Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - Ep. 53 PewDiePie - Ear Biscuits

Episode Date: October 10, 2014

The voice behind YouTube's most subscribed channel, Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, sits down with Rhett & Link this week to talk about his previous jobs flipping burgers and directing boats to dock, meeting his girlfriend online and their awkward first IRL meeting, the path that led to becoming number one, and dealing with the pressure of staying there. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. This episode of Ear Biscuits is brought to you by Lootcrate.com slash Rhett and Link. Lootcrate is a monthly subscription box service for epic geek and gamer items and pop culture gear. For less than 20 bucks a month, you can get six to eight items valued at least $40. That's a pretty good deal.

Licensed gear, apparel, collectibles, unique one of a kind items and more. This is like if I were to try to surprise you with things that I thought that you would like, Link, in a little box every single month. But I feel like that would make our friendship awkward. I don't want you to give me that many gifts. I'd rather get it from Loot Crate.

Right, yeah, let's not do that. Let's not complicate things. Let's just do it through Loot Crate. This month's theme is spooky slash scary because it's October. So we're talking like zombie stuff. We've heard that there are exclusive walking dead items that will be in the Loot Crate this month.

As well as other things. Make sure to head to lootcrate.com slash Rhett and Link. Enter code Rhett and Link to save 10% on any new subscription. Now on with the biscuit. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Rhett. And I'm Link, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the season finale of season one of Ear Biscuits.

What? More about that and the start of season two at the end of this biscuit, but for now, it is time for another conversation with someone interesting from the internet. And what better way to cap off season one of Ear Biscuits than to talk to the world's most popular YouTuber.

He is known as PewDiePie, and he is actually in real life known as Felix Scherbe. Was that your, that was Rhett's attempt at like an Alex Trebek pronunciation. Well, I'll tell you how I got it, okay? It looks to me like it should be said Kjellberg, but I know that's not correct. So we listened to a Swedish person online say his name

and it sounded like Schaubari. So that's how I'm gonna say it from now on. Anyway, you've probably heard of him. You've probably seen one of his videos because his videos have been seen 6.25 billion times. There are about 7 billion people on earth to put that into perspective. 31 million plus subscribers on YouTube.

Yeah, it's pretty mind blowing. What does Felix do? He plays video games. He does Let's Play games, which is a whole genre of playing through a video game while including the commentary by the gamer. And Felix has a very unique sense of humor and the delivery that you kind of have to experience

in video form to fully appreciate. I mean, we are going to play a clip, but it's so visual that it's not going to make sense. So you're going to have to go to his channel, but I'll play it anyway. This is Happy Wheels Part 1. It's got over 15 million views. He's playing the game Happy Wheels. And I think he's chosen a dad and his little son on the back of the bike in this

ultra violent uh hilariously odd video game world all right i choose you i will make you proud some don't worry let's try not get a kid a little kid died poor no, my bicycle. You can kill my son but you can't kill my bicycle. So you get a little taste of the style of humor there. Now, obviously huge success with all these people who subscribe and all these people who watch. But even in the midst of all that success, a good portion of today's traditional media doesn't quite get or isn't incredibly excited

about PewDiePie, including Variety's Andrew Wallenstein who said, quote, he is a gibberish spouting clown who's bringing Western civilization to a screeching halt. Ooh. Okay, so we talked to Felix about this. We asked him what he thought about it. We picked his brain about it because hey, that's an ear biscuit.

We also got his backstory and lots of interesting details there, dropping out of college, his first job, flipping burgers, being a harbor captain, meeting his girlfriend through Facebook, and then their awkward first IRL meeting. And we talk about dealing with the immense pressure of being the number one personality on YouTube, including where does he go from here?

Here it is, our Ear Biscuit with PewDiePie. Well, six times two is 12. Six times one is 12. Okay. Why I gotta know math? Well, you don't have to know math to know that. One of the things I wanted to pick your brain about was the art of the running commentary. Mm-hmm. You guys do a lot of that.

Well, I mean, we'll go for- But there's two of us. We'll go for ten minutes. Yeah. But we're talking to each other. Yeah. As well as the audience. Mm-hmm.

What's your approach to, I mean, and then you also edit your work. So it's not like. Yeah, it's not all. It's not like it has to be live from start to finish. Exactly. But there's still this thing of if I watch the raw footage, I assume that it would be with any particular game, you're just running commentary just from start to finish. No, that's not it at all.

Okay. I usually shoot like an hour and maybe I'm active 20 minutes of those. Like I'll save my energy between the times I know that I'm not having to talk. Because I shoot like three stuff a day and then I get really tired easily. So I'm like, save my energy for when it's time to do stuff. So we're getting, when we see a video, we're kind of getting the things that you said. We're not necessarily getting. No.

It's like, oh, I cut out so many funny things and it's, no, I was actually just playing the game at that point. That's, it depends on the game a lot. Like I couldn't tell you exactly how it would work. But there's certain games that you'll play the game for 60 minutes straight. But then you'll kind of know, I'm at this point in the game. I got something. I'm turning it on. Is that how you're describing it?

Yeah, pretty much. And then, okay, that's over. I died or whatever. And that was a really funny moment. I know I'm going to edit out there. Yeah. So, I'm going to keep playing the game and get back to something or whatever. I mean, all these mechanics are happening in your mind.

I guess I just have an idea of, okay, now I have enough material for editing to a video. That's it, literally. But sometimes I do just 10 minutes uncut too which is really easy and nice i don't have to edit it that's the best now is this you know because i think there's a lot of people who are like i could do that i could do that well they probably could well but the the differences is the um one of the differences we'll get into your perception on your success. I mean, we're gonna talk about that. But just the idea of the ability to fill space.

I think that's one of the things that has allowed us to do what we do with Good Mythical Morning. It's almost like a radio DJ kind of aptitude to sort of, but like I said, there's two of us. So we're kind of constantly playing off each other. Is that something that just characterized your life and your conversation? Like, are you the guy that in public

when something is happening, you've got something to say? Are you the guy that when you're watching a movie with a group of people and people, it's like you're watching with your friends and you're kind of making observations. Are you one of those kind of guys? Only with my close friends, yeah. Like with my close friends, I'm like that.

But if people I don't really know that well, I'm just like I am right now. Pretty chill guy, I would say. Yeah. Not like in my videos, kind of crazy persona going on. But also, a thing that I noticed, when I play with other people, it's so much easier. I don't have to think about anything. We'll just play and it comes naturally. Kind of like you two play off each other naturally i would say but when i do alone

i do have to like kind of make an effort take another step and that's what i mean with like spending energy to heighten yeah those moments yeah you kind of have to otherwise it gets dull i would say yeah what's your what's your production like, you sit down, you schedule time. Okay, I know I got to get two out a day. Yeah. So how scheduled is your time? And then within that gameplay, you know when you've got what you want. Yeah. But what are those things that are going through your mind to kind of craft?

Okay, I'm turning on, turning off. There's so many factors. That's such a hard question. Yeah. It really depends on the episode. Literally, some stuff will take 10 minutes to make. Some stuff will take four hours, five hours, six hours. I don't even know.

