PewDiePie, the world's highest-paid YouTube star, on Friday followed through his threat to delete his channel, but it wasn't the one everyone expected him to delete. PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, did not delete the channel that has 50 million subscribers, but an old account.
It also looks like the YouTuber was joking about deleting his channel. "You know when you make a joke and it just blows up way bigger than you ever imagined," PewDiePie said in the 100-second video. "This was covered by media everywhere — the fact that I said I was going to delete my channel."
PewDiePie, who made an estimated $15 million this year from YouTube, announced his decision to delete his account to protest against the alleged changes in YouTube's algorithm.
"I honestly thought YouTube was about what content people want to watch but it seems like it's becoming less and less of that, it's not about who you want to watch it's about who's going to yell the loudest," he said in a post earlier this week.
"If YouTube is focusing away from creator-based content and less personality-based, well then don't be surprised if personalities start leaving YouTube," he said.
He also alleged that the videos that appear on the right-hand side of YouTube pages are filled with "clickbait" videos. However, YouTube has denied that it has brought any changes to its algorithm.
"Some creators have expressed concerns around a drop in their subscriber numbers," a spokesperson for YouTube told Mirror Online. "We've done an extensive review and found there have been no decreases in creators subscriber numbers beyond what normally happens when viewers either unsubscribe from a creator's channel or when YouTube removes spammed subscribers.
"We do the latter to ensure that all creator subscriber numbers are accurate."
