Game Theory: How PewDiePie LOST YouTube to T Series

gather round all you bros and non bros as i tell you the story of how pewdiepie got dethroned from the number one most subscribed spot on youtube [Music] hello Internet welcome to game theory the show that I've heard through the grapevine gets passed around by YouTube employees whenever I do a meta theory about how the platform works so um hey guys good to see you again sorry you missed out on the ending of the finacial zouk eh hey by the way thanks for watching your own platform and your creators glad you survived the gdpr sorry about that whole european article 13 stuff let us know what we can do to help but now guys I need to talk to him you know everyone you know who else apparently sees these episodes other youtubers when I do episodes that talk about him at least hey I don't blame him for skipping all the other episodes about half and Luigi's dingdong doesn't speak to their interests anyway in the spotlight today is PewDiePie again for what honestly maybe the very last time I can hear a Swedish accented sigh of relief coming from across the ocean but seriously I am a huge believer in PewDiePie even if I sometimes don't agree with how he delivers his jokes I just want to put my probe PewDiePie support out there since it's easy to confuse an analysis of what he does with a critique of what he does okay well that video was a critique anyway I've said it for years offline felix is one of the smartest creators on this platform in a way that the media doesn't really give him credit for evolving himself in his brand no less than three times over the course of his career away from gaming before gaming on YouTube started to take a hit he transitioned in comedian commentator reactor voice of the platform and eventually the destroyer of memes that he is today and deviating from what your audience loves to watch you do is a huge challenge on YouTube so to do it three times or more is really impressive it's not an accident that he just passed his 5 year anniversary as the largest channel on the platform but it's also not an accident that this will be the final few weeks he's able to celebrate owning that title you see all good things must come to an end and PewDiePie is about to hand over his YouTube most subscribed crown to a new channel hailing from India t-series a channel that right now is gaining over a hundred thousand subscribers a day over three to four million subscribers per month 5 mil on YouTube in 6 months never oh sorry Jake looks like you got punched in the face one too many times check your math 23 million in six months and you got yourself T series that ain't never been done before anyway it looks like T series should be passing PewDiePie in less than two months from when I'm writing this and probably only a couple weeks after this video comes out especially given that the more videos that draw attention to this massive transition the faster it's gonna happen but if that level of growth to you 23 million subscribers in six months seems weird well that's because it is T series has some unusual things going for it this transition is more than just a YouTube channel going from number two most subscribe to number one this is a statement on the global shift in power and upheaval of the old guard and a byproduct of a massive battle going on for the future of the Internet and if you think I'm exaggerating I am not in the slightest so in this episode I'm gonna show you how this channel is literally the perfect storm of a youtube channel and also indicative of this battle that's going on for the future of online culture and when I'm done the fact that T series is taking over YouTube won't just be surprising it'll seem almost inevitable here's what I mean to start off with the first factor is kind of obvious lower competition this is the argument I used way back in the day about how PewDiePie took over YouTube and in the media coverage 40 series I've seen a lot of coverage that cites that theory and sure this is certainly a part of it t series is a big fish in a small creator pond in a massive audience ocean that is India where YouTube has 225 million monthly users t-series is one of only a small handful of channels that are professionally produced and no one is gonna be able to touch him when it comes to content quality and sheer number of uploads they're doing between four and six fully produced beautifully done videos a day it means that when you start a new YouTube account in India what you're seeing first and foremost on the home page is you guessed it t-series recommended videos recommended channels to subscribe to for each and every new Indian YouTube account that's made their t-series is the center but this is just the tip of the iceberg next T series is primarily a music channel which at first might not seem like that big of a deal until you look at the top hundred channels on YouTube notice something as of the Damned writing the script 38 of the top 100 YouTube channels are music it seems insane when you think about all the other types of content that exists out there but it also makes a ton of sense music is broadly appealing it's global it's international you can listen to it no matter what age race or gender you are and it's infinitely replayable there's a reason why YouTube spend most of 2017 in an excruciating standoff with all the major US music labels in order to keep music on YouTube we should probably be thanking them for it by the way music industry has run a lot like a mafia anyway the point is that YouTube stands to make massive amounts of money from music channels oh yeah and it's also been known to do a little creative math shall we say when it