And that kind of, that's how I compensate. But I do try to make two a day no matter what. So sometimes you have to be creative with it. I don't know. You run out of time. Are you ever thinking, I mean, is it all as raw and impromptu as it seems? Yeah.

There's never a, okay, I played this game before and I wasn't screen capping it, but I kinda know if I do it this way, this will be funny. Yeah, yeah, that happens too, actually. Yeah, absolutely. Can you give an example? Okay, maybe I discover something in the game that is really funny,

and then I can deliver a line to that in a good timing. A lot of comedy is just timing, so I'll do it again. Do you remember a recent time in a specific game? I think the skate videos. Those are very edited and cut and they're really crazy and stupid.

So I would say those, but I don't know exactly the timing. I don't know. And you mentioned comedy too, which is something that is interesting to me because I definitely see you as a comedian. I think when people describe you or write you up, they call you a gamer. Yeah, I guess, yeah.

We get the sense that, just whenever, you know, we research everyone that comes on the show. And so we go beyond just watching your videos that we've seen. We see what people have said about you and what their perspective is. And there's a traditional media perspective,

which will call you a guy who plays games. You know, we've been on this platform long enough to know that there's a lot more going on than that. Yeah. So just the, when you said comedy, it was like, okay, all right, that was just a little insight into seeing that I know what I'm doing here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm entertaining people. So is it gamer or comedian or is it comedic gamer or is it? Comedic gamer would make sense. That would probably make more sense. Yeah. Okay, well, that's your official title now. Yeah, come on, BBC or whoever. We're into these things.

Comedic gamer. I live in UK, so they always pick something up. That's why. Right. All right, so let's go back to the beginning of felix not pewdiepie but felix uh-huh so where did you grow up tell us about the swedish the swedish fjords and then yeah yeah the fjords we don't have fjords actually that's norway uh that was a test oh you got us you. Chocolate. We have a lot of chocolate.

No, I grew up in Gothenburg. Have you heard of that? You've been there? Have you guys been to Sweden? No. Have you guys been outside of the States? Yes, we have. We don't act like it, do we? We have.

Wow. We have not been to Northern Europe. So describe the town. I mean, is this a city? Is it rural? It's the second largest town in Sweden. Okay. And we call it Little London because it's always bad weather.

Foggy? Yeah. It's very gray, very dark, and very depressing. That's what we have in Sweden. I'm surprised you guys didn't pick up on that. But we have depression. That's our thing. Well, and not only because of the the rain or whatever but

aren't you really close to the arctic circle and so it's dark yeah so is there a period of time during the year where it's just it's dark all the time dark all the time no no no no not all the time but like it's i'd rather prefer they're dark all the time because like how short do the days get in winter time eight till till maybe the sun goes down. It gets dark at three or four. That's like the worst. Wow. So it's basically like the time that you would typically be in school.

Yeah, exactly. So you go home and it's dark. You go to school and it's dark. So it's like, I don't know. So it's weird. I shouldn't talk bad about where I come from. But once you leave your hometown bubble, I would kind of call it, and you see the world in a more open space,

I just felt like, what's the point of going there? I was like, okay, that was nice. I spent some years. I was like, there's a whole new world. But you spent the formative years. Yeah. I should be more grateful. No, but just,

whether you should be grateful or not, that's up to you. But- Was there that sense that this is a bubble I wanna get out of? No, not until I got out of the bubble, I realized, yeah. In retrospect. Yeah. So what was childhood like?

I mean, what did your parents do? My mom was actually CEO of the year. She's like a businesswoman in Sweden. Of what? Like what type of business? She would do all the IT for this retail company. Okay. Yeah.

Kapol. It's kind of like H&M. Okay. Yeah. For older people. CEO of the year. Was this like a Swedish award? Yeah.

Wow. So it's pretty good. Proud of her. Business woman. Business woman mom and then same with my dad literally. He was a CEO too? Yeah. What kind of company was he CEOing? They do like

stuff that monitor how much internet you're using and stuff. Okay. But yeah, they made me kind of I was in this stage where I'm like, I don't know what to do with my life. Like all YouTubers, I feel like. From a young age? Well, yeah. Like before YouTube or whatever

I would say. Not from a young age. I knew I wanted to do games from a young age, I would say. That's the thing.. I knew I wanted to do games from a young age, I would say. That's the thing. Thing I knew from all of my life. And in what capacity? Like make games? Yeah, I wanted to make games.

Yeah, that was my dream. Okay. But that just disappeared. I went in my teenage years and I'm like, I don't care about anything. Like typical teenager. So I went to the same school that my parents went and I just realized this is not for me

college at university okay so you went to college thinking that you were going to one day I'll be a CEO of a company just like my parents so basically like businessy studies well it's a very broad education

they kept telling me you can do other stuff you can do whatever you want, but I just didn't see it. And I couldn't relate to my classmates at all. To them, video games, what is that? Is that something people do? And I don't know. That's my one thing if I talk to people and they're like, I can't talk to them. That's my only thing. It's my only subject. When I get a haircut, you talk to your hairdresser and it's like, what do you do? And I'm like, oh yeah, I play video games for a living. And it's like, oh yeah, I used to love Super Mario.

Right. That's it. That's as far as our conversation goes. But so in college, you were spending most of your time playing video games. You were like yeah was it like an obsession i guess oh yeah i was so into the cliche world of warcraft like everywhere really yeah i spent probably too much time with that to the uh did it you know kind of cause your social life to go away or yeah i would say so really yeah it took over my life i would say almost right were you

even school for a while so you were i mean you were into video games that insulated you was were there any other factors personality wise like would you were you an introverted not really maybe a little bit but not that much no so you just like games i just like games yeah and i i have so much fun i like great memories a lot of people like oh so that's so sad but i'm like no i had an amazing time that was great like right yeah i don't know so did you at what point did you did the youtube videos start for you in was that after college or it was during college during college yeah my second year um i was kind of ready to drop out of college no matter what happened because i i just didn't like it anymore i like it in the beginning because it was math and physics i can

do that but when you have to learn stuff that you don't care about i'm like no okay so then what did you when you were about to drop out, what were you thinking about doing? Like getting a job or? I got a job at a burger shop. I fried some burger for a while, two weeks. Was this like a McDonald's scenario? No, I had my own kind of like a street thing.

You had a cart? No, I would love that. That would be awesome. A burger cart? No, it wasn't a burger. It was kind of like a tiny shop uh like a kiosk yeah like a kiosk that's it that you owned no no but i worked alone there yeah okay there was this old guy who used to work there and he wanted someone to take over it so he's like you work here now and you made burgers i'm i flip them burgers yeah and that was that was that was, I'm done with college.

I'm out. I'm going to do burgers. Yeah, my parents, they weren't really too excited about me dropping out of college. Well, yeah. What was that conversation like? It was pretty bad. Because I still did YouTube at that time, but not even me saw that as something sustainable or that could be something.

