Pewdiepie to delete his channel later today

UPDATE: Pewdiepie didn't delete his massive 50 million-strong YouTube channel, and it turns out the entire thing was just a big joke. Instead of deleting his main channel, Felix deleted a secondary account--Jacksepticeye2--that only had two videos.

"I am going to delete my channel right now. But you know when you make a joke and it just blows up way bigger than you ever imagined? This was covered by media everywhere. That was it, that was the joke."

Original article is as follows.

Mega popular YouTuber Pewdiepie has hit 50 million subscribers, and plans to make good on his promise to delete his channel.

Felix Kjellberg, aka Pewdiepie, says he will delete his astronomically popular YouTube channel today at 5PM GMT in an effort to raise significant awareness about the current problems YouTubers are facing. Kjellberg, among many popular and up-and-coming YouTube creators, claim the streaming service is making key changes to its algorithms that detrimentally affect their channels.

Pewdiepie suggests that the changes directly affect how viewers are guided to specific channels via the service's "suggested" and "recommended" videos feature, which pulls in a huge portion of views for any given content creator. For an example of how suggested videos work, think of the bar that pops up when you watch a video and suggests more videos from that creator or similar content from other YouTubers.

Kjellberg notes that his suggested videos count, which was up to 30% in one period, recently dropped to just 0.7%. This has had a significant effect on his overall monthly views, and a ton of other major YouTubers have also complained about serious view drops as well.

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So why is Pewdiepie pulling the plug on a channel worth millions upon millions? So the gaping hole where his mega-popular channel used to be will raise awareness and get YouTube's attention. I don't really think this is much of a publicity stunt considering Kjellberg already has enough money to last him the rest of his life, and his intentions seem to be more aligned to help those up-and-coming YouTubers and current content creators who depend on the service for their livelihood.

Whether or not depending on YouTube for your livelihood is a good thing, however, is another conversation entirely.

In any case, it'll be interesting to see if Pewdiepie does pull the plug, and where his new home will be in the future.