comes to subscribership of those channels music's biggest stars for instance when Meghan Trainor established an official YouTube channel YouTube funneled all the subscriptions from unofficial Meghan Trainor channels into the official channel essentially otto's subscribing them to an official Meghan Trainor channel to make it look like she had a substantially larger presence on the platform except of course they did it all in one day meaning that Meghan Trainor magically gained almost 9 million subscribers overnight oops now do I think that's what's going on with t-series not necessarily with less competition and a lot of super valuable music content at their disposal t-series does have a lot of negotiating power to use to get what it wants out of YouTube but even if YouTube isn't juicing the numbers on their behalf their videos are the pinnacle of what advertisers want making it ideal for getting a ton of organic promotion in YouTube's recommended algorithms but how much money there is to be made in music and how much leverage music content companies like VEVO have there is a serious incentive to promote t-series wherever and whenever YouTube can because doing so is just a win-win for both parties so t-series has less competition and is in a Content category that YouTube really cares about right now but that only helps them indirectly except that they also get direct access to YouTube on top of that other people have pointed out that t-series is a production company which is a hundred percent true but almost no one has pointed out that they're also an MCN or multi-channel network containing at least ten channels all of which are over three million subscribers and MCN gives you a direct line to youtube that most regular creators don't have the privilege of since you know there's just way too many creators out there to make that sort of thing work and since they're MCN contains a whole bunch of huge channels not just one all those channels can be used to promote each other if you want to know why that's so important you can watch my episode on YouTube watch loops from last year and how they made Jake and Logan Paul popular it's worth another look to understand how related channels can launch each other into massive success I'll leave a link to it right yeah gotta love those ID cards so that's already a lot and that alone would be enough to ensure that T series is having a lot of success on YouTube but not the levels of success that it's having on YouTube so what if I told you that there's a lot more riding on T series being the number one channel on YouTube than just bragging rights and the rabid scrutiny of places like Vanity Fair the BBC in the Wall Street Journal that's right this is a much more significant moment than people realize for YouTube for all of social media and for international politics here's why to understand why t series is gonna be the number one channel on the platform we have to know a little bit more about the state of YouTube and frankly the state of the Internet as a whole there is a massive war going on on the other side of the world from where you the majority of game theory viewers in the US are the war for the Internet in India that's right this is a real thing and it's having massive implications for the future of media and Google the advertising behemoth who owns YouTube is looking to win but one big thing is standing in their way and his name is Felix PewDiePie Shelburne think it sounds far-fetched think again internet penetration in the u.s. stop giggling internet penetration in the US which is basically a measure of how many people are online has slowed in the last couple years it's still going up but at this point we're pushing ninety percent of the people in the US who are on the Internet so it's like literally everyone except for my grandmother that's actually not true she actively watches the live streams she stalks my tweets and she sends me way too many animated emojis grandma's so proud of you honey but you forgot to factor in gravity during that Night meteor episode you too grandma anyway practically everyone in America is online these days India though isn't like that at least not yet but they're coming online fast with massive growth rates since 2011 it's the world's second biggest market and still has huge untapped potential for bringing people online enter the big players of Facebook Google and Microsoft as of April of this year people in India use whatsapp a Facebook property more than any other app followed by Facebook messenger another Facebook property which means Google and by extension YouTube have some catching up to do if they want to be competing for the hearts minds mobile data and most importantly online advertising space of the Indian nation right now there are over 850 million people not online in India who are viewed as up for grabs by these companies why well it's important to remember what we think of as social media sites are all just really advertising sites when it comes down to at Facebook it's an advertising website where they show you pictures of your sister's new dog in between ads Google is an advertising website where you get to search for stuff so that they can advertise to you better YouTube is an advertising website where they show you cool videos that fuse pop culture and learning hosted by a cringy yet endearing host who loves puns too much videos that you probably just want to subscribe to by ringing the bell the reason why it's so important for YouTube and Facebook to be appealing to Indian internet users is because the bigger the user base for those apps the bigger the advertising base they can tap into and while YouTube is behind Facebook at the