PewDiePie talks money
"I just want to make entertaining videos."
PewDiePie, the world's biggest YouTuber, makes a lot of money. That should come as no surprise when you consider his channel enjoys billions of views.
But it did for some.
When Swedish newspaper Expressen revealed PewDiePie, real name Felix Kjellberg, 25, made around $7m in 2014, some were shocked and some were angry. There was a big discussion. Even the BBC covered it.
A big enough discussion to prompt PewDiePie into making a video called "Let's talk money", below, in which he expresses surprise at the internet's surprise at his financial success.
"I just feel like it's not important to anyone," he says. "I just want to make entertaining videos. Don't get me wrong, though. I don't hate money. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't matter to me, because it matters to everyone."
PewDiePie's YouTube channel has nearly 38m subscribers - more than One Direction and Taylor Swift. His most popular video ever, "A Funny Montage", has had 67m views. And yet people seem surprised he's rich.
"What people don't think about until it's in their face is that I have nine billion views, and that translates to something," PewDiePie says. "I have ads on my videos and that translates to something."
He goes on to read out a few of the comments he saw in reaction to the news of his money-making prowess.
"They thought I just sit on my ass all day and just yell at the screen over here, which is true! But there's so much more to it than that, and I understand haters are gonna hate, right?"
"To see so many people being upset about this whole thing, it's just sad. It's such a waste."
The video's worth a watch, and for me PewDiePie comes across very well. If nothing else, you'll probably enjoy the bit where PewDiePie reads out the comments. It's pretty funny!
PewDiePie concludes: "It seems like the whole world cares more about how much money I make than I do myself. We did raise $1m for charity and very few articles picked up on that, but here it is, everywhere, how much money I make.
"I don't think there's any good reason why anyone should care. And on top of that I guess there's no good reason why I should care either. So we're just going to end it there."