I couldn't even make money out of it at that time, I think. So tell me about that conversation, mom, dad. I remember it with my dad specifically. Okay. I don't remember the words. I just remembered the disappointment and like you're going to have to get a job. We're not going to help you with anything they used

to they had they were paying my rent uh because i got it's a long story but yeah they were paying my rent and so they're like we're cutting that off and all this stuff it was pretty drastic change but uh for me it was the right choice like i didn't want to keep going with it so I but all you knew was I don't want to do school this is going to disappoint my parents and I guess pretty dumb decision I'll just like I'll be honest it was probably pretty dumb to do but what was you two part of the plan or was it just burgers and I'll get it together later honestly I think you two was in the back of my head I wanted it to work out but it just seemed so far off. Like, it seemed impossible.

Who were you looking at? Were there people playing video games and it becoming their job by that point? What was this, 2010? It must have been, yeah, 2010. Yeah. I mean, there were some big ones like Ray William Johnson and Shane Nelson. I know it was really big. And I knew they were making a living out of it

but like there was no big the gamer or whatever. Nobody was doing a let's play format that was like really well known at that time. Yeah, no.

No, it was more of a sub thing to do I would say. Call of Duty was big. That was it. Machinima or whatever that kind of stuff that was big.

That was it. So literally the Machinima channel. Yeah, that was it. That was a big gaming channel. That was the best That was it. So literally the Machinima channel. Yeah, that was it. That was the big gaming channel. That was the best. Biggest one. At the time, in 2010, would they have personalities on Machinima that

would, okay, I would... Yeah, they promoted a lot of personalities through there. So who was that? Who would that have been at the time? Oh, C-Nanners. But you were looking at C- Nanners playing Call of Duty. And you were thinking just in the back,

you didn't tell your dad, but in the back of your mind you were like, I've got my YouTube channel. I've been doing, I've been playing my games. Yeah. This could happen. Yeah. So then what was your approach?

You're like flipping the burgers. I was flipping burgers. And thinking to yourself, when I get home, this is my next video? Was it like really calculated? Yeah. Really. Yeah, it was. So the reason also I met my girlfriend, Matia.

She's from Italy. We had just been talking online and she wanted to come and see me because I'd seen her one time and I needed some money for that. So obviously I had to take the job and the rent and all that stuff. Okay. So you met her before any of the YouTube stuff happened. Yeah. All right.

Well then, so give us the details of that. This happened. Yeah, it was. You met her through. During my summer break. Yeah. Alright. Well then, so give us the details of that. This happened... You met her through... During my summer break. Yeah. From college. My... Freshman year? My extended vacation. Yeah, exactly. Second year, yeah. And she...

We met online. She wrote me on Facebook. And I'm like, this girl is pretty hot. Did you have a mutual friend or something? So the story behind it is that her friend emailed a video of mine to her and in the email it said

look at this idiot playing video games. Like literally that's what it said. Yeah she showed it to me. But in Italian. How many views did that have at that time? 20,000, I think. Okay, so it wasn't like, oh, this guy's just playing this game with himself

and three people are watching. It was like, okay, this guy is one of the many people who are doing this format and he's getting a little bit of traction. The thing was I did these scary montages. Like, I added in together this compilation of me being scared in a video game. Yeah. And people really liked that. Like, that was probably what got my channel going.

And I don't think a lot of other people were doing that. I think that I finally, like, I started doing all this machinima thing. Like, trying to be scene editors and all these other commentators that were talking about Call of Duty and all that stuff. Like, trying to be an expert. Yeah, exactly. And then I randomly tried this horror game and it just, people responded to it right away.

Like, the first time ever, people were like, we want more of this. Like, that never happened before. There were people watching, but no one really cared. And how big did it get? I think I got like a thousand subscriber one night over one night which was like Jesus Christ what just happened?

Because I think I was featured somewhere in some stuff so yeah those things would go a little viral not like crazy. And this was before the Burger Stand or after? It was during the Burger Stand. Okay, so this was after you quit college. Yeah.

I'm trying to figure out how much traction you had on YouTube before you quit college. I had 30,000 subscribers. Okay, so you had made some of the montages. Yeah. And, okay. I've been making videos for a year. That's it. When you made the decision to

edit together the scares and it worked, what was your mentality at the time? Were you like, I gotta make this work. You know, I see it working elsewhere. I gotta try some things. What other things did you try before the scare montage?

I did the same old, same old. The difference was that I got my partnership and that way I felt like, okay, I'll have to put more effort and consistency and make sure there's a video going out every day or whatever. Okay. Yeah, and that was it.

And so you start to get some traction. People are liking your videos, but one girl doesn't like your videos. She thinks it's ridiculous. And she emails it to your future girlfriend. Yes. And look at this idiot playing video games. Was it a montage video?

It was a montage video, yeah. Penumbra. And then how did that go from a Facebook message exchange to a- You were in Sweden. She was in Italy. Yeah. Yeah, let's meet. Oh, so we met early

summer and then I was working at the harbor at the time. Harbor captain. It's a little more prestigious than flipping burgers. What does that entail? I just tell boats where to go when they arrive in the harbor. So like you stand on the shore and point?

I got a boat myself, so yeah. Like a mini boat. Really? Rib, rib. Do you know ribs, no? Well yeah, slab of ribs? Barbecue ribs, no I think. They're called ribs, I don't know. Probably a little boat.

Like a dinghy. Like a skiff? We call that a dinghy. I don't, dinghy skiff, that doesn't tell me anything. It's a little, it's a inflatable boat, but it's hard. Yeah, exactly, yeah, that's it. So you, this is exciting. how many things it's a little it's a little uh it's a inflatable boat but it's hard yeah exactly yeah yeah um that's it so you this is exciting you were the harbor captain i was the harbor i got fired though okay all right you get fired uh well many reasons but uh uh it was his giant boat

called goldeneye they called in and they're like we want're like, we want to come this week and everything. And this is kind of a small harbor that we took care of. But it seemed like a cool thing and we have bigger boats every once in a while. So I'm like, all right, I'll set you up. I'll book this space for you. Goldeneye.

Goldeneye was coming and I forgot to take his contact details. And it turned out that he couldn't come and he came anyway and it became a mess. It's like an international incident. No. Where did you put such a big boat if there wasn't room for it? We just had to move a bunch of people. It was kind of like a bad thing.

So, my boss wasn't. She's like, you can't handle this responsibility. You'll have to go. No more harbor captain for you. No more harbor captain. Did you have like a uniform? I did. With a hat?

It was so cool. We both are picturing the hat, just so you know. Yes, there was a hat. Was there a knot somewhere on the hat? Like a sailor knot? Oh, yeah. Around. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, wow. Really? A tassel. Yeah, a tassel that goes around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the love boat captain. Wow. Yeah. He went wow. Really? A tassel. Yeah, a tassel that goes around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the love boat captain. Wow. Yeah.

He went all the way. I lost it all. Like I had it all, but I lost it. But I think it was a good thing because I think like everyone, like I think in my brain, it's kind of like when boys play guitar, like all the girls go crazy. It's kind of like harbor captain, all the girls. He's the harbor captain. He's so handsome.

