PewDiePie's Most Notorious Feuds
PewDiePie is one of the biggest success stories on the internet, breaking multiple YouTube records. Since his rise to fame, he has built a following of adoring fans and is a highly recognizable figure in the gaming and content creation industry. However, he has come under much greater scrutiny as his fame and wealth have grown. This increased profile has also led to several feuds developing over the years between himself and others in the entertainment world.
Sometimes PewDiePie seems to get a kick out of embellishing these little battles for the sake of entertainment. After all, he's known for his over the top sense of humor and willingness to speak his mind. Other disagreements have sprung up surrounding seemingly legitimate issues, and its not always clear who is wrong and who is right.
Here's a look at PewDiePie's most notorious feuds.
Alinity and the copy strike war
Alinity already comes with a bit of controversial baggage. In the past, she has been accused of possible animal abuse and experienced a wardrobe malfunction that led to a brief suspension from Twitch. However, the drama that unfolded between Alinity and PewDiePie in 2018 caught many by surprise.
It all started when PewDiePie called Alinity a "Twitch thot" during one of his videos. In response, Alinity questioned whether she should copy strike PewDiePie's channel on stream. While both moments proved controversial, Alinity divulged in a later video that she earned hundreds of dollars the previous month by working with CollabDRM, a company that has turned copy striking YouTube channels into a business model.
The feud escalated through a series of copy strikes, videos and tweets, and angry comments from both fanbases. Some believed Alinity's response and the subsequent backlash raised some important points about the treatment of women in the gaming industry. Many others, including PewDiePie himself, vilified Alinity for profiting off of copy strikes, a practice that can threaten the livelihood of other content creators and even end careers.
T-Series and the world's weirdest diss track
The battle between PewDiePie and Indian music company T-Series ended up being the most improbable feud of the last few years. When it appeared as though T-Series would become the most-subscribed-to channel on YouTube, PewDiePie campaigned to overtake it. Even fellow YouTubers like JackSepticEye got involved in boosting the "subscribe to PewDiePie" cause. It began as a friendly competition, but quickly got out of hand.
PewDiePie released a music video for a diss track aimed at T-Series called "B*tch Lasagna." The song and accompanying video were seen as "abusive, racist, and vulgar" by T-Series, which successfully managed to have the video blocked in India.
Not long afterwards, PewDiePie posted a new music video revealing that he had received a cease and desist from T-Series because of his diss track. Because of this, he decided to step away from the campaign and allowed T-Series to seize victory. However, this concession wasn't without a few more jabs at T-Series chairman Bhushan Kumar. This last music video alleged Kumar was under investigation for tax evasion, among other things.
The Wall Street Journal was hacked by his fans
A few years back, PewDiePie was the subject of a Wall Street Journal article that called out jokes made on the YouTuber's channel that were seen as anti-Semitic. Following this piece, both Google and Disney severed ties with PewDiePie. In an attempt to defend himself, PewDiePie posted a video (which has since been deleted) in which he accused the media of taking his jokes "out-of-context." PewDiePie also claimed that outlets like The Wall Street Journal were targeting him because they were "scared" of internet personalities and their influence. He also reiterated that he does not support hate groups in any way.
Shortly after this, fans of PewDiePie managed to hack the Wall Street Journal and release a fake apology from the publication to PewDiePie. The Wall Street Journal quickly took the fake apology down. Pewds himself seemed to be rather amused by the whole thing.
In a tweet that has also since been deleted, PewDiePie wrote, "lol they deleted it, WSJ is still on angery [sic] list."
KSI said PewDiePie ruined lives
Things became heated between PewDiePie and fellow YouTuber KSI when PewDiePie accused the latter of making sexual comments about PewDiePie's long-term partner, Marzia. When discussing an upcoming boxing match between KSI and Logan Paul, Pewds referred to the two of them as "scumbags" who were "purely driven by money."
This didn't sit well with KSI, who retaliated by bringing up PewDiePie's own controversial moments. KSI said, "He is the person that ruined a lot of people's lives on YouTube with his comments and his whole antisemitism."
The two content creators continued to trade barbs back and forth for about a year, though KSI insisted at one point there was "no beef" between them. Eventually though, it appeared as though the pair left their feud behind. In May 2020, PewDiePie told his viewers he and KSI "were cool now." Pewds even gave KSI's music career a shout-out, calling it "inspiring."
Trisha Paytas strikes back
PewDiePie doesn't always get involved in a feud for his own benefit. In fact, sometimes it happens when he decides to speak for other creators and viewers.
