- That's so intense.
Oh my God,
it climbs so fast.
- And number two.
- Oh.
- Oh, one, baby!
♪ (dramatic intro) ♪
♪ (guitar) ♪
- Okay, here we go.
- What is this?
- I just watched this
a few days ago.
- I'm already confused.
What's going on?
- Most subscribed
YouTube channels.
Oh, wait.
- Over the years?
- Look, 2011.
- Oh, what?
It's showing them change.
- With the time.
- RayWilliamJohnson.
- He was my middle school.
- That was my idol, man.
- I watched RayWilliamJohnson,
I watched Ryan, I watched Smosh.
I watched Shane, duh.
I watched Fred.
I was obsessed with Fred.
- Okay, RayWilliam--
whenever somebody's the top,
number one YouTuber,
I never know who they are.
- Oh, oh.
- Dude, we're there.
- We're trading blows.
- Look at you, dude.
Look at you go.
- Go, Smosh.
Go, Smosh.
- You know what's funny
about Smosh?
I interned for Smosh
100 billion years ago in college.
- I'm proud of Jenna.
She's doing her thing.
- I love Jenna Marbles.
She was the first
YouTube video I ever
watched in my entire life.
- The race for the top,
it's interesting just looking back.
Man, RayWilliam was on top
and so was Nigahiga.
- Lonely Island is
a little surprising,
but I guess they did have
that song.
The I just had sex song.
- PewDiePie, there he goes.
Wait, what?
- He dominated.
- Oh, there's PewDiePie.
- Ray William's still
holding strong right now.
- And number two.
- Oh.
- Ha, one, baby!
There was a good while
when it was Smosh,
RayWilliamJohnson, Nigahiga.
There was quite a battle.
- Oh, there's One Direction.
Hell yeah.
One D, come on, baby.
One Direction.
- One Direction!
Yes.
- College Humor,
Epic Meal Time, the Ellen Show
coming in hot.
- This is really cool.
- Oh, Epic Rap Battles.
- It's going so fast.
- Oh, look at PewDiePie.
Suddenly, his thing's just like,
brrrr.
- His meter is moving so quick.
- PewDiePie.
Look at him.
He's just going up.
- Oh my gosh.
- I wonder what videos
PewDiePie had made
that really got him.
- Yeah, how did he
make that jump?
- Oh, oh.
There you are.
He came into the scene
and then rose up
in a matter of a year.
We made a really fun video
when he overtook us.
We filmed a little video
of us taking a crown
and putting it on his head.
- If you wanna look fabulous,
you can't go without that.
- Yeah.
- I wanna see him
find that crown
and put it on T-Series' head now.
- So it's PewDiePie, Smosh,
Hola Soy German,
Jenna Marbles, wow.
What an era, 2013.
- Oh, there's PewDiePie
taking the lead.
The commanding lead.
- PewDiePie just left
everyone in the dust.
What?
- I feel like it gives hope
to people,
'cause anything can happen
to any person.
PewDiePie wasn't on
the top list in the beginning
and then he just came
out of nowhere.
- Nigahiga.
Oh, Ryan's gone down.
Hey, the Fine Bros!
- Hey.
- Fine Bros, hey.
It's my channel.
- They were the best channel.
- Best channel, man.
- PewDiePie is not
looking back.
- Who is this?
OMG.
- Smosh still number three.
- Oh wow, look at all
the VEVO's.
I looked away for one second
and now it's all VEVO.
- These VEVO accounts,
I think that's not fair.
- Can you believe that though?
I work so hard
to make my videos
and it's like Justin Bieber
is on here.
He could post a two second
clip and get 60 million views.
It's like, bitch.
- It always bothers me
on these lists when
VEVO accounts and
music channels are included.
- Oh, Yuya.
I remember her.
I met her during this era
and little did I know,
she was on them charts
- Oh, Fine Bros.
- No, come back.
- No.
- All right, there's three guys
I don't know.
- Dude, the rate at which
PewDiePie grows,
it's like a trained sprinter
and then children.
- Yeah.
- Uh oh.
What did Fernanfloo
do that year--
that month?
He's climbing.
- Where'd Nigahiga go?
- Yeah.
- Oh, Ryan.
- Dang, Dude Perfect,
that's a good channel right there.
- There's T-Series.
God dang it.
Here they come.
- T-Series, oh no.
2017, oh no.
- Oh no, T-Series.
- Where?
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- I mean, really, I think
it's targeting an audience
that wasn't necessarily
targeted before.
- Access to YouTube in India
became a lot more widespread.
It makes sense.
There's an insanely huge
market there that no
American YouTubers
is really tapping into.
- German, he's going down.
Who's coming up number two?
Oh, T-Series!
- I see One Direction's
about to fall off the list.
Oh my God.
