SUBSCRIBE TO PEWDIEPIE PewDiePie, popular culture, virtual communication, augmented communication, theory of character The various channels of the so-called YouTube Creators (commonly known as YouTubers) are the purest realisations of what attention economy is destined to mean. They do not even have to sell a product in the original sense: the time spent on viewing a video makes the “transaction”; the very content of the videos itselves are the products, thus they generate ad revenue. Therefore, it does not matter what the content is: one may simply clickbait or could just play games, others tend to talk things out — money talks indeed! Yet the traditional way of consuming is also present in the form of channel-based merchandise and in-video featured advertisements. The “consumers” of YouTube could be divided into two categories: the subscribers and the non-subscribers. The main goal of a YouTuber is to gain more and more subscribers, i.e. to “convert” the non-subscribers. Everyone seeks to master the know-how of “conversion”, that is: the secret of acquiring the viewers’ interests. The thesis statement of this research is that Felix Kjellberg also known as PewDiePie is one of the best attention economists. He raised an “Army of Bros”, the so-called Bro Army and together they established the greatest empire on YouTube with 53 million subscribers and nearly 15 billion views (PewDiePie 2017) — and still counting. The key question is as it follows: how did he make it? Various media outlets draw on PewDiePie whenever and wherever they can, confer the recent controversy (Winkler et al. 2017); furthermore there is an abundance of news articles on how much PewDiePie earns a year as well (Dong 2017; Hussain 2015; hvg.hu 2014; Mandle 2015), but there is no article, nor study about how he achieved success. In this presentation, it will be revealed through an original theory that Felix Kjellberg implements communication in a strategic way that grabs attention implicitly and explicitly as well: He applies the augmented communication in its entirety; in fact, He exploits the attribute of character to generate immense success. The analysis is conducted on more than 160 videos made by PewDiePie throughout his career, to demonstrate the knack of becoming the biggest star on YouTube. Memes, catchphrases, characters, posts and comments, news articles, etc. concerning PewDiePie are also examined in order to give a comprehensive account on making of a No. 1 superstar. References Dong, Michelle. 2017. “PewDiePie Net Worth 2017: How Much Is PewDiePie Worth Right Now?”. COED. URL (retrieved: 20/02/2017): http://coed.com/2016/04/04/pewdiepie-net-worth-how-much-is-pewdiepie-worth- money-youtube-star-felix-arvid-ulf-kjellberg/ Hussain, Tamoor. 2015. “How Much Money Did PewDiePie Earn in 2014?”. Gamespot. URL (retrieved: 20/02/2017): http://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-much-money-did-pewdiepie-earn-in- 2014/1100-6428640/ hvg.hu. 2014. „Ennyit keresett tavaly a leggazdagabb YouTube feltöltő“. HVG. URL (retrieved: 20/02/2017): http://hvg.hu/enesacegem/20140313_Ennyit_keresett_tavaly_a_leggazdagabb_You Mandle, Chris. 2015. “Forbes names PewDiePie as highest-earning YouTuber with annual income reaching $12m”. Independent. URL (retrieved: 20/02/2017): http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/forbes-names-pewdiepie-as-highest- earning-youtuber-with-annual-income-reaching-12m-a6695536.html PewDiePie. 2017. PewDiePie’s YouTube channel. YouTube. URL (retrieved: 20/02/2017): https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie Winkler, Rolfe et al. 2017. “Disney Severs Ties With YouTube Star PewDiePie After Anti- Semitic Posts”. Wall Street Journal. URL (retrieved: 20/02/2017): https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after- anti-semitic-posts-1487034533
