PewDiePie Becomes First YouTuber to Surpass 10 Billion Views

Felix 'PewDiePie' Kjellberg has become the first YouTube user to exceed more than ten billion views on his channel.

Kjellberg announced the milestone, which he hit on September 6, 2015, on Twitter to his six million followers

Kjellberg created the PewDiePie channel six years ago. In December of 2012, he signed a deal with online video content creator Maker Studios, which is now owned by Disney.

Discussion his popularity on YouTube, Kjellberg previously said it is somewhat unsettling: "I'm so central to YouTube now, and that puts me in the spotlight and raises a lot of questions like 'Why is he so big?'" Kjellberg said. "I'd much rather prefer to have something like 5 million subscribers."

The PewDiePie channel currently has just over 39 million subscribers.

The subject of how much money PewDiePie earns has been a hot topic of discussion this year. In July it was reported that he earned 63 million SEK (around $7.5 million) in 2014 and generates over $4 million in ad sales per year.

The YouTube star responded to negative comments resulting from the reports of his earnings with a six-minute video that recounts his rise to prominence and said "money doesn't make you happy."

He said: "Money is a topic that I purposefully tried to avoid for the five years I've been making videos. I just feel like it's not important to anyone. I just want to make entertaining videos.

"Whenever it comes out how much I made a certain year, people just get so shocked. A lot of people were also very angry. They thought it was unfair. They thought I just sit on my ass and I yell at the screen over here--which is true--but there's so much more to it than that."

He continued: "I understand that haters are going to hate, but I really think that money doesn't make you happy. I'm just as happy now as I was five years ago. I'm very happy that I don't have to worry about paying rent."

PewDiePie, who is known primarily for his Let's Play videos also regularly organises charity drives. In June, 2014 he raised $630,000 for the Save the Children charity.