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Should Indians support Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series in YouTube subscriber race against PewDiePie?

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Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series and vlogger Felix Kjellberg aka PewDiePie are fighting to attain the number one spot in terms of subscribers on YouTube. The race took a nationalist tone when Bhushan Kumar urged Indians to subscribe to the T-Series channel under #BharatWins campaign to ‘defeat’ the Swedish YouTuber.

ThePrint asks: Should Indians support Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series in YouTube subscriber race against PewDiePie?


There is no nationalistic reason to support T-Series. It’s more a matter of taste

Kaveree Bamzai
Senior journalist

Indians are watching stories from around the world, from Narcos to Stranger Things to Delhi Crime. They stopped caring about the origin of their entertainment the minute the floodgates opened in 1991 and cable television started streaming Bold and Beautiful and Santa Barbara.

That is the context in which the battle between T-Series and PewDiePie should be viewed. T-Series showcases the diversity of Indian entertainment, from Bollywood songs to Kannada film music to Punjabi rap to Gurbani. It is riotous, colourful and sometimes raucous.

Contrast that with PewDiePie’s content, which spans from meme reviews to video game commentaries. T-Series showcases movies, trailers, and songs, past and present, while PewDiePie aka Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg tries hard to get us to laugh at his often puerile jokes. There is no nationalistic reason to support T-Series. It’s more a matter of taste. Would you want to watch the latest Hindi songs on your phone when you are stuck in traffic or listen to a young Swedish man nattering on about a cat? I know what I’m going to do: cue the song from Kalank please.


No harm in PewDiePie & T-Series engaging in a competitive battle until fans turn into trolls

Ekta Handa
Web editor, ThePrint

The fight between T-Series and PewDiePie to become the YouTube channel with the most number of subscribers is absurd. But so are most other internet trends. People participate in internet trends without giving much thought to them all the time. Why did people join the movement to make a photo of an egg the most liked picture on Instagram? Or why did people donate money to Kylie Jenner to make her the world’s youngest billionaire? Nobody has a clear answer – we do it probably because we want to be part of something we feel will turn big.

Whether you support T-Series in becoming the most subscribed YouTube channel is completely your choice. Some might argue that this fight between T-Series and PewDiePie is encouraging ultra-nationalism. I believe we let them as they are not beating people up or sending them death threats on social media. Until this race between T-Series and PewDiePie doesn’t turn into another reason for people to launch troll attacks, there is no harm in users engaging in some healthy competition.

Whether you support T-Series or not will not matter to the company, anyway. It will continue to make money because of the music it produces. Subscribing to the channel won’t make a difference as people will still YouTube their favourite songs and provide T-Series what it needs for its business: the number of views.


Also read: Coy and in ‘ghoonghats’, these women are taking over Youtube, TikTok with their rural lives


Vote in the bigger race – the Lok Sabha elections – than the one between T-Series and PewDiePie on YouTube

Regina Mihindukulasuriya
Reporter, ThePrint

One should subscribe to T-Series only if they want to, because T-Series does not need anyone’s pity vote to become YouTube’s biggest channel. T-Series has 29 YouTube channels (one in espanol), studios, budgets, and a stable full of stars. With plans to make web series for Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube, the fan base for T-Series content can only grow (Duh.)

It’s not a race that will end just like that. On Friday T-Series surpassed PewDiePie’s subscriber count for the first time. Come Saturday, PewDiePie had over 35,000 more subscribers than T-Series. But in the long run, of course T-Series will inch ahead and become bigger than one single lone independent creator – so PewDiePie can diss India and T-Series in silly raps ( “You India, You Lose” …”T-Series ain’t nothing but a bitch, lasagna”) – but the house always wins.

I get it, it’s fun to be part of a large social collective and root for a cause, it gets your adrenaline flowing. But if an Indian really wants to make a difference, then there’s a bigger cause waiting for your support than making T-Series number one – the general elections, a race to choose your next (sane) leader. You want to make a difference and make sure #BharatWins? Your vote is more needed at the polling booth than on YouTube.com.


Blindly supporting PewDiePie or T-Series boosts two problematic YouTube channels

Samyak Pandey
Intern, ThePrint

The heated competition between independent creators and corporations on what was supposed to be a community platform has spiralled into absurdity. The battle for YouTube has ceded into the exemplar of “Creators vs Corporations”. Although these patterns reflect real problems, blindly supporting PewDiePie for independent content or T-Series for nationalism doesn’t address the problems but boosts two problematic YouTube channels.

PewDiePie aka Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg has moved from scandal to scandal, ranging from making anti-semitic jokes to recommending a channel notable for its white supremacist rhetoric. Pewdiepie fans have taken extreme actions that reflect poorly on the YouTube channel, and Kjellberg has not made any effort to curtail this behaviour. In order to help Pewdiepie remain the number one channel, Pewdiepie fans have hacked printers, chromecasts, Google Homes, and The Wall Street Journal.

