PewDiePie is the biggest Youtuber by far —
it's not even close.
And with his recent milestone of 50 million subscribers,
I thought it'd be interesting to look into the factors
that contributed to his massive success
and, obviously, his enormous catalog of videos
and early entry into Let's Play contributed.
But in this video, we're going to focus
on just the psychological factors that make him so unstoppable
and I promise you, even if you hate PewDiePie
or you don't yet know who he is,
you can learn from his success
because he's tapped into the fundamentals of the way people work.
First off, PewDiePie is the master of capturing attention.
How's it going, bros?
My name is PewDiePie.
Now YouTube is one of the most competitive
market places for attention.
On any given page, each Creator is competing with dozens
of different options
plus the option to just leave YouTube and go outside.
So how does PewDiePie reliably
capture the attention of his audience?
It starts with his thumbnails and titles.
Take a look.
You see extreme contrast in colors, mystery,
and, most importantly, strong emotions.
Remember the T-Rex from Jurassic Park?
It only saw and chase people when they move
because movement captured its attention.
Humans have the same sort of thing going on
except we pay closest attention to faces
or wired not only to recognize human faces
but to spend extra attention on those faces
which depict a strong emotion.
That extra attention often translates
to people clicking on PewDiePie's videos
and, yes, I'm taking this lesson for
Charisma on Command's thumbnails going forward.
So once watching the video,
the emotions just keep coming.
Watch how PewDiePie jokingly crams
four intense emotions into a 24-second span.
...and then we all know what happened that day
when the Fire Nation attacked.
Sorry, just when I got my play button.
It's fucking broken.
Congrats for surpassing 1,000,000.
Oh, that's cool.
That happened years ago.
Give me 44 of these.
It was broken
just like my heart.
Like I said, we're wired to be captivated
by strong emotions
and when they're strung together so tightly,
the effect is mesmerizing.
Now, four emotions in 24 seconds is extreme
and it's a product of the fact that
PewDiePie is on Youtube
but even great stand-up comedy will follow a similar pattern
of depicting strong emotions within a short time period.
The Canadians, they skate perfectly, eh?
We did it perfect, hunh?
And then the Russians, they come, "Oh, fuck."
They fucked up and the French judge would be like,
"How like life? They fucked up. I give it to them, hunh?"
At that point, I'm going,
"Where is Tanya Harding when you need her?"
Tanya would have been on that judge like shit on Velcro.
And in public speaking, you're likely to see
at least three intense emotions over 20-minute arc.
This kernel of truth remains the same throughout life.
If want to be heard,
first, you have to capture attention.
And showing a strong emotion is a brilliant way to do it.
Of course, it's not the only way.
I often talk about people
who create strong emotions like Donald Trump,
Tyrion Lannister and PewDiePie
and that's sounds well for Charisma on Command.
Also, in terms of virality,
the quality of the message is secondary to its ability
to capture attention.
My most viewed videos are not the absolute best
content that I had, at least in my opinion.
They just happened to be the most attention-grabbing.
I suspect that PewDiePie feels the same way
and the same is true of your life.
So if you feel like your message isn't being received
whether you want people to donate to a cause
or just pay attention to an awesome story that you're telling,
don't blame your audience.
Figure out how to position your message
so it captures attention
and one way that we've talked about how to do that
is by leading with a strong emotion.
I want to talk next about how PewDiePie gets laughs
from places that most people just don't expect.
So let's look at some of the effects in this clip.
...or are stuck in the old days
and I get that.
That's where, probably, when a lot of people found my videos
and the first time you experience something
is always going to be the best.
Am I right?
But I thought we were going to react—
PewDiePie takes full advantage of video format,
create humor from quick cuts, mood-music, framing
and just about every visual effect, ever.
In addition, he changes one of those things about
once every four seconds
and that helps keep attention
and makes it difficult to click away from his videos
which drives up watch time
and that happens to be the leading reason that Youtube promotes a particular video
which makes him even bigger.
So just watch again now for the speed
at which he changes his music and framing.
I want four diamond play buttons
but I want them delivered by a horse.
I want them smothered in glitter —
not too much — make it classy.
I want the man delivering the packages
to be a bearded beautiful man
and I want a written apology.
I want you to—
I want a begged apology.
Alright.
In normal conversations,
you obviously don't need to be so frantic
but it's still going to help people pay attention
if you interject humor every so often.
