- First of all, let's say congratulations to PewDiePie.
The first independent YouTube channel
to reach 90 million subscribers.
If he was a country, he'd find himself
in between Vietnam and Germany.
And, of course, let's not forget T-Series,
who hit the same phenomenal landmark
just half an hour later.
But, this continued neck-and-neck race between two channels
is starting to raise some interesting and
(beeping)
hard questions, hmm.
(upbeat electronic music) - [Man] vidIQ
- [Woman] vidIQ - [Man] (whispering) vidiq.com
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I think we've all got used to the idea of PewDiePie
being overtaken by T-Series on occasion.
It's happened a number of times throughout
the last couple of weeks as you can see
in a time-lapse we made previously.
But the curious question is this,
having taken a lead,
why can't T-Series maintain it and indeed stretch it?
The gap always seems to be a few thousand subscribers,
and doesn't last more than a couple of hours at most.
Before by the end of the evening,
PewDiePie finds himself maybe 15 to 20,000
subscribers ahead, and then we repeat.
As day turns to night or night turns to day,
depending on your perspective,
PewDiePie has a lead that soon vanishes
and now we find T-Series once again in the lead.
This is nothing new.
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But you can see that the sub gap doesn't really go anywhere,
and 15 minutes later PewDiePie regains top score.
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And this sort of back and forth,
will continue on for the rest of the night
or day depending on your perspective.
One channel stretches out with a small leap
before quickly being reigned in one way or the other.
Now, you could maybe accept this happening
for one or two nights in a row
while some massive PewDiePie campaign
of the likes we've seen before
propelling him hundreds of thousands of subscribers ahead.
But no, this seems different.
This type of subscriber fluctuation
has been going on for two weeks.
Almost as if it's being controlled on purpose
to help each channel feed off of the
continued media interest,
and help both channels hit 90 million subscribers
at almost exactly the same time.
It just doesn't make sense for T-Series to catch up,
find himself against the entirety of the YouTube community,
get past all those campaigns,
and then still not be able to jump ahead
of PewDiePie for longer than 24 hours.
So what is going on here?
Well, I found a really interesting video
by a chap called Mehditation,
who talks about a controlling algorithm.
It's really brilliant stuff,
and this is what he thinks happening
in my own graphical way.
We know T-Series has been catching up PewDiePie
for a long time, years in fact.
Before this turned into a race,
PewDiePie averaged 30,000 subscribers a day,
while T-Series would average in excess of
100,000 subscribers a day.
Now yes, when it turned into a race
PewDiePie got the occasional huge subscriber boost
from the YouTube community.
But, ultimately, they can only help for so long
against a relentless T-Series YouTube machine.
But as both channels grind towards 100 million subscribers,
the rules of engagement seem to have changed.
As if they are magnetized to each other,
both channels averaging just under
140,000 subscribers a day.
So, how might this happen?
Let's go into conspiracy mode.
Let's pretend that T-Series has millions
of fake accounts subscribed to their channel.
And as they gather more and more real subscribers,
they simply shave off the fake ones.
Thus, controlling there ultra consistent subscriber count
that they have had for months, if not years.
Or, what if it's the complete opposite?
What if it's millions of fake accounts
that are being pumped into PewDiePie's channel?
And as he gains new and legitimate subscribers,
the fake ones are simply sliced off the top.
Thus, keeping a subscriber pace that PewDiePie's channel
has never been able to sustain
for such a long period of a time.
It keeps both channels in the news,
and both channels benefit from it.
Now, given the recent numbers,
and how the subscriber rate
has changed over the last couple of weeks,
I find this theory absolutely fascinating
with some plausibility.
Do I think it's true or not?
Well, since we're not taking sides in this race,
we're going to let you decide in the comments below.
Or if you have any alternative conspiracy theories,
yeah, we'd love to read about them too.
I've also just remembered that YouTube
is clamping down on conspiracy videos.
I'm going to have to make sure not to include that word
in my tags, titles, or descriptions.
I wonder if search and discovery
on this video is gonna be affected.
If it is, conspiracy.
Stop saying that word.
At current pace, in just two months,
one of these channels is going to hit
that fabled number 100 million subscribers.
Which one's going to get there first?
Yeah, I don't know.