He rides around on a rib exactly maybe it was better off because i met my girlfriend will i have focus on her and so how did she came to the harbor no she was on the gold mine i made enough money from that job uh by the end of it even though i got fired i made enough to have afford uh going see her. How long have you guys been talking or dating digitally? Two months, I think. Two and a half months. Okay. So like 10 weeks and then you're like, I'm coming to you, baby.

I'm coming, baby. What's up? So what was that first meeting like? It's awkward. It was awkward? It was awful. It was like the most painful train ride of my life. Like what do you mean? She got on a train with you? It was awful. It was like the most painful train ride of my life. Like, what do you mean?

She got on a train with you? Oh, yeah. So, she met me at the airport and there's no, we had to take a train back and it was just like, oh, I don't want to think about it. It was like terrible. And her friend was, sorry, her friend was there too. The friend that wrote that message, the email. The unintentional matchmaker. Yeah,maker exactly this idiot's on a train now exactly so why was it awkward uh well i guess

the whole thing when when like you you you you really like someone and then you haven't even met them in person like that's a weird thing right i? I would think so, yeah. Yeah, I think it's a weird thing. And it felt weird the first time we met. But then once we got back to her house, I got to meet her parents as well. They don't speak any English, of course. I had practices like one sentence in Italian too. Make sure I nail it.

Like, all the train, I'm like, mi piace di conoscerti or whatever it's like nice to meet you or something and then I shake their hand I'm like the worst thing I don't even know and I'm assuming that you guys were communicating in English yeah exactly okay yeah and then yeah the parents well but in you and matia we're communicating in english yeah uh and how is that going how was her english at the time she's really bad oh yeah italians don't they don't have good english no i literally had to wait like 20 minutes between each message like i it wasn't like she was trying to play a game or something with me like

she literally had to figure out go to google translate yeah yeah she even told me later like she made her friend like make sure that it was all correct then yeah and then she would hit send yeah oh wow so okay so that made the the in-person conversation even that much more difficult yeah i guess was the friend a translator maybe i'm dating her friend friend like hold on no yeah she was she was yeah okay so so but then you overcame the awkwardness and it's not it it seems like that things are going well yeah for the two of you i mean you're living together yeah making videos together yeah as soon as we we were alone it was it was fine the awkwardness went away we shared a little kiss and the awkwardness went away with that yeah get that out of the way and then there was a long distance relationship and then at some point over the past few years you decided to no literally we we realized that

we liked each other so much that we wanted to stay together but we youtube wasn't really working at the time either so how the would i do that i probably couldn't even afford going there so she decided she would come to me she just finished school so we we moved out to the the slums of gothenburg and uh we stay there for a year okay yeah and so that year the year uh when she moved up there I'm assuming that that was the year that things began to kind of catch on YouTube. Yeah, absolutely. That's when it all happened. So tell us about that year.

Well, it went so fast. I remember all of a sudden it just got so much attention, all the stuff I was doing. People seemed to care all of a sudden. That's how it felt all of a sudden? No, seemed to care all of a sudden. That's how it felt? All of a sudden? No, it wasn't all of a sudden. It was very drastically going upwards, everything. Right.

In a good pace. And I realized if this keeps up, then I got something going on here. Yeah, in July of 2012, you reached a million subscribers. Two months later, you doubled that to two million subscribers. Yeah, I don't even know what happened there. In 2012. So leading up to the July 2012,

what was it that got that first million? Was it consistency of the same thing? Was it more of the montages? What really got you off the ground? I would say consistency, doing my horror stuff, because not a lot of people were doing that. I found something that was kind of unique, a unique concept. Was it that you were playing games other people weren't playing,

or you were just reacting to it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Everyone was doing the Call of Duty stuff. Right. Yeah, everyone was doing the same boring stuff. So I picked the games that were dumb and stupid that you could make fun of. And bad games makes for funnier videos.

Right. Were you one of the first guys to play Happy Wheels? Well, I wasn't, no. In that way? I wasn't one of the first, no. But I think I definitely helped making it so popular. I would say that at least. Right.

But that was your approach to even games before that. Yeah, Happy Wheels definitely helped that extra million. Like people, because I kept doing horror stuff and I realized, oh, this is exhausting. I have to be scared like every day. It was like emotionally hard to go through that. And YouTube should be fun. So, I'm like, I can't keep doing this.

This is ridiculous. And literally, it's funny because people hated Happy Wheels the first time I did it. They were like, what the hell is this? This is not horror. We don't like this. Go away. You've changed and all that and then it turned out to be my most successful series ever. So, you shouldn't always listen to what they say.

Right. I don't know. But you kept doing the horror and just added to it. It wasn't like a replacement. No, I kept doing the horror, yeah. I guess the thing was like, you remember everyone kept doing different channels, like different channels for everything.

So I was like, should I make a different channel for these other things? But I'm glad I didn't. I think that's also a thing that helped me. I do everything in one. I think that's also a thing that helped me. I do everything in one. I do my Friday, I do a lot of different things.

I'm not only a gamer. So once it started to take off and you were doing regular videos and you were trying different things, just tell us about the mindset during that time of seeing it begin to work. Was there a shift at some point where it was just like, uh-oh, this is bigger than I expected

and I'm not exactly sure how to manage it. Uh-huh, yeah. But not until like a couple million subscribers i would say i don't know it sounds weird saying that but i felt like i had pretty decent control over it for a while but just after a while i realized like i can make a video saying okay guys i'm going on vacation now i won't be making videos for a week and there will still be videos complaining why there's that's there will still be videos complaining why there's still be people complaining that there's no videos I feel like I can't reach my audience

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meundies.com slash Rhett and Link. Free shipping to the US and Canada. Back to the biscuit. There's that level, which I think, you know, a lot of full-time YouTubers reach, which, you know, in September of 2012, when you're breaking 2 million subscribers, and then by 2013, you got 3 1⁄2 million subscribers,

you're still in kind of this, okay, full-time YouTuber, super popular, top of the charts kind of place. Everyone now knows who I am and what I do, but it's comparable. And then it goes through the stratosphere from 3.5 million subscribers to 19 million subscribers in the same year.

I mean, I've established I'm horrible at math, but 15.5 million subscribers in a year. So it's a new, you know, I can understand the full-time YouTuber problem of okay i can no longer reach my audience but then you reached a point by the end of that year that was i can no longer fathom my audience yeah that's a good point yeah do you remember a moment when that hit you when it when it turned into maybe it's a loss of control or i don't know it's it's like when stuff happens online you see the numbers and and all that stuff but you don't

really get the same impression of what it is like it's not like i don't really go out in in the middle of the street and get mobbed and stuff like that so So it's hard to realize that it is actually this many people who click subscribe or whatever. So I don't know. It took me a while to really grasp that. I would probably say when I went to Singapore and there was really like hundreds of people waiting in the lobby because they knew I was there. Was that an event?