- How did they do that,
T-Series?
- It's so intense.
Oh my God,
it climbed so fast.
- Oh, oh.
- There we go.
- The battle continues.
- The battle continues.
- PewDiePie and T-Series.
Five Minute Crafts?
Look, they're--
- Five Minute Crafts?
- Five Minute Crafts?
Hey, I love crafts.
- November 2018.
- Why is it so intense?
- And we're coming up
to the final line.
PewDiePie has the inside corner
but T-Series is coming up
and we're getting to
the finish line.
- Will he pass?
Will he pass?
- Cocomelon Nursery Rhymes?
We're doing the wrong thing
on YouTube.
- That was kind of actually
really cool to watch.
- That's kind of intense.
I liked that.
- Because when we started
watching YouTube,
Ryan Higa was our
favorite YouTuber.
- Now you got T-Series,
you got Five Minute Crafts,
you got the nursery rhymes.
Those aren't personalities
anymore.
Those are--
that's content that you can watch
like Netflix, like a TV show.
- I've been watching YouTube
for a very, very long time
and I've been subscribed
to a lot of these channels
before I was actually
creating, so I grew up
watching Jenna Marbles
and Shane Dawson
and Ryan and a bunch
of other people, too,
so it's been really cool to see
the progression of all
these accounts and channels
growing really, really, really fast
and I think it also
represents too the climb
of YouTube and how
important it is in regards
to digital media because
all of these huge musicians,
channels and now
full productions
are uploading their content
to YouTube as well.
- (FBE) So, that was a video
posted on YouTube in February
by a channel called
The Rankings
that was accurate back
when it was released.
- And it's already out of date.
- Yeah.
- (FBE) So overall,
what were some of your
major takeaways from
watching this?
- My takeaways is maybe
I don't spend as much
time on YouTube
as I think I do
because I did not know
a lot of people on there
and it was also nostalgic.
- You never know
what you can do
and what you're capable of.
It doesn't matter what
the chart looks like now.
You can--
if you wanna be at the top,
it's possible.
- And you can be here one day
and gone the next.
- Yeah, that too.
- It's cool.
It's cool to see things,
especially from way back when,
it was like the most subscribed
channel was 10 million.
Oh, sis, no, wait.
- Just really seeing the crazy,
drastic change of top YouTubers
with tens of millions
of subscribers and then
somebody just comes and
within a year
and a short amount of time,
just pass them up.
- It was cool seeing it
because obviously, you know
some of the names
and you know that they're popular
but to actually see the growth
from when they initially
started and then just go on
and see how many they gained
and how fast, too.
If you look at the date
and then you look at their thing,
it's just, oh my God.
- Nothing was surprising to me
just because I've been
watching it for so long,
so I've kinda actually
watched this happen.
There was also a lot of channels
that I assumed would still
be in the top that kind of
went down as well over time
replaced by WWE and VEVO channels
and Five Minute Crafts.
- I guess we're all just
in the hands of YouTube.
It's up to them to basically
decide who is at the top.
- It felt like I was in
a history class.
It felt like I was looking
at a timescale and remembering
all those years
and what was trending.
- (FBE) Some would say
that as an online creator,
success is measured in
different ways,
so if you've been around
for a while, though,
then there's probably
a good chance that
a lot has changed since
you first started.
What were the platform
and the creators like
when you first got into it
versus what it's like now?
- I think it was more real
back then.
It was real,
including my channel.
I was more raw.
Now it's follow the trends.
- The content and the humor
then, people weren't
as sensitive and there was
a lot more gore
and you could be more
sexual.
Nowadays, everything's
family friendly.
There's some creators that
don't wanna adapt to that
and just be them
and unfortunately they kinda
drop off.
- People started doing YouTube
and a lot of them were misfits
and a lot of people that
didn't really fit in
and wanted to express themselves
on the platform
and that's why I fell in love
with watching some
of my favorite creators
and I think now,
it's much more tailored
towards being an actual business
as opposed to before,
it was a hobby for most people.
- YouTube back then
was definitely personality based
and whereas now,
it's more content based.
You have T-Series,
you have the nursery rhyme channel
and the Five Minute Craft thing.
Those aren't--
that's just not personalities
whereas back in the day,
you saw all these names
with these YouTubers.
- (FBE) So as you saw,
who is popular or on top
when it comes to YouTube
channels is constantly changing.
A lot of the creators
that you saw in the rankings
grew and are sometimes
not perceived as popular
as they once were,
while others were able
to maintain their popularity
despite how the site has changed.
What has been your own
experience with the process
of growing and falling
when it comes to YouTube
and your popularity
on the platform?
- I find that it can be
very saddening sometimes
when you are doing well
and then you just start
doing bad,
it gets to you.