On the other hand, Bhushan Kumar’s “India vs the World” narrative is also flawed. Kumar’s video painting the rise of T-Series as a historic moment for India comes amid rising nationalism in the country. Some have said Indians should subscribe to T-Series because it has “done a lot for the country.”

It’s not clear what T-Series has done for India other than removing all Pakistani songs from its YouTube channel. At its core, T-Series is another mammoth corporation with no moral difference from its many other peers trying to take over YouTube. By injecting nationalist rhetoric to the PewDiePie vs T-Series battle, Bhushan Kumar threatens the idea of YouTube as a global community in order to boost his channel’s subscriber count. This is a completely no-go zone, especially for India’s millennials whom Bhushan is banking upon.


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36 COMMENTS

  1. you are the most hated news paper i have ever read. the way you present the articles it looks like you are not from India but from enemy country, whoes heart is filled with so much hatred against Indians and India. whatever good India do, you make it negative point. this is so bad that i don’t see this papers future #toxicnewspaper

  2. The last interviewee is factually incorrect–T-series put back the videos of Pakistani singers. It took them down because the Indian public was disliking them, reporting them, and leaving comments to take them down, it wasn’t a random company decision.

    I think it’s time we stop using “jokes” as a way to propagate racism. That’s what Pewdiepie has been doing, and that’s what his fans are doing. Yes, this didn’t have to be about race, but he’s the one who brought it up first. He could have released a diss track about T-series only, but instead he decided to make it about Indian stereotypes. This racially-motivated competition started with him, we can’t ignore that. As for T-series, I don’t agree with the nationalism agenda but they’re just capitalizing on what Pewdiepie set up in the first place. Since he generalized it as “India” as a whole instead of just “T-series,” T-series has to play the same game. I don’t think this would be a nationalistic contest if Pewdiepie hadn’t been bringing India into it so many times. It’s on him.

  3. really, yall missing the whole point of this article. the point is tseries and felix both are problematic. felix for being politically incorrect all the time and tseries for using nationalistic sentiments for their good. also, the root of this war is nobody but felix. if pewds would just quit making a huge deal out of this, his problematic fandom would soon stop being petty and dumb. they literally be out there hating and spreading rumours about indians and tseries. if felix had only targeted tseries, it wouldn’t have been much of an issue. but no, he had to go on and drag the whole country into it. ane even if it were joke, let me remind you that his toxic fandom out there are hating on india (not just tseries) for real. this is just plain dumb.

  4. Yes , Indians should support T-series because now it looks like a world war between India and the world due to T-series and PewDiePie.
    The way PewDiePie addressing India and Indians is very bad.
    That’s why according to me , Indians should support T-series and reach 100M first.

  5. PP is so pathetic ,he have whole world and one country to support him to beat one channel with haters from its own country. I was a fan of PP until I saw his fans talking shit about my country which have nothing to do with this fight.

  6. This thing would not have take a nationalist role until and unless in his song he would have not said India you lose..it’s not with India if there would have been any other country they will take it as matter of pride for there country..and print media please don’t try to act cool by saying it’s a matter of taste..you people just do it for your fame.. u’ll sell your country for the sake of acting cool..the other side people are United from Other countries with that swedish idiot to defeat t series..if it’s not india..then why they keep on saying defeat India..

  7. Most of the journalists above mentioned have just mentioned great inclusive titles like it’s totally unbiased. But the content written underneath just belittles PewDiePie for making silly jokes and T-Series being the bandwagon for inclusiveness of diversity and sanity.
    Definitely people should subscribe to what they like without getting things such as nationalism in between.
    PewDiePie is one of the more smart people and most of the people who criticize him haven’t really watched his videos and just seen him in news articles. He has made some mistakes and owned up to them.

  8. Everyone complaining about Felix being a nazi,alt-right promoter etc are just caught up on their on political agendas trying to push their side to be the fact. The video where he talks about the context of a joke matters,he wore a soldier uniform and media took that,used it to say he’s a nazi. If so,same applies to all the celebrities who ever acted as a Nazi in a movie,or even dress up like JK Rowling did. He never asked his fans to hack printers(which comes under ethical hacking,since no real malicious intent) or the ones who scrapped sub to PewDiePie on world war monuments. Out of all the 91mil subscribers there will always be some bad eggs among them. It’s all just the creation of media outlets pushing their view,with no integrity of actual journalists.

    Now for the TSeries,Music wise, remember the time when we used to listen to songs which actually sounded good,with good lyrics,vocals etc. Right now it’s just generic garbage with auto tune,Indian rap songs turned to poop right after the entry of Honey Singh. In the political side, it’s now For pm modi campaign,ever since the release of the movie trailer about him. Hindu Nationalist behavior is bad,but I won’t call just being a Nationalist is a bad thing. We we’re proud of our diverse culture up until now. Now everything is about “India first”. Let’s clean our side first like the objectification of women in Bollywood,the masala format of songs.It isn’t going towards any place good. Just somewhere where being diverse and having different opinion could make you a traitor.