Yeah, it was like a social star awards or something like that. Okay. It's like, hey, you want to go an event? Yeah, it was like a Socialist Star Awards or something like that. Okay. It's like, hey, you want to go to Singapore? Yeah, that's so cool. And apparently I have a lot of fans in Singapore, which I didn't even could ever imagine. And then all of a sudden I go down to like get a new key for my door

because it wasn't working. And then there's hundreds of fans waiting in the lobby screaming at you. And I guess that's when it hit me like did they tackle you i mean how how intense did it get no they were sweet they were cute they wouldn't tackle me i mean maybe but you were but you went to get your key yeah you went to do like a 20 second exercise yeah and it sounds like a lot longer yeah it may have taken like a few hours to get back they wouldn't let me stay down there they were like, the guards pulled me off pretty quickly.

And they were just looking at me like, who the f*** are you? And at that point, did you realize my life is not normal anymore? Yeah, definitely. I would say that point, yeah. That's a good point. And were you like, oh, this is cool. I'm ready to ride this wave. I was like, I didn't know that this

was part of it bit of both i would say yeah it's a bit of responsibility having so many people watching you and then it's cool like meeting fans on the street and stuff like that that's an awesome good good ego boost right but when you but uh yeah but it had to have felt like a blind side for it to happen over the course of a year i mean to break 30 million subscribers to become the number one to surpass smosh if you look at how long it took smosh i mean it was a longer ramp up for the two of them yeah that they got more time to process it i I would assume so that for you, what happened to them over many years and then they kind of just, okay, I'm known, we're growing as YouTube grows,

then out of like left field, you come in out of nowhere over the course of a year and you're blowing past them and everybody else and it had to have been well like about like you were a surprise I wasn't yeah of course I was in Italy at this time too and no one watches YouTube that will some probably someone watching this listening to this like no there are a few. But yeah, no. So I was literally shut off from the world there.

Like they barely even have internet. So I felt like I was pretty shut off from all of it. I saw the numbers. I kind of got what I mean, but I never really felt it. So I never felt too much for it. And I still don't feel like it's that big of a thing. I don't think so. Well, and that's something I wanna unpack a little bit is the, you don't seem like a guy who is like,

I did this so I could become the most popular YouTuber in the world, but it has happened. And as much as you might want to say like, you know what, I'm just Felix, I'm a normal guy who this happened to. That may be true, but the reality is is that you're not normal, right? Your life will never be normal.

That's scary. The amount of people who know who you are. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Are a fan or have an opinion about what you do. Yeah. Do you stop and think about that aspect? Are you just like, no, I'm just going to kind of be here and I'm just a normal guy. I'm trying to be like that, but it's hard to not get caught up in what you just said, like with all the things.

I think especially when, like, for example, a couple weeks ago, I decided to turn off the comments because it was just too much spam. And it got picked up as a news story. And it just got spread out everywhere. It seemed like a lot of people covered it. And that's kind of made me feel like, okay, why do so many people care that I turn off the comments? To me, it's not even that big of a deal. But apparently now I'm in the spotlight.

up the comments to me it's like not even that big of a deal but apparently now like i'm i'm i'm in the spotlight like i'm i'm people pay attention to what i do in a way that i never imagined it's kind of crazy and that's that's kind of scary to me right that's kind of weird like why do people care why i don't get it well i don't want people to care in that way no well just kind of rehash your reasons uh-huh uh oh uh the main reason is that it's so easy to write comments on YouTube. And I feel like people just write a lot of gibberish. Like first or ha ha. Okay. Cool.

All these things, they don't really mean anything to me. It's just words. I can't, words out of context, I can't really place it as anything. words i can't words out of context i can't really place it as anything so by turning off the comments and making people having to reach out to me in a different way it cuts out that fat like those that things so all of a sudden i got comments from people who made the extra effort to write something that was thoughtful yeah thoughtful and meaningful and uh i missed that it was a hard decision to make like i try to find a different solution for so long with other things and it just didn't work out and i was kind of hoping for youtube to kind of fix it a little bit

make something like if i can turn off top comments i'd probably keep it i would say top comments is the biggest issue okay because people seem to exploit it and and i don't want to give them that liberty to do that and it's it's bad for my community too when when there's a bunch of gibberish up there and now you're sending people over to bro army.net is that still happening i'm doing that now yeah in the forums yeah um to me there's another aspect of this that my observation is you said that it opened your eyes to the, what your popularity really means when you make a decision and not only is it YouTube centric people talking about it. Yeah, exactly.

And YouTube themselves, but it's the press at large. It seemed to be that opened your eyes, whereas it sounds like what went into the decision was you as a creator making a decision and well, this is what I need from comments, this is my interaction with my fans, this is the experience I wanna have, but it wasn't, this is what it means politically,

you know, from a creating wave standpoint. I'm not, you weren't taking a stand as like protesting comments in general. You were just a creator making a decision for yourself. Yeah. I don't really. But it feels like, does it feel like there's an extra weight

to every decision you make now? Oh, yeah, yeah. I would love to be number two. Really? Yeah. I don't like the extra spotlight. That's not what I did YouTube. I don't care about attention or anything.

I'd rather just... That also comes with the comments. I would just enjoy making videos and having a connection with my fans. That's what I get a kick out of. Yeah. Anything else, it doesn't mean anything to me. So I just don't really care about it. One of the positive things of kind of realizing, to use your own word,

you were doing a vlog about the charity that you were promoting that was the water charity. Yeah. Sorry. What charity? Charity water. Charity water. I just said it backwards. I did that to something. As you were even giving a vlog talking about that,

you use the word power. I've found that this channel and having an audience is power. Yeah. And you wanna use, i think that's an example you did put power in quotes in air quotes i don't know if i said that but no you didn't say you you but you were kind of you were acknowledging that i guess i've got some power so you weren't saying you know you were kind of making light of it but yeah it is true yeah it is i noticed that early

especially there was this like king of the web did Did you guys do that? No, but familiar with it, yeah. Yeah. You know, you pull a lot of traffic, a lot of votes to this thing and you wouldn't be able to do that without some sort of quotation mark power. Right. And I was like, why not use that quotation mark power for something good? What does the pressure feel like i mean are there moments of fear or tremendous pressure that i have to get away or i mean there is pressure of making videos every day

i would say because you you don't really have that energy to do it every day everyone has a bad day i'm saying so some days but yeah no I love it I love what I'm doing it's so easy I play video games for a living so it's not that complicated I would say do you have aspirations to you know translate this success that you're experiencing right now into something bigger from an entertainment standpoint? Or is it just like, listen, guys, it's simple. I just want to play games. I want to connect with my bros.

Yeah. Or is it like, no, no, I've got the, there's the PewDiePie movie, there's the PewDiePie book, there's the PewDiePie media empire. I haven't really used any of that like media empire I probably should like I sell some t-shirts and I think that's it I don't know that doesn't

interest me but at the same time like you said I just want to I just want to connect with my brothers I want just want to play video games that's that's it like that's what I want to do but at the same time I'm not going to be able to do that forever you know there's no way so obviously why why do you say that well I I'm already like you you mentioned all the anxiety and pressure or whatever there is a lot of pressure there is definitely and

it's I just know I can't do it for too long like keep up the daily two videos a day that yeah creation there will not only that but like being in the spotlight and all that that pressure it's it's kind of exhausting i would say yeah um it's not somewhere i want to be all the time well for too long either have you have you thought about implementing some uh some strategies like okay well maybe I should get an editor. Yeah, yeah, I've thought about that, yeah. But you haven't yet. I haven't, no. Everything is going so fine. I don't want to mess with it.