I can understand why people
would have--
they say social media
causes mental illnesses,
I can see it.
I don't allow it to.
- I wish I could say,
"Oh, I don't worry about it,"
but it's definitely something
that I think about.
Sometimes I think about it
all the time
even when it's on a video
by video basis.
It's hard not to think about.
I have to then tell myself
not to let it affect my actual--
what I'm actually doing,
'cause that could be
my biggest enemy.
- The key is making content
is cool that's interesting,
but getting people to fall
in love with you as a person,
because then no matter what's
going on, people are
gonna be interested.
- It's tough because not only
do you have to adapt
to what's in, the type
of content that people wanna see,
it's also just the platform itself.
Before, it was okay
to post three minute
to five minute videos.
Those would get shared
or be recommended
and now it's like,
if the video's not ten minutes,
you're not gonna get shared.
- I had a six month hiatus,
'cause I didn't know what
I wanted to do
and I said, yeah.
I didn't--
I'm gonna say I almost
gave up.
It's just that I was just here
and I decided to get back.
I decided just go for it
and then the motivations
I had with the comments
just took me above it,
so I said, "yes."
and four years later
I'm still doing it.
- (FBE) So, the video
we showed you today
measured the most popular
YouTubers based solely
on Subscriber count.
However, some would likely
argue that there is more
to a YouTuber's measure of success
than just their number
of Subscribers.
- Me, I think Subscribers
used to mean a lot more
back in the day,
back when we thought
that your number of subscribers
was actually equal
to the number of people
that watched your content,
but YouTube started favoring
subscriptions less and less
and less and less
and now it's just
a nice little reminder
that people are still interested
in your content,
but it's not a guarantee
that if you have 50 million
subscribers, 50 million people
are watching your content.
- (FBE) How do you define
your own success on YouTube?
- Wow, deep question.
- Yeah.
- I think it boils down
to how--
what type of impact
you have on people
in the real world
and just in the DMs
you'll get messages
and comments.
I think that should be
what you worry on,
not the numerical aspect
of it.
- Yeah, just the good value
that you bring to others
with your content.
- An accurate measure is,
I think, views.
I think views are--
I just think it's a more
accurate representation
of how many people
are watching rather than
how many people have
clicked subscribe.
- I try not to look at
just the numbers,
'cause that can be
a really, really toxic mindset.
I tend to look at creators
as a whole across
all their platforms
and see what they're
really working on everywhere
and that's how I measure in my head.
- Success is in the eye
of the beholder.
I define success on YouTube
by how much fun
I'm having doing it.
- I like when I see
I'm actually changing someone's
actual life.
Yeah, I just made
a silly video of how to put
marble floors in your house,
but when people send me
photos like, "Oh my God,
this made me so happy.
Look at my floor,
look at my dorm that
you inspired."
I'm like, "Really?"
Wow.
- Success to us is the legacy
we leave.
Just the legacy we
leave behind, I think
that is way more successful
than any amount of money,
any amount of subscribers,
any amount of views
could ever measure up to.
- (FBE) So finally,
this video showed 15 years
of YouTube's most subscribed
list, so what is your prediction
in another 15 years
of the types of channels
that will be on top
as YouTube continues to evolve?
- We'll be number one.
- Obviously.
- They love us.
- Loveliveserve will be on top.
- There's gonna be different
types of content
I can't even think of right now
that's gonna be
the next big thing.
- I think it's gonna be
more real channels.
People love vlogs
and getting to know people.
Wouldn't you love to watch
someone grow up, literally?
Yeah, hell yeah.
It's like an extended form,
long form reality show.
- As YouTube continues
to evolve, we're gonna see
more channels like T-Series
come up because the world
is expanding, technology
is expanding,
people are now getting
internet that never had
internet before.
- I think, sadly, the age
of starting off with zero
subscribers and making it
on your own as a YouTuber
are almost over
because the days of doing
it by yourself and talking
to your camera
are still there,
but they're slowly going
to die off,
which is so sad because
that's what YouTube was made.
- That's what YouTube was.
- As YouTube penetrates
other large markets,
you're gonna see a very--
You're gonna see a more
multinational kind of list,
so India I'm sure,
it'll all be Indian channels
in five years
unless China opens up
to YouTube.
It's all gonna be
Indian channels.
- Everyone watches videos
and shares stuff.
It's just whether or not
you're using YouTube to do it.
- Thanks for watching this
episode of YouTubers React.
- Check out all the creators
featured in this video.
Links in the description.
- Which channels do you think
will make this list in the future?
- Comment down below.
- (both) Bye.
- Hey it's Sierra,
producer here at FBE.
Thank you so much to all
the creators who came in
to shoot this episode with us.
Make sure you go support them
by subscribing to their channels.
Links will be in the description
down below.
Bye, guys.