    • bro you’re a true pewds fan. dragging in people who have nothing to do with the topic at hand (hindus and modi)
      the only thing i agree with is the need to stop objectifying women in bollywood. and no we don’t need to take away the masala from our movies. we don’t want plain salted american theatre lmao goodbye

  9. Ya now t series needs our support..
    Can t series support us ? U just play a song from the series in your you tube video… Then only you can see claim/ copyright/ strike/ from you tube. If t series is not supporting us in you tube platform then y we should support t series in you tube platform form?
    This is my review.. may be I am wrong

  10. All these journalists are a bunch of hypocrites. PewDiePie has done alot and on his own, by creating original content. And btw he is human and they tend to make mistakes , who hasn’t ? And ” bitch lasagna” was something an Indian had “invented” while texting a random lady. Getting offended for something he didn’t mean to, is being over-reactive and more nationalistic in this context.

  11. Really these are journalist? Maybe but we supported Pewdiepie but just after he released You INDIA u loose and then bitch lasagna. Why he need to target Indians don’t say that because of fanbase because India may have population but connectivity to internet is not so much. And we know how liberals work day and night to distract and mind wash young Indians either it be Standup Comedians or getting involved in Pew vs T-series war to get a big platform. So just stay away from us because someone is more younger than you and they have their right to choose they love and who are distracted is our work to keep them on track. Bitch Liberals!!!

  12. Always comes with bad articles, you all guys.

    The race took a nationalist tone when Bhushan Kumar urged Indians to subscribe to the T-Series channel under #BharatWins campaign to ‘defeat’ the Swedish YouTuber.

    Kya kha ke aye the tum log…. Badam khao… Subscriber race ne India vs World, jise tum nationalist khete ho ye tab liya tha jab PewDiePie ne India ke khilaf vulgar words bole the…

    What is ultranationalism?

    Ye tum jaise khatam logon ki dimag ki upag h…

    Pehle kuch padhe-likhe pandito ne India ko caste me divide kiya ab tum, Jada pade like bull shit patkar India ko nationalist, ultranationalist, aur hypernationalist me divide kr rhe ho….

    Jab kuch Kam na ho… Logon ko gumrah mat Kiya kro… Kuch bolne se accha kabhikabar kuch na bolna hi behtar hota h…..

    But, tum nhi samjhoge kyuki yhi tumhari rozi roti h.

    If I somewhere wrong please apologize me…

    Aur ye shama magna hume hamara hypernationalism sikhata h

  13. T-series didnt wanted anything when this thing started.
    PewDiepie piggy backed T-Series to get the subscribers. Spark controversey, beg for subscribers to stay in race.
    Compare the growth rate of subscriber count before and after he sparked the controversy. It is similar to USA claiming that Iraq has WMD to garner support for war.
    It was cunning move on felixs part… and this is not the first time he created a controversy.. like the one when he was at 45Mil subscribers..

    • Very very well said. These editors and people at print aren’t even aware that in name of nationalism, they are eventually hitting the axe on their feet. They’ll know it when they’ll understand the an infringed freedom of expression

  14. This nationist tone to the whole issue is just stupid. And Pewds was never dissing India, but since not much of T-series is relevant to non-Indians including himself, he has to involve India a bit. Anyways, there was no racism but only mild silly jokes which I suppose atleast intellectuals like ‘journalists’ shouldn’t mind. But to my disappointment. And maybe a ‘Kalank’ song is relevant to you, but the world outside India doesn’t give two flying hecks. So it is scary something so irrelevant to most of the world is taking over a public platform like YT.

    • @Ankita Music channels world over have most subscribers. Indians too love music and some of us have grown up on T- Series music. There is no need to feel scared or insecure that as YT (internet) grows in India, the channels that Indians like would grow too. Most Indians did not even know pew until this silly war started. Just as Indians discovered pew, others have discovered TS. Indians should stop seeking approval from the west and make their choices freely.

  15. This article is so one sided it’s not even funny. While Felix has made the mistake of making 1 joke. It launched a media campaign against him. Also its funny how Felix does ask fans to exert caution in the subscribe to pewdiepie movement he ultimately can’t control what they do

  16. But still I would subscribe to T series because the way PewDiePie is addressing India and T series such as the word ‘bitch’ in his song isn’t acceptable

    • He didn’t addressed India or t series as ‘bitch’. He just used a random message that an Indian guy send on Facebook to a girl saying ‘bitch lasagna’ the meaning of this thing is only known to that Indian guy and it doesn’t mean to diss india

    • Exactly the point, its not if we support T Series or not, rather many are subscribing to T Series due to pie’s attitude towards INDIA. It did back fired and in a big way..

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