User:LunaEatsTuna/sandbox

Background
YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform founded on February 14, 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim while working at PayPal. On the platform, users who have chosen to receive a channel's content can do so by clicking on that channel's "Subscribe" button; each user's subscription feed consists of videos published by channels to which the user is subscribed. Such content creators who upload videos to YouTube are called YouTubers. A channel's subscription count is displayed next to said user's channel name. The ability to upload videos was integrated on April 23, while the ability to subscribe was introduced on October 25. Due to the website's spiking popularity, on October 9, 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion, with the deal formally finalized on November 13. YouTube is now the world's largest video-hosting website; as of 2024, it is the second most-visited website in the world according to global data aggregation company Similarweb. On June 28, 2012, YouTube introduced the YouTube Creator Awards, physical award plaques stylised with the YouTube logo, for channels that reach certain subscriber milestones.

2006–2007
YouTube began publishing a list of its most-subscribed channels on April 28, 2006, which has since been removed. An early snapshot of the list on the Wayback Machine dated May 17 shows Smosh—an American sketch comedy duo consisting of Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox—as the most-subscribed channel with 2,986 subscribers. By the next available archive on June 12, American public speaker Judson Laipply had overtaken Smosh with 6,372 subscribers against their 5,818. Laipply was known at the time for his viral video "Evolution of Dance", which he originally filmed in 2003 and consists of him performing various dance moves to popular music on stage. He uploaded the video on April 6, 2006, and it became the most-watched video on the website. Laipply had 6,774 subscribers by June 15; and 7,710 as of June 23.

By July 3, American sketch comedian Brooke Brodack, known online as Brookers, occupied the top spot with 9,264 subscribers, uploading primarily short comedy skits and lip-synching videos. With 8,404 subscribers, Laipply had dropped to fourth behind Smosh (with 9,149 subscribers) and a user known as mystoandpizzi (8,891). Offered an 18-month development contract from late night show host Carson Daly, The New Yorker called Brookers "the first real YouTube star." She was likely the first YouTuber to hit 10,000 subscribers, having 12,334 as of July 19. By August 14, however, British pensioner Peter Oakley, known as geriatric1927, was the most subscribed channel on YouTube. Oakley, who uploaded his first video on August 5, was known for his soft-spoken series of autobiographical videos, "Telling it all", in which he recounts stories from his life and his time in World War II as a radar mechanic. As of August 25, Oakley had 23,226 subscribers, ahead of Brookers' 17,292. He reached 25,000 by September 3.

As early as September 20, Oakley had been overtaken by the channel lonelygirl15, a covert fictional persona portrayed by American-New Zealand actress Jessica Lee Rose. The web series revolved around Bree Avery (screen name lonelygirl15), a homeschooled 16-year-old girl who posted vlogs about her mundane daily life and her interests; however, over time, the vlogs gradually got more sinister, involving subjects such as Bree discussing joining an occult-like religion. The sudden increase in subscribers and video views came after an exposé earlier that month revealed the persona as entirely fictitious. The lonelygirl15 YouTube channel held the record until April 26, 2007, when Smosh overtook her to once again become the most-subscribed channel on the platform. By May 18, Smosh had reached 101,632 subscribers.

2008–2017
In Late September 2008, American Ryan Higa, publishing videos on YouTube as nigahiga, briefly held the most-subscribed channel until 6 October, when the channel FЯED (owned by American actor Lucas Cruikshank) surpassed him. Higa posted skits and other comedic videos alongside his close friend Sean Fujiyoshi, while videos on the FЯED channel revolved around Fred Figglehorn, a fictional six-year-old played by Cruikshank with a dysfunctional home life and "anger management issues". The character's voice was also very high-pitched for further comedic effect. On April 7, 2009, FЯED became the first YouTube channel to reach 1 million subscribers. Higa overtook FЯED for a final time on August 20, when he surpassed him with about 1,360,000 subscribers.

Higa held the record until being surpassed by American Ray William Johnson, owner of the channel =3 (pronounced "equals three") on June 26, 2011, upon reaching 3,900,000 subscribers. Johnson was best known for his comedic web series on his channel, Equals Three, which he posted twice a week. In it, he views and comments on three viral videos. Johnson's channel set several milestone records, such as becoming the first YouTube channel to reach 5 million subscribers on November 15, 2012. On January 12, 2013, Smosh overtook Johnson's channel to become the most-subscribed for a third and final time, after having reached over 6,780,000 subscribers. On May 25, Smosh became the first YouTube channel to reach 10 million subscribers.

Smosh was overtaken by Felix Kjellberg—known online as PewDiePie—a Swedish video gamer known for his comedic Let's Play videos, on August 15, after he reached 11,915,000 subscribers. Kjellberg had gained 1,635,000 subscribers in July alone, averaging over 54,508 new subscribers per day—or 38 per minute. Kjellberg was briefly overtaken by YouTube's own channel, YouTube Spotlight, between November 2 and December 8, and again between December 12 and December 23. Kjellberg reached several subscriber milestones, including becoming the first channel to hit 20 million subscribers on January 9, 2014, and 50 million on December 8, 2016, for which YouTube awarded him the first-ever custom Creator Award—a ruby play button stylised with a bro fist (fist bump), his channel's branding. By December 2017, Kjellberg had 58 million subscribers.

PewDiePie vs. T-Series and aftermath (2018–present)
On August 29, 2018, Kjellberg uploaded a tongue-in-cheek video to his YouTube channel in which he acknowledged that the channel for the Indian music label T-Series was projected to overtake his by November.

At the time, PewDiePie had 65 million subscribers and T-Series had 59 million;

https://web.archive.org/web/20180830033700/https://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie?app=desktop

(https://web.archive.org/web/20180830041624/https://www.youtube.com/user/tseries)

T-Series averaged around 4 million monthly subscribers, compared to Kjellberg's 1 million.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180917140907/http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/PewDiePie

https://web.archive.org/web/20180830201331/https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/tseries

As a result, fans of Kjellberg and T-Series, other YouTubers, and celebrities showed their support for both channels: many of Kjellberg's fans made efforts to gain subscribers for his YouTube channel in numerous ways, including organising marches and posting supportive YouTube videos, purchasing advertisements, spreading slogans and, to a lesser degree, committing illegal acts such as vandalism, hacking websites and creating malware. Kjellberg released a diss track of his own on October 5 entitled "Bitch Lasagna".

Between February and late March 2019, T-Series briefly surpassed Kjellberg's YouTube channel in subscriber count on numerous occasions, each lasting fewer than 24 hours. The first instance to last at least 24 hours began on March 27 and ended on April 1. Consequently, Kjellberg posted a second diss track to his YouTube channel entitled "Congratulations" on March 31, which sarcastically congratulated T-Series for surpassing him. Following his upload of the song, he regained the number one spot for a final time until April 14. By the time the subscriber competition concluded, T-Series had 96 million subscribers, and on May 29, T-Series became the first YouTube channel to reach 100 million subscribers.

(Space)

T-Series hit 150 million subscribers on August 17, 2020; 200 million on November 30, 2021; and 250 million on September 24, 2023.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200823224901/https://socialblade.com/youtube/c/tseriesmusic