Being funny in its entirety is a much bigger topic
but one easy way to do this
is with callback humor
and that's where you reference a previous joke someone made.
PewDiePie does this across his videos both
for the laugh that it makes
and to build a sense of community.
There's, of course, his typical greeting
which he rips on many times.
How's it going, bros?
My name is PewDiePie.
How's it going, bros?
My name is PewDiePie.
Hey, how's it going, bros?
My name is Pew—
(beatboxes)
And then there are plenty of others
but they won't really make sense to the uninitiated
and that's kind of the point.
Callback humor is funny
because it references the kind of thing that
you just had to be there for.
And while callback humor is powerful in real life,
the type of humor that often does the best on Youtube
is parodying Youtube
which PewDiePie loves to do.
His channel art is a ridiculous corporate mishmash,
his channel logo is currently Mark Zuckerberg,
his descriptions often contain nothing
and he even made a second channel simply
to make fun and parody a friend
and fellow Youtuber, Jacksepticeye.
Top of the morning to ya, laddies.
My name is Jacksepticeye
and welcome to High School 101.
Top of the morning to you, laddies.
My name is Jacksepticeye
and welcome to my second channel
where I'll be uploading vlogs.
The point is this —
PewDiePie is constantly talking with tongue-in-cheek
and that inadvertently serves another major purpose
other than just creating laughs.
It lets him get away with completely shameless clickbait
like his most recent promise to delete his channel
at 50 million subs.
I swear to you,
50 million subs, when we hit 50 million,
huge landmark coming up —
huge deal — never been done before
and no one's even close.
I am deleting my channel.
...which, of course, he then did not do.
Instead, deleting the parody second channel
he'd made of Jacksepticeye instead.
Now let's go ahead then and
fulfill my end of the promise.
That was the joke.
That was it.
That was the— that was the joke.
Some of the most culturally influential people
are the ones who can make headline-grabbing claims
but then have the ability to deflect any negative consequences
that might come from not following through.
These people are teflon.
All press is good press for them
because they're impossible to publicly embarrass.
Others can make one public screw up
that haunts them forever.
Remember Howard Dean?
...not only are we going to New Hampshire,
Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina
and Oklahoma and Arizona
and North Dakota and New Mexico.
We're going to California and Texas and New York.
And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon
and Washington and Michigan
and then we're going to Washington DC to take back the White House.
Those 20 seconds marked the end of Dean's presidential run
and it almost goes without saying
but had Donald Trump be on the same thing
he still would have won.
That ability to survive and even benefit from a negative story
comes down to two things.
First, building a persona in advance
that lets you get away with things.
Pewdiepie's constant irony and joking
set him up well for the 50 million subscribers stun.
Videos like this tutorial on how to make gameplay videos
set his fanbase up to expect him
not to be serious even when he sounds like he is.
Just watch.
Basically, what you want to do
if you have any problem is that you turn it
upside down, you read the serial number,
and you turn it back around again
and the next—
You ruined my life.
And the second thing is not apologizing.
In fact, it's doubling down and deflecting with humor.
Check out how PewDiePie ended his announcement
that he was deleting instead his troll second channel
instead of his main one.
And it's true that in our own lives,
pushing a joke further often serves us better
than apologizing immediately.
That's why that one guy at the office
always seems to get away with slacking off
and leaving early.
That's his persona and he probably deflects with humor.
That's why you also probably have one friend
who you always forgive for being unreliable
because that's their persona
and they can deflect with humor.
Now I'm not saying you should copy these traits
or plan for your own stunts for your own benefit
but a touch of irony and some well-timed humor
could get you out of a bind scot-free
or maybe get you a hundred million subscribers on Youtube.
Now, if you like this video and you want more like it,
make sure to go ahead and subscribe to the channel.
I can't promise I'll ever be quite as engaging as PewDiePie
but it is my hope that if you watch our videos,
you'll find yourself more charismatic, confident, and magnetic
in the moments when you really need that the most.
So go ahead and click the button to subscribe
and I think you now have to hit the bell too
if you want to make sure that you see is pop up on your homepage
so do that as well.
Also, comment — let me know who you'd like to see me cover next.
We have another animated style video
that will be coming up on Thursday
which is where we're going to do those in the future.
New ones will still be Mondays
and your comments help decide what topics I cover.
Until then, I hope that you have enjoyed this video
and I'll see you in the next one.