moment if the top channel on YouTube is a native Indian creator or at the very least features content created by native Indian creators the site all of a sudden becomes a much more Indian friendly platform at least based on statistics and in all of the PR press coverage about YouTube these companies are going after the Indian markets so aggressively that Indian media is actually calling Google Facebook and Microsoft digital colonists because they're invading the country like actual Europeans did 200 years ago and you might be asking yourself what's wrong with getting Facebook and YouTube in India everyone should be able to watch Jeffrey star drive a hot pink Rolls Royce I know I did it the thing is it gets really complicated to win over users Google Microsoft and Facebook are offering stuff like free internet or free data with stuff like Facebook's free basics program to help rural India come online years and sometimes even decades before the country's own infrastructure would be able to support it this allows a lot of great things to happen allowing kids to get a better education allowing people to bring businesses online and allowing individuals to connect with each other in ways that they couldn't before and all of those are incredible however it's also a Power Move for these companies who know that if the population starts using their products they'll be hooked on them for years allowing companies like Facebook to recoup their investment and more importantly keep their competitors like Google from getting there first the other thing that most people don't realize is that big businesses influence everything including politics and that's where people are starting to get really nervous after getting our ears talked off about Russian BOTS tampering in the US elections you'd think that the US was the one with big social media problems when it came to politics but we are nothing compared to India in India fake news is everywhere and recent elections have been completely overrun with false campaigning worse yet what people really don't realize is that companies like Facebook work directly with candidates or elected officials in order to help them build their social media presence so the line between educating a public figure about social media and helping a political campaign can start to get really blurry really fast for instance quote in India the company Facebook helped develop the online presence of Prime Minister Modi who now has more Facebook followers than any other world leader and quotes working directly with platform makes a huge difference and doing favors for big world leaders also puts these huge companies in a good position to negotiate when it comes to laws that help them on top of that if the people of your country really love a company or a service it makes it really hard to regulate those companies imagine if the US government tried to pass a law that limited the hours a day that you can use Facebook or YouTube it would have no chance those sites are too important in people's lives at this point so the long story short there is huge money and influence to be had from any social media company who can embed themselves in a country and in this case the country on everyone's mind is India in order to get that money in power though Google needs to start ingratiating itself to the users of India which means Google Plus just kidding its YouTube but in order to do that they need to make YouTube a priority in India or rather they need to make Indian YouTube a priority in India if you're like me and you follow all of YouTube social handles and literally see every customer complaint ticket they address you know they've been eyeing India for a long time back in 2014 YouTube started India fan fests where they brought creators from around the world to a major city in India in 2017 it was Mumbai to talk perform and meet fans on the ground it seemed like a weird move given that in 2014 India only had 16 channels over 1 million subscriber compare that to the top hundred channels in the u.s. back then all having 3.5 million subscribers and over but fan fest wasn't meant to serve a huge fan base at the time it was meant to grow one events like fan fest made it clear that YouTube cared about Indian creators but more importantly it cared about inspiring Indian viewers to watch and Indian creators to develop and grow their own audiences in the country as of 2018 fan fest is expanding to all the tier 1 cities in India using the same build it and they will come mentality YouTube also built a full production space in the Bollywood film district in Mumbai giving any creators in India access to production equipment space resources and film school style classes as a result India now has 5 channels in the top hundred most subscribed on YouTube and 12 channels out of the top hundred in the most viewed category that means having over 7 billion views and at this point I'm sure you're saying ok great everyone wants viewers in India but what does that have to do with t-series now this is all important because in the race for Internet users in India t-series represents exactly what YouTube wants in this system it's a channel that does music behaves professionally because it's a production company produces a ton of content that's brand friendly and is honestly a fantastic symbol of this entire battle for the Internet it sends a clear message to viewers in India about YouTube YouTube is a home for you it's a place where Indian content creators not only succeed but also dominate you should be watching YouTube because it's not just cool videos it's cool Indian videos that you yourself can make and consume so after all of that you can see how the rapid