No, I get that. Yeah. The thing we didn't talk about when we talked about your incredible rise to fame was how do you explain it? You're not the only guy doing uh let's play video you're not the only guy who's making funny commentary right how what is your best explanation as to why you are the one that sort of separated himself from the pack i i mean i wish i had a good answer but it's such a complicated thing to try to explain i know a lot of people love to make it simplified like they'll say oh well he he's swedish or like oh yeah well he got famous out

of these montages or whatever but it's so many factors into one thing i would say so you can't really just say that um i would say that consistency that I had that's like people really responded having a close connection with my fans which I had from the beginning I feel like doing something

unique which kind of lifted me from this huge market of gamers and being a unique persona, I would say. That's all it takes. Do you think another factor is what's going on

underneath the hood of YouTube and how it works, even though the algorithm... I got a lot of free s*** from YouTube. I feel like, okay... well like once my channel reached a certain point i didn't have to change much or improve much to uh for it to keep growing like it exponentially grew a lot more even though i wasn't doing anything for it like i feel like i was riding a freeway from youtube because all of a sudden i'm featured here and there and all that kind of stuff so yeah i have youtube to thank definitely i feel like i don't know it just happened that way and we're not really none of us are privy to how that works we can just observe that it is working

yeah but it but it was you know it's not something i consciously like did or anything like that i also moved you weren't mailed some sort of algorithm handbook no a lot like i moved from code i moved from sweden to italy and a lot of people thought okay well he was featured on the swedish front page and the italian front page at the same time but no there's only football on the italian front page right i was never featured anywhere else and there's no nothing like that i i don't know like i don't all of a sudden like so many people i don't understand how is it even possible yeah i look at the numbers and like thousands of people hit subscribe every day like how is that possible like i can't make sense out of it youtube must be helping somehow i feel like i can't give myself too much credit now let's talk about's talk about the perception of traditional media.

Now first of all, traditional journalists and traditional media, they don't understand YouTube, period, right? They're getting it more and more. Yeah, there's certain kind of. But specifically, okay, 2013, the Variety article by Andrew Wallenstein about you. I think the title of the article was something along the lines of, the Variety article by Andrew Wallenstein about you.

I think the title of the article was something along the lines of, "'If this is YouTube's top talent, we're all doomed.'" Right? Yeah, I remember that. He described your videos as aggressive stupidity and psychobabble. I love that, psychobabble. It's kind of true, I would say. So what's your response to that perspective?

I mean, that's very... I would say maybe not him specifically, but I feel like a lot of traditional media are very naive to the way they approach it. It's a lot more than just like psychobabble. What would you... If that guy was here, would you be willing to say, say well let's watch this video and and what would you tell him um well i mean what i would tell anyone from from old media the reason why youtube is so successful is because we have a close connection with our with our fans like we

engage with them in a different way that is impossible with old media it's just people watch youtube in a different way and it's more engaging and it's more entertaining tainting that way well way yeah i don't right we we don't have that wall between the viewer and the creator like in in tv it doesn doesn't, that's the success behind it, I would say. Like, no one would care about watching someone play video games, right? Like, why would anyone watch that? It doesn't make any sense. Like, why would you watch someone else play a video game?

But maybe you'll watch your friend sitting next to the couch playing video games. That's pretty fun, right? That's more entertaining. Right, and it's kind of like that. You sit next to me in a couch and we play video games together and I make psychobabble to it. Well, you know, it's interesting because that is a principle at work. I think everybody can relate. Everybody of a certain age can relate to going over to the guy's house who was good at the game. You know, the guy who was good at the game,

the guy who had a subscription to Nintendo. Like our guy was like Chad Landrum. Was that his name? Oh, yeah. You know, who had a subscription to Nintendo Power. You know, holy ****. I had that. That was amazing.

But he was, you know, yeah, he was knowledgeable, but there was no friend who was hilarious and I was laughing at him or entertained. I think that's an interesting aspect of that. It's the two principles meeting. It's something that is probably the common denominator in terms of interest amongst a whole generation. Right.

And then they want to sit down and they want to watch that dude play that game. And you know what? If he's really funny, that's even better. I think when you really think about it, it totally makes sense. Yeah. How do you feel,

even from the gaming community perspective, how do you feel being essentially the ambassador of that community? You're the guy that everyone on Earth goes and plays video games with. I guess. You know what I mean? Yeah, I guess I am. It's kinda weird.

I need to step up my game, what is this? So much pressure now. I mean, it's cool. It's awesome. I like it. I mean, but do you want to shift from being the most entertaining friend on the couch to the spokesman and the role model? Maybe a bit of both.

Why not? Have you had pressure to clean up your content for kids? I'd like to do it, but at the same time, I feel like I shouldn't. I mean, like, it's probably like I cuss a lot in my videos. I don't know why. It comes with the video gaming, I guess. And I made attempts to try and tone that down. But it just doesn't work out

and it never works out and I feel bad because I know there are younger people watching and I don't want to teach them how to cuss and stuff like that but at the same time I feel like that shouldn't be my responsibility either I don't know maybe I'm coming up a little this year but I just feel like I shouldn't have to change how I make videos because of who's watching. I should just make the videos that I always wanted to make.

And that's the way it's fun for me. And that's more important to me. Well, it's interesting that you said you tried. Yeah. You know, was that an external pressure or just something that you felt like you wanted to try to do? External. Yeah. Oh, really?

Yeah. My girlfriend doesn't like me swearing. Oh, that's okay. That's kind of external. I'll try to swear in Swedish instead. That helps. When she's like, when I can't understand it, that's better. Well, same in my videos.

People love when I cuss in Swedish. But she wasn't like, save the kid's ears. She was like, save my ears. I don't like it. Right? Well, no. No. It wasn't so much in videos.

It was well like I felt bad. I know there's like I don't want to be the guy who cusses a lot. I don't like that I cuss a lot either I would say. So yeah. But it didn't take. You tried it. I tried it. I even had like this electric shock collar.

I'm like a dog. And I would shock myself every time I cuss. tried it just i tried it i even had like this electric shock collar from like a dog and i would shock myself every time um i cuss well i think you need another person to do that that's that was yeah you need yeah you need marcia there to do that for you i know i know i know she wasn't available at the time was that in a video i was that was a video electric shock collar challenge few million it did it's a pretty funny thumbnail uh well let's talk okay go ahead no i don't know i upped the um and what is it called the current oh yeah yeah uh each time oh and it got really bad i don't understand how yeah we've been shocked by a number of things

i bet you have gotta get those views. Do it for the views. I want to talk about the business side too. Sure. Because it's no mystery that you're making money hand over fist.

