James R | On 09, Sep 2015

PewDiePie has become the first person on YouTube to rack up 10 billion views.

The vlogger has risen to become of the most well-known and most-watched users on YouTube. He’s a symbol not just of the importance of gaming videos to the site – YouTube has just launched a dedicated gaming portal to rival Amazon’s Twitch – but of the growing generation of vloggers out there.

Today we made history! 10 billion views! THIS IS INSANE. Thank you all so much! Kisses pic.twitter.com/L3Td2HMX4N

— Felix Kjellberg (@pewdiepie) September 6, 2015

PewDiePie, or (to use his real name) Felix Kjellberg, first began in 2010, going on to sign a deal with MCN Maker Studios in 2012, while his reported earnings of over $7 million last year raised eyebrows. In July, he actually lost his popularity crown to another gaming site, The Diamond Minecart, according to the latest Tubefilter and OpenSlate chart, which enjoyed over 402.6 million views in July, up 23 per cent on the previous month and above PewDiePie’s 373 million views, down 12 per cent month-on-month.

Nonetheless, he enjoys a bigger reach than the new number one – with 39 million subscribers and counting (he added another 790,000 in July), PewDiePie already has the largest following on the whole of YouTube. The question, then, is how long will it take him to get to 20 billion views? Gangnam Style’s Psy – whose music video has become the most-viewed video on the site – better watch out.

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