtook the YouTube
Spotlight channel to once again become the most-subscribed on YouTube.[65][66] Throughout 2012 and
2013, Kjellberg's channel was one of the fastest growing on YouTube, in terms of subscribers
gained.[67] In 2013, the channel grew from 3.5 million to just under 19 million subscribers,[68] and by
the end of 2013, it was gaining a new subscriber every 1.037 seconds. [69] Billboard reported that the
channel gained more subscribers than any other channel in 2013. [70] Additionally, in the second half
of 2013, it earned just under 1.3 billion video views.[71]
In 2014, Kjellberg's commentaries, originally best known for featuring horror video games, began to
feature games that interested him, regardless of genre. Kotaku wrote: "Instead of limiting himself to
horror games, Pewdiepie is now actively playing more things that interest him." [15]
In March, he updated his video production output, announcing he would be scaling down the
frequency of uploads.[26] In August 2014, Maker Studios released an official PewDiePie app for the
iPhone, allowing audiences to view his videos, create custom favourite video feeds and share videos
with others.[72] Later in the month, Kjellberg uploaded a video, announcing he would permanently
disable comments on his YouTube videos.[73] He cited most comments being spam and self-
advertising, and was not what he wanted to see.[74] After disabling comments, Kjellberg continued
interacting with his audience through Twitter and Reddit.[75] On 13 October, he decided to allow
comments on his videos once more, albeit only after approval. [76] However, he expressed that he
toggled his comment settings this way so that he could redirect viewers to instead comment on the
forums of his Broarmy.net website.[77] He stated in a later video that disabling comments made him
happier.[78] In the same year, Kjellberg began streaming videos of his co-hosted series, BroKen,
onto MLG.tv.[79] He co-hosted the series with Kenneth Morrison, better known as
CinnamonToastKen, who is also a video game commentator. [80]
In October 2014, Kjellberg hinted at the possibility that he would not renew his contract with Maker
Studios upon its expiration in December 2014. [81] He had expressed his frustrations with the studio's
parent company, Disney.[45] Kjellberg mulled the option of launching his own network, [28][82] however, in
light of news outlets reporting his disinterest with Maker, he tweeted, "I feel like I was misquoted
in the WSJ and I'm really happy with the work that Maker has been doing for me." [83] Kjellberg would
ultimately continue creating videos under Maker. His relationship with Maker caused the
establishment of an official PewDiePie website, app, and online store to sell merchandise, while
Kjellberg promoted Maker's media interests and gave the network a share of his YouTube ad
revenue.[12]