That's how this works. So, I mean, how does that change your life? And is that just like oh well this is i don't know how to manage this um my lifestyle not much i would say but it like i remember when i started off making youtube like i was flipping burgers i didn't have money enough to visit my girlfriend we lived in the slums and all that stuff so i wouldn't say much has changed but it the pressure of having to worry about if you can pay the rent or not that's gone and that's amazing to

not do having that pressure i would say what's did you go out and have a splurge thing that you were like what's a splurge like a I'm buying a Ferrari or a helicopter. I'm so boring. A helicopter. I would love to buy a helicopter. Well, you should look into it. LEL, let's buy a helicopter. I can fly to LA.

It's great. Yeah, it takes a while in a helicopter. It probably takes a while. I don't know if you can cross the ocean in it. Has anyone attempted that? Well, plus I'd recommend you get someone else to fly the helicopter. That yeah i need a pilot to buy the pilot with the thing yeah i'll probably do that but no was there a big ticket item i got my computer i'm a nerd like that's all i want i want my computer and then it writes i'm good like i can i don't care about much else right yeah no i don't know and what about you know i

know you've said in the past that okay i'm not really i'm not really interested in the branded video thing i used to be so worried about branded stuff like i would used to be so worried what people would think and like the word sellout if people would call me that i would that would just be like the worst thing ever but then i realized people are calling me sellout even if I don't even do branded stuff. I can literally promote stuff that I just love. And people are like, how much did they pay you to link this? Yeah, right. So I was like, well, I'll just do stuff that seems fun.

And that's been great. I love it. I did the thing where I got to go to the catacombs and do like a horror set there and if it opens up cooler opportunities and why the not like i i don't yeah i got over that it's not that bad people people are so they have the wrongest idea of what a sellout is like if i get labeled that then it's usually for the wrong things so it it's like whatever. I don't know. Right. I'm a sellout.

There you go. Well, you're talking to two sellouts. I guess one other thing in the business category is you're signed with Maker, but why would you need to be signed with a multi-channel network in general? The thing about gamers is we're kind of forced into a network. YouTube doesn't want to partner up gaming channels. So I was kind of forced into a contract with Machinima.

That's the only way I could have ever... And that was amazing when that came. I was like, holy s***, I can monetize my videos, finally. And that's because of the licensing of the video games. Yeah, the licensing of the video games. No one wants to take that. So they make the networks do that. And then there was a lot of bad stuff with that and all that stuff.

So what was the conclusion to that? Was there a you have to share a certain amount with the video games? I don't know anything about that. Well, the bad thing about it was that the contract said that it was perpetual. So you would literally sign up forever, your channel, to this company or whatever, and they would take a large cut out of your paycheck.

And that's the only way you could monetize your video. Make any money. Yeah. And they were the only thing. So it was a really bad thing and it's a shame i would say for for and and it's still pretty bad for smaller channels because they're forced into networks they don't that much yeah but there hasn't necessarily been a resolution to the whole copyright i mean there was a fallout i don't know if you heard about

that there was like a big fallout a couple months back YouTube changed something and then all of a sudden people's videos were flagged left and right like crazy like half of their videos would get taken down because they got flagged by these random gaming companies and even

the gaming companies didn't even know it was happening because YouTube changed something and it got messed up. Did that affect you? Luckily, no. Because I'm a big channel and I'm more protected. That's a good thing about the network. They would help with that. But they wouldn't help everyone with that. So it was

kind of chaos, I would say. But basically it's YouTube takes a certain percentage of ad revenue associated with every one of your videos. And then with a normal creator, with no copyright issues, they would take the remaining percentage themselves. And maybe cut in an MCN if you wanted to work through

an MCN. Yeah. But for, if you're playing a video game, the video game maker gets some percentage. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's kind of a... The video game maker doesn some percentage. No, no, no. The video game maker doesn't make any money off of your videos. Well, he makes money off the sales, or she makes extra money off the sales.

Because you're promoting the video. I am. Yeah, I've made a lot of games successful. It's true. No doubt. Absolutely no doubt. Yeah, there's been a lot of games that, like Skate 3, for example, they had to, that's like a five-year-old game or something like that.

And they're restocking those right now because. Well, it's interesting, like an argument could be made that, oh, if guys like us put a certain product in the video. Yeah. And which people will pay us to do. Yeah. It's like without getting permission the product is mad about that because more people didn't go buy the product i mean that's that's a

it is a bit of an awkward thing i would say i mean in in some sense it kind of makes sense that they would get paid because we're kind of using their craft to like my videos would not exist without their game like there's no way they they'd be fine without me but uh even though they benefit a lot without me they'd be fine without me i wouldn't be able to go without them so right but it's it's mutually beneficial yeah it is i it's definitely mutual but i still feel like i i have to be humble to that fact that well yeah well well that's the thing no matter how big you get or youtube gets yeah um if they decide listen we're we are going to fight this battle and we're going to say no we're going to file a copyright claim for everything they could shut it down yeah but that would never

happen there would still be people who realize okay this guy can play my game that would be huge for me so they would let me and they youtube couldn't take control out of that so so the games that you're playing and pretty much across youtube the games that everyone's playing they're not the those video game manufacturers or whoever is involved in that whatever they own they're not getting a part of your ad revenue no your response is well they're just they're getting free promotion for me yeah so that's the flip side of it yeah but does this impact what games you decide to play and what not to play personally or professionally the thing is like i have very different tastes of games uh what i play uh for youtube and myself i like something more engaging and more story driven and stuff like that but that usually

doesn't do well on YouTube. But at the same time, it's more fun to make commentary over really dumb games. That's the same. So that's usually what I end up doing. So you choose based on the comedy and your performance. You can get the best performance and get the best performing videos. But it's not a business decision.

I mean, technically it is. I mean, that's what... Well, it's a bit in terms of I'm not going to use this game because I don't want to promote them. Oh. Or I want to promote this game. It happens, but not often enough that I would know anything to say about it. It happens, yeah. So looking into the future, you kind of hinted at i can't do this

forever well i mean what do we expect should we expect more should we expect different should we expect the same should we just be waiting for you to quit same you're gonna retire like in the next six months are you just gonna say that's it no no it's we're not we're not i'm not there i'm just saying i i would love for someone else to take the number one and i can kind of just do my own thing but not so much in the spotlight who's gonna do that i don't know can someone just i mean do you look at the charts and you're like you guys can do it you guys are doing well no it's not gonna happen we're not gonna do that please so you don't have a prediction or a secret hope honestly what I think is gonna happen is next year

I'm probably gonna have to get an editor and I'm probably gonna have to look at it differently for my sanity I would say no doubt I think yeah I'm planning next year to make that move but yeah

that's only in two months. Yeah. Maybe three months. Yeah. I'm not good at math. Or calendars. So that's your New Year's resolution is to get some help. Well, yeah.

