Last we heard from YouTube’s most popular gamer, he was turning off comments in an effort find better ways to connect to his fans. Now, a couple of months later, he reports that the change was ultimately a great one.
“Before I turned off my comments I think things were going downhill,” Felix ‘Pewdiepie’ Kjellberg remarked on a subscriber celebration video uploaded today. “Making that change, I feel like we’ve been going back up. It’s been making me really happy, it’s been making me enjoy what I do.”
Kjellberg goes on to talk about the ways he’s kept himself happy despite the fame — notably, playing the sorts of games he wants to play, instead of relying solely on horror games, as some of his fans would like him to. While it’s a short video, it’s interesting to hear him talk about this stuff: based on numbers alone, he’s doing fantastic. But subscriber count isn’t everything, especially if certain aspects of YouTubing aren’t making him happy, or if he’s having trouble connecting with his devoted fans. Some aspects of fame are difficult!
It’s worth noting that Kjellberg says he turned off comments largely because his channel was getting spammed too much, not because of toxicity. Still, his choice is an interesting one: enabling or disabling comments is a hot topic when it comes to online communities, and some people would argue that turning comments on isn’t the greatest move (at least, not without fierce moderation). Personally, while I don’t think our system at Kotaku is perfect, we do appreciate our lively, clever commenters here — though I recognise that we also have better tools than the ones available at YouTube.
EDIT: That’s not to say Pewdiepie fans don’t have a place to talk about his videos anymore, of course. Instead of comments, Pewdiepie has moved on to using forums for discussion.
Comments
28 responses to “Pewdiepie Says Hiding Comments Made Him Happier”
I really like the kotaku comments section, it’s nearly always useful stuff.
Kotaku AU, anyway. Don’t, uh… don’t go to Kotaku US for comments. That way lies madness.
Madness... ?
This is AUSTRALIA!!!
Double whammy, the reference and your username. Pure gold, haha.
Good for him I guess?
Patricia would also probably like Kotaku’s commenters better if she wrote better articles
Broarmy.net – I’m sure it’s super handy, but ew.
My 7 yr old nephew loves him. I personally think he is annoying. Each to their own I guess.
totally agree with you Andy, this guy is an ahole and I can’t stand his stupid face/voice
He probably hides comments because there would be a whole lot of people poiting out how much of a tosser he is!
Nope. It’s because of the thousands of spam bots, and there not actually being comments there because the first few hundred pages of comments would be filled with links to other channels videos and spam. Thats what he gets for being the biggest channel on youtube.
while I don’t think our system at Kotaku is perfect
Yeah, you still have downvoting!
Sorry, i couldnt resist
What’s wrong with downvoting? Why only be able to praise someone, if they’re being a dick you should be able to let them know that too. I think places like facebook should have an up and a down button too, “like” means nothing.
Spending his millions?
I’m sure there’s a lot of stress and pressure that we’re not considering for someone who plays games for a virtual audience for a (very good) living
Oh no doubt, but I’d rather that than the stress and pressure of raising 4 kids on $32,000 a year. 🙂
Holy shite. That sounds terrifying. Thank frack the mrs and I don’t want kids.
Studies have actually shown that comments sections can effect readers perception of the quality of the article itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/this-story-stinks.html?_r=0
What an amazing coincidence: Hiding Pewdiepie made me happier.
You win todays internet!
It’s nice to know that my efforts at being the best tool I can are appreciated.
I don’t know… from what I’ve seen, the tools you find on YouTube really are in a class of their own.
They are the tooliest tools to ever tool.
I find it funny that people argued about him turning off comments. Sure, I can understand in most other cases that silencing people is horrible, but that’s not why PewDiePie disabled his video comments and people that were unhappy with his choice obviously didn’t know the state that chat was in. From the absurd amount of unwarranted vitriol and trolling, as well as advertisement links leeching off of the largest subscriber (and of course the malicious links for the same reason), the chat had gone from discussion to almost entirely spam and attacks.
I don’t really care for PewDiePie as a personality. His videos just don’t do it for me. But I definitely don’t fault him for turning off his comments.
Personally, I find using hte Herp Derp extension for Youtube comments makes my web browsing experience 100% better.
I’d be a lot happier too if I didn’t have to read comments by Pewdiepie fans.
I mean, comparatively. Nobody’s forcing me to read comments by Pewdiepie fans. Ha ha.
(send police)
He could make the world a happier place and delete his channel. There are at least 1,000 that are better.
A lot of other people do it…why is it news when he does it?