YouTube king Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg went live with an emergency Fortnite stream in an effort to stay above T-Series on February 3 – and he had a humorous reaction to the broadcast’s success.
PewDiePie discussed the stream in an episode of ‘Pew News’ on February 6, where he noted that his YouTube broadcast garnered more live viewers than the entirety of Fortnite on Twitch.
“Let this be an inspirational message for all of you,” Pewds joked. “[I’m] the biggest Fortnite streamer. …I’m the greatest Fortnite streamer! Let it be known.”
PewDiePie went on to address his previous claims that he would never stream the battle royale title on his channel, jokingly claiming that it was a last resort in the face of T-Series’ ever-increasing sub count.
“Look, desperate times call for desperate measures,” Pewds said sarcastically. “I did what I had to do, and I’m not proud of it, dammit.”
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In fact, PewDiePie had teased the idea of streaming Fortnite during a previous video in November of 2018, calling the concept ‘genius’ – despite vehemently denying any chance of playing the game “just for the sake of views.”
PewDiePie’s Fortnite stream sent him to the top of YouTube’s trending page for gaming, and reportedly saw over 300,000 live viewers.
His plan seemed to pan out, as his subscriber count shot up 50,000 subs during the broadcast’s duration.
While PewDiePie now sits at over 83 million subscribers, the margin between both channels continues to dwindle, with T-Series just under 100,000 subs away from overtaking YouTube’s biggest independent creator.