In one of his "Cringe Thursday" episodes, Pewds took Paytas to task for what he saw as her unfair treatment of other streamers and bloggers. He called her out for allegedly agreeing to collaborate with musician/blogger Nikocado Avocado and then ghosting him. He also criticized her for multiple videos in which she sits on the floor of her kitchen and melts down on camera, calling her a "manipulator."
In return, Trisha Paytas devoted one of these very same kitchen floor blogs to addressing PewDiePie's comments. In the video, she made it very clear that she was hurt by the things being said about her. She also expressed a willingness to learn from her mistakes. Since then, there doesn't seem to have been any bad blood between the two content creators.
Lilly Singh calls out YouTube culture
Lilly Singh is best known these days as the host of A Little Late with Lilly Singh. Before that, she was best known as a YouTuber and actress when she got involved in a feud with PewDiePie. In December 2018, Forbes released a list of the highest-paid YouTubers of that year. There were notably no women on the list, which Singh publicly called out.
PewDiePie took issue with Singh's response, saying, "If people want to subscribe to you, they generally do it because they enjoy your videos, not because of your gender ... if you start complaining about this, you literally just sound like a crybaby and an idiot, which you are Lilly Singh, just in case you weren't sure."
In the time since then, Singh has attempted to reach out and discuss the matter with Pewds on at least one occasion. It appears that it never happened and that there's still some bad blood between the two. As of 2019, Pewds was still making fun of Singh in his videos, at one point comparing her to the "Big Chungus" meme.
PewDiePie honors Dillon the Hacker
Dillon the Hacker was a YouTuber who made a name for himself by openly criticizing the content of some of YouTube's biggest creators, PewDiePie included. On at least one occasion, Dillon the Hacker referred to himself as PewDiePie's "worst nightmare." Sadly, Dillon passed away sometime in the summer of 2019. He was only 20 years old.
The circumstances of Dillon's death are still unknown, but PewDiePie made sure to pay his respects to his friendly rival. He wrote, "Dillon the hacker was such a talented young comedian. He successfully trolled my entire audience at one point. Such sad news to hear about his passing. My condolences to his family and close ones."
As pointed out by Distractify, Dillon the Hacker had actually stopped posting anti-PewDiePie videos back in 2015, four years before his untimely passing. Hopefully that means the two found some common ground behind the scenes. It's clear that this is one grudge that PewDiePie wants to leave behind.
Ekta Kapoor doesn't even know who he is
Back in 2018, PewDiePie posted a video making fun of the over the top Indian television shows. One of these was the Indian soap opera Kasamh Se, which he criticized for its melodramatic acting and camera work. Someone apparently forwarded this video to Kasamh Se's writer and producer, Ekta Kapoor. Almost immediately after the video was released, she responded with a tweet-storm of her own.
Over the course of several tweets, Kapoor slammed PewDiePie, making fun of his looks and insisting that she's never even heard of him. Pewds' fans apparently went on the offensive, but Kapoor tweeted that she would not apologize to him under any circumstances.
A few weeks later, PewDiePie responded to Kapoor with a video calling her out directly. He likewise said that he had no idea who she was and cautioned his fans, "Don't be like Ekta Kapoor and go on a Twitter rant when it is completely unrelated to you as well." This was an odd case of two very different fandoms colliding in a volatile way.
Pewds' fans vs. Jacksfilms
John Douglass, a.k.a. Jacksfilms, started a YouTube series in 2015 called "Yesterday I Asked You." Two years later, PewDiePie created a parody series called "Last Week I Asked You." Unfortunately, because some of Pewds' viewers saw these videos out of sequence, Jacksfilms began to receive accusations of ripping off PewDiePie's content. Even worse, it seems some of PewDiePie's fans misconstrued jokes that Pewds made about the situation. Some saw these quips as PewDiePie agreeing with the accusations of theft. For a while, almost every upload from Jackfilms was met with angry comments from PewDiePie fans who believed they were defending their favorite YouTuber from a copycat.
For his own part, Pewds appeared to feel a great deal of guilt over the harassment that Douglass received. He took down any videos in which he joked about Jacksfilms. It appears that the two are on good terms, as Douglass quickly pointed out that PewDiePie had explained the jokes to his audience in the past. It seems like this was a situation where something was taken out-of-context and both parties had to deal with the fallout, but at least the feud between fan bases appears to have been squashed.