From the last couple of months, YouTube has converted into a war ground for the position of the most subscribed channel on Youtube. One side we have Pewdiepie (Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg) who is a Swedish YouTuber who has been entertaining millions of people for years. And for the past 5, he has held the mantle of the most subscribed YouTube channel with 80M as on today’s date. Whereas on another hand we have T-Series 9 (Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited) an Indian music record label and film production company founded by Gulshan Kumar in 1983. It is primarily known for Bollywood music soundtracks and Indi-pop music. As of 2014, T-Series is India's largest music record label, with up to 35% share of the Indian music market, followed by Sony Music India and Zee Music is currently in away from a few million subscribers to get the position of the most subscribed channel on YouTube.
Well, my whole idea of writing the blog is to bring some light on why T-Series will the most subscribed channel on YouTube in a couple of weeks. The rivalry which started after some YouTuber mentioned these channels turned ugly after PewDiePie's "Bitch Lasagna" diss track which contained lyrics about Indian people that were offensive, and there have been a number of PewDiePie's fans and supporters making anti-Indian remarks and using racial slurs. The fight was no more about PewDiePie Vs T-Series but Western Vs Indian.
But why the fight erupted? The reason may be anything but I would like to point out one side of perspective towards India as a country. If the Goldman Sachs BRICs study is accurate, three of the four largest economies in the year 2050 will be Asian: China, USA, Indian, and Japan. But still, Indians are expected to be snake charmers in the eyes of the majority of people from western countries except those, who have been following the development in India or have visited India.
We have our own version of Amazon (Flipkart) which was acquired by Walmart for $ 16 billion, Ola (Uber) has a valuation of $ 4 billion and have started its operation in Australia & Uk. Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Indian Company Tata Group. Antilia one of the most expensive houses in the world valued at $ 1 billion is owned by Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai, India. India is the second-largest English speaking country only after the USA. In all these great things happening if an Indian company emerges to be one of the biggest channels on YouTube is not a big deal. But in reality, certain baseless allegations which mislead people have caused the controversy. Here are few listed along with my answers:
1. There cannot be a comparison between an Individual content creator and a corporate?
As your channel grows people associated with also grows like, cameraman, editor, etc but still it cannot be compared with a corporate, agreed. But the whole controversy of Individual vs. Corporate was created by PewDiePie because he knew it very well that the crown is to change the position why not use the opportunity and make sure that subscribers increase at superfast rates and remain relevant in news, after creating fight he also went ahead with donating for Cry Foundation so that he can clear his image and gain certain subscriber from India. Not only this few more individual YouTubers started to show support because using this even they can get more subscribers and views on their videos. But what everyone did was to tarnish the image of India worldwide.
2. You get subscribed to T-Series automatically on creating an account on Youtube?
The number of smartphone users in India growing by 15.6% and reach was to 337 million in 2018. Which is the highest growth rate posted by any country in the world? Whereas talking about the reach of YouTube 2 years ago, India was fifth behind US, Brazil, Russia, and Japan And while US Youtube users have increased ~8% in 2 years 180 million, India’s has jumped 500% to 245 million and is expected to reach half a billion in just another 2 (YouTube has 245 million monthly active users in India, expected to hit 500 million in two years).
So, if we go with the logic of PDP, in that case, T-Series should have at least more than 100 millions of subscriber as on today’s date considering less than 50% of the total number of people having smartphones opt for YouTube
3. How can T-Series have such quick growth in the last few years?
To understand this you need to understand the Indian and Indian markets. India has 122 major languages and 1599 other languages, of which 22 are official. Just because some speak only English doesn't make Indian languages "sounds like mumble rap community". With over 407.11 million internet users, India is the second-largest online market, ranked only behind China. By 2022, there will be about 511.89 million internet users in India. Despite the large base of internet users in India, only around 26 percent of the Indian population accessed the internet.
Owing to cheap data introduced by Jio a couple of years back, a huge chunk of India’s economically poor now have access to the internet. Bollywood is very popular within those circles so, obviously, a music mogul is going to benefit the most out of it. Indian music videos used to barely crack the 50 million mark just a couple of years ago. Now there are videos that have crossed 600 million views.
Conclusion
So, that is a few facts. Now you know why T-Series and India are unstoppable. If the news about the change in the titleholder of the most subscribed channel was not bothering him, he could contribute keep it healthy if he would have not created so-called ‘sarcastic’ diss track in the first place itself and others YouTubers would not have bad-mouthed by talking about India on the different context which hardly they are aware of (I would not go in detail) but the reality is people wanted to self grow by putting others in a bad light. What's your take on the issue do comment below.