rise of t-series isn't a matter of luck and it is certainly no coincidence it's a major production company that actually owns a ton of enormous channels all working in a low competition country to produce music the most sought-after of all content on the platform the country they're working in is also the biggest hotbed for technology growth in the entire world with every social technology platform begging to pour money and resources into supporting them promoting them and exposing them to new fans and new users those same platforms are looking to undercut all the other ones and win over the hearts of the second biggest country in the world so they can rake in billions of dollars and potentially influence the politics and industry of India for decades to come so yeah feliks this might not be a train that you can stop but in all seriousness if you think I credited your success to some outside factors they would have literally been nothing compared to the advantages that t-series currently has here and while they're the first major production company to top the charts of YouTube I am pretty sure that they won't be the last I honestly think that this transition is the end of individual channels winning out on YouTube when it comes to subscribership and the start of this new era of production and media companies topping these charts which honestly is really sad PewDiePie not only the longest to hold the title but the last unless all you theorists rally together and get game theory up there subscribe buttons down below you know where to click it if you're in India spread the good word now if you'll excuse me I'm off to learn Hindi but wait actually I need to address a bit of drama that headed my way in context of this episode Felix I get that the video I did on you five years ago bothers you I still hate it and I think he should delete it you think that I pegged all of your success on your status as an international channel or that you somehow circumvented the system the thing is at the same time I mean that video I was actively working in YouTube analytics not at YouTube but as a consultant for some of the biggest channels on the platform and I saw the effects of being a successful international channel I saw it in the data time and time again english-speaking international channels would cross over into the u.s. very easily giving them huge in their home country and in the US but us channels trying to cross outward into a different country had to hit a certain threshold abused in that country before something in the data just flipped like a switch and then suddenly view started to pour in from that new part of the world in your video you even described seeing this for yourself when I started off doing YouTube there was a lot of ways to poke through the system you describe American channels cheating the system of YouTube at the time what people did was they would set their channel as Swedish even though they were American they did that by setting their channels official country codes other than the US where there was less competition to get onto the home pages but here's the thing if indeed this technique worked which you seem to acknowledge it annoys me because I was so frustrated by and by this back in 2013 then wouldn't you by moving between countries while still uploading whether you intended it or not wouldn't it also work for you you being an english-speaking channel whose channel country was set to Sweden and was uploading from multiple different European countries whether it was intentional or not you somehow benefited from the same system you literally confirm my theory in your video critiquing my theory but here's what I will say because again I like you and I respect you I don't want to be a negative force in the YouTube community and I don't want to belittle what you yourself have done so here's what I'll say I've worked with a lot of channels over the last few years literally hundreds of channels since I first did that video about you so if you do want to clear the books and potentially refute that theory that I did back in 2013 heck let's do it hit me up on Twitter and let us figure out a way where you can share your channel's viewership data with me so I can see your analytics if I wasn't writing my initial assessment I would be more than happy to say it here or anywhere 100% serious because the thing is if I'm not right and your dad is gonna be really interesting and frankly I would be learning something cool about your channel and about how YouTube worked in 2013 and I'm sure it's a story that a lot of people would be interested in it was an important culturally shaping moment so that data and that story is really important to tell correctly and honestly there's nothing to lose on your end at worst I just keep the video up and I don't do a correction theory to me learning something new would totally be worth it even if it means publicly admitting that I was wrong I know I get a lot of flack on this for being this know-it-all douchebag that's part of the character of the channel I think I'm pretty sure that I have it right but I'm not an unreasonable guy if I'm wrong I am wrong and I am totally cool with that if I'm wrong I'm really curious about it honestly I don't want you to feel bad about what I said or that I'm taking away your accomplishments or anything because I've done really good work on this platform anyway the balls in your court okay okay brofist up you don't do brofist anymore but okay hey by the way thanks for including us in that meme review that 1:10 that was really funny see I watch your content but hey that's just a challenge our YouTube challenge hopefully we can work something out Felix

