- April Fools!
You know what I'm talking about, right?
(dramatic music)
Yeah yeah, that's the type of thing.
But I've got a question for you.
When is an April Fools, not an April Fools?
When it turns out to be true.
Allow me to explain.
♪ vidIQ, vidIQ, vidIQ.com ♪
Welcome back to vidIQ everybody,
and since we are broadcasting to a global audience,
just in case you don't know what an April Fools is,
allow me to briefly explain;
April Fools Day is an annual celebration
that always takes place on April the 1st
and gives everyone a little bit more
of a license to play practical jokes and hoaxes.
I'm sure you've seen many weird and wacky stories
on social media throughout the day,
and we decided to take part as well.
And what other subjects could we choose
but PewDiePie versus T-Series.
Now of course T-series overtook PewDiePie last week
to become the most subscribed to channel on YouTube.
And you know what I thought would be fun,
would be to trick everybody into thinking
that PewDiePie had retaken over T-Series,
and, this is how I did it.
I've been recording time lapses
of this subscriber race for weeks now,
so all I did was load up a time lapse of a previous occasion
when PewDiePie overtook T-Series.
As you can see, the dates are all wrong
and the subscriber counts are nowhere near
what they should be.
But you know what folks?
We live in a digital age of fake news
where the numbers are really easy to fudge, like this.
(popping)
So that brings the sub counts roughly in line.
Now all we need to do is fix the dates.
(dinging)
All right, now let's change this top bit.
(cha-ching )
And that bit in the bottom corner,
and hey presto, we have something believable
that looks like PewDiePie overtaking T-Series
once again in the subscriber race.
And there we are.
This all looks fairly convincing, right?
So I had the time lapse that made it look like
PewDiePie overtaking T-Series once again.
All I needed to do now was finish a video
and sprinkle a little bit of icing on the cake.
This thumbnail works really well when T-Series took over
so why not flip it on its head?
(dinging)
And, add a very cheeky little Easter egg
that would be hidden by the time stamp.
Ah, genius Rob, genius!
I also dropped a couple of April Fools
Easter egg references in video the meta dates, too.
And with all in place, my video was scheduled
to go live at 12pm in the UK to make sure
it hit the entire world on April the 1st.
(record screeching)
However, there was one huge combustible element
that I didn't factor in when I was making this video.
And that's PewDiePie himself.
(upbeat music)
Because you see, the day before April Fools Day,
PewDiePie decided to post his latest diss track
congratulating T-Series on their new subscriber crowd.
And it racked up 15 million views in 24 hours.
And what do a controversial, not supported,
nor endorsed by vidIQ in anyway shape or form,
diss tracks always deliver?
Subscribers by the bucket loads.
Now, just to be clear here.
This is 100% real time accurate data.
None of that faked up stuff, I promise you.
And as you can see, following PewDiePie's new diss track,
the 100 thousand subscriber gap
that he was trailing by, very quickly evaporates.
By the time we reach 10pm San Francisco time,
PewDiePie is just 30,000 subscribers behind,
and now I have a decision to make.
Do I still launch the video at 12pm London time,
April the 1st, or do I pull it because,
well you know, PewDiePie could actually do this
and overtake T-Series all over again.
In the end, I decide to compromise,
redo the video, add this little disclaimer
as another Easter egg, pause now and read if you want,
and reschedule the whole video to go live
at 12pm London time, which is 4am local time for me.
All right, fingers crossed you're still
with me at this point.
My "April Fools" video goes live at 12pm London time,
with PewDiePie just 10,000 subscribers behind T-Series,
and it seems almost inevitable that
this is actually going to happen.
And here is where it gets weirdly freaky.
These are the real analytics
of what's happening in the race,
while these are my made up fake April Fool ones
on the video of which just gone live.
To the average watcher, these numbers are so close
that you'd be mistaken for thinking they're actually real.
So what happened for an hour,
is that people watched my April Fools video
thinking it was completely genuine.
I'm serious!
I've got dozens of comments from people thinking
I traveled an hour into the future to get this.
(cha-ching)
And just one hour after my video goes live,
PewDiePie does retake that crown
as the most subscribed to channel on YouTube.
Remember, this is my April Fools fake prediction,
and this is what really happened.
I was just 400 subscribers off.
(upbeat music)
Wasn't that all absolutely fascinating?
You see, what I was actually trying to do with this video
was annoy PewDiePie fans a little bit
with this April Fools joke,
which just turned out to be the truth
and now all the PewDiePie followers love this video.
As for T-Series, well they kind of
channel-bannered themselves into a corner,
posting this last week.
(pinging)
And quickly changing it to this today.
(buzzing)
But don't worry T-Series fans,
you've got two things that are still in your favor.
Inevitably, you will become the most subscribed
to channel on YouTube once again.
And remember, PewDiePie has got to be ahead
in this race for 24 hours
for them to officially retake the crown.
(dramatic music)
(sucking in air)
It's gonna leave another mark is that one.