I want to, like, because I spend all my time editing. That's where all my time just slinks away. I could easily record a lot during one day and just be fine for a week. But I have to edit it and that takes so much time. So if you succeeded that, what are you going to do with that time? Different types of videos or personal? I wish I could say. Oh, so there is

a something you just can't say. Definitely. Oh, wow. Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. Yeah. I'm sorry. I wish I could talk about it. But so we can expect a big project from PewDiePie in 2015. That's exciting. Yeah.

Should be fun. I'm excited. Is it going to be on your channel? I don't know. I don't know. It could be. It could not be. Is it going to be on our channel?

I hope so. Okay, all right. In a lot of Ear Biscuits, we get to the point at the end where we just start asking questions, and sometimes I feel like we're not well-equipped to ask great questions here, but it is probably a movie, like a totally different type of movie.

That's going to be my guess. No, it's not. Oh, it's not? I That's going to be my guess. No, it's not. Oh, it's not? I don't have any interest in that. Oh, it's a video game, Link. It's a big video game. It's the PewDiePie video game. That's pretty...

I mean... I'm probably going to do that, but that's not it. I'm probably going to do that. I would love to make a video game. That's been my goal from the beginning. Is it in development? That's why I wanted my channel to grow. No, not i have why not i don't know like it's i want to find someone who's equally passionate about making it as i am and that's really hard right you've got to find a

well-qualified right do you have an idea do you know what it would be oh i have i have like three games that i want to make one would be a horror game because that's what I do. It makes sense. But it would be more story-driven and character-interesting because I feel like that's what a lot of games lack. They're just trying to spook you and that's it. And it's kind of boring after a while. I want something more death and try to scare you in ways

that really hasn't been tried before. I feel like people do the jump scares and that's it. It's kind of getting kind of old I want something new and I feel like there's some explore unexplored areas there. Oh, okay and then I want to make the PewDiePie game For the for the fans It makes sense. I don't know. Yeah yeah all right what would that look like it would probably be a rage game like just something to piss you off or something oh really yeah okay but you're not

gonna get to making those until you do the big project that you can't tell us about that we haven't yet guessed so we should keep trying one step at a time i get overwhelmed by just answering emails so yeah well listen man uh it's been great to get to know you and hear your story and yeah I feel like I've just been talking a lot I would love to hear you guys well we'll come on your podcast which is the thing that you're doing I just guessed it 2015 I have a podcast

well we'll gladly come on it's the broken podcast yeah I would love to have you guys over it's great okay yeah done well sign the table thanks again for coming in I'm signing right now thank you so much I'm glad to have you guys over. It's great. Okay. Yeah. Done. Well, sign the table. Thanks again for coming in, man. I'm signing right now. Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here.

It's an honor to write this signature. It's almost done. And there you have it, our conversation with the most popular person on the platform. What a conversation. Someone who has experienced so much success, I definitely, a lot of our questions were around, what know, what do you think about this? All this success, how is it impacting you? How do you process this? And I definitely get the sense as we asked him those questions that, well, he still is processing it.

This is a process that he continues to experience. Yeah, it's uncharted territory to the max. I mean, how could you have anticipated, how could anyone have anticipated, and this is not to denigrate anything that he's achieved or his work on his channel, but how could anyone have anticipated the massive level of success? I get the impression that he didn't either.

And that he isn't necessarily interested in maintaining that success, at least at the level that he's at right now. He virtually, well, he essentially invited someone to come and take the number one spot. He doesn't want the number one spot on YouTube. Right, but that's not gonna be easy. I mean, the next personality on the list is Olazoy Herman

and then Smosh right underneath him. And they're each at 19.5 million subscribers and 18.9. So basically, you know, 10 million subscribers below PewDiePie. So that's not a number that's easily made up. It's lonely at the top. they say that for a reason. And you know, I think that as he's still processing it, he still seems like you look at the comments thing.

And I think it's a perfect example of he's operating as a user, as a normal creator, you know, not operating as the number one creator in the world kind of a thing. He's operating in the way that he wants. He wants to interact with comments in a certain way. He wants to interact with his audience. It's not that he's making decisions as number one.

Also, he's not an- To his credit. He is an enterprise, but he does not function as an enterprise. He is an individual. He is an enterprise, but he does not function as an enterprise. He is an individual. He's a dude. He's a dude who's the number one personality on YouTube. And you can let this dude know what you think of this Ear Biscuit.

Please hashtag Ear Biscuits and let Felix know at PewDiePie, P-U-Die-Pie, D-I-E-P-I-E, with a P-E-W in front of it. I always spell things totally, like in a way that doesn't, it's totally unhelpful. It doesn't connect the dots for me. Add PewDiePie and let him know what you thought. You already know how it's spelled.

Of his story. Okay, and that brings season one of Ear Biscuits to a close. The collection, my collection of season one, series one of Ear Biscuits to a close. The collection, my collection of season one, series one of Ear Biscuits is now complete with little Felix sliding in there. And by saying season one is coming to a close, what that is essentially saying is that,

well, there will be a season two. When will that happen? Well, we aren't going to tell you that right now because we are still making decisions about that, but we will let you know. You can rest assured that we will let you know via Facebook, Twitter, Good Mythical Morning, all the ways that we communicate with you normally,

just make sure you're following us there and you will have a heads up to know when Ear Biscuit season two is going to start. And I'm not gonna say that you can provide input into how Ear Biscuits should be retooled if in any way, but hey, you're the audience and you have opinions and I'm not gonna deny you the right to communicate those with us, hashtag Ear Biscuits,

but I'm not gonna make any promises that we're gonna deliver on any of those suggestions. But you can suggest a way. I mean, there's a couple of things that we can rule out from the beginning. I mean, things like- We're not gonna do it in flight. Do it in flight, okay.

We're not gonna be recording these while hovering weightless in space. I was just gonna say, we'll probably keep doing it in English. That's one thing I think is safe to say. It'll probably still be me and Link doing it. There was talk for a while of Link taking a week than me taking a week.

Actually there was never talk of that at all. That could be on the table. Please don't suggest that. It'll be the two of us, it will be in English. Those are some things that you can count on. We want to change the name of it to Beer-iskits. No, Beer-iskits is taken already because that's what we were gonna call it

and then we went with Ear Biscuits. Right. And when I say it'll be me and Link, I mean it'll be us and then it'll be other people too, just like it has been. Unless it's not. Unless it's not, unless it's two, maybe five other people.

Can we make it any clearer that we haven't thought about this yet? Yeah, we have to discuss this offline. Or we could keep discussing it here and not only get nowhere, but confuse everybody. Let's take this conversation offline. That's another thing that people say in the business world. Or off air. I got a hard stop on this conversation offline. That's another thing that people say in the business world. Or off air.

I got a hard stop on this conversation. We really gotta get a 30,000 foot view on this situation. And then we can make some decisions and really, the rubble will meet the road. The rebel will meet the road? The rubble. What? Gosh.

The rubble, the rubber will meet the road. All right, guys, that's the promise. Rubbles will meet roads. Rubble. When you say something like rubble and you're meaning rubble, like with a R-U-B-B-L-E, it doesn't sound stupid, but if you think that I'm saying rubber

and I say rubble, I sound stupid. Well, and let's not limit it to that statement. All right, see you season two.