Channel: The Game Theorists

Views: 4,720,477

Rating: 4.5408201 out of 5

Keywords: pewdiepie, t series, pewdiepie vs t series, t series vs pewdiepie, t series songs, t series mixtape, pewdiepie fortnite, tseries, happy wheels pewdiepie, felix kjellberg, Felix, memes, pewdiepie memes, lwiay, pewdiepie doki doki, meme review pewdiepie, game theory, game theorist, matpat, meta theory, youtube theory, game theory pewdiepie, game theory t series, matpat pewdiepie, drama, youtuber drama, spill tea, meme compilation, pewds, pewdie, t-series

Id: a0UGWdbIm8Y

Length: 20min 25sec (1225 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/UnmeshDatta]

Hey MatPat, great job explaining the whole situation. As an Indian and a very long time fan of Pewdiepie (read that with the 2013 intro voice), I can say that you have captured the issue so well. They are a very large company and they help produce over 80% of India's films, which itself is one of the largest industries in the world for film-making. They have had a foothold in the music market for a long time and they have managed to produce music at an insane rate. With the development of the internet and services being widely available in India, T Series is becoming huge as Indians listen and enjoy a lot of music. We guys listen to a ton of music and if T Series can provide music videos from films to me for the latest films, I will listen to them.

[u/SirkovTheWanderer]

Did Matt ever say why Felix is the biggest roadblock to Youtube branching out into India? Is it just how big he is as a channel, and they want an Indian to be the face of youtube rather than him or is that just another train of thought he abandoned and never returned to?

[u/SoullessCracker]

T-Series is like 9 layers of sketchy.

[u/[deleted]]

This seems like a bad idea. India is allowing foreign corporations to funnel huge amounts of capital and influence back to their home country.

[u/GumballFallsFan]

So people only now notice that international channels are being pushed by YouTube? Have any of you guys actually seen the sheer scale YouTube Rewind has contained non-American creators? Spanish and Latinx creators? Japanese creators? Some Turkish creators? The fact that Alan Walker (Norwegian EDM artist) had a birthday party last year by none other than YouTube Music? It's been very clear that YouTube has been exploiting the potential of non-American creators (musicians, especially) for the past three years.

[u/coffeebreak42]

As someone who has made an *extremely* similar video a month ago, I find myself agreeing with almost everything you mention. GREAT VID. A few things though...

First, your callout to Pewd's at the end seems to miss the mark. The salient point here is that everyone had this "advantage" available to him at the time of Pewd's rise. Mat ISN'T wrong when he asserts that country of the Youtuber matters. But what Pewd's points out is that everyone at the time could and was abusing this fact which means that contrary to Mat's video, the playing field was level. Pewd's didn't have an unfair advantage at that time. A look at the analytics proves nothing about this.

Secondly, you also discussed the competition between Microsoft / FaceB / Youtube and suggested the huge incentive to win over Indians is driving T-Series' growth. This is correct, however you then appear to suggest that Youtube has engineered their algorithm especially for this country to seize both the audience, as well as the creators of India. In other words, giving special treatment to Indian creators. But this is the way that Youtube treats *all* native creators, are you simply restating that? If you aren't... if you're instead saying that T-Series is getting an extra bump on the side from Youtube, do you have any evidence??? I didn't see any in my research. Anyway, that whole section left me feeling confused. Either you are saying nothing new or you're making a very large statement that needs substantiating evidence.

[u/Amonasrester]

This channel has been around for 9 years? First I’ve heard of them. Who are they?

[u/blond-max]

Kinda weird to end this on a challenge that makes no sense for anyone to accept...

good video nonetheless!

[u/Draxinel]

Hey I sent you guys an email with corrections and information about the new video im a resident indian i i work at analytics i sent you a summary of the information i have from the last 6years including the t series data I can post it to the public since that is what I work on