In war against T-Series, PewDiePie fans deface World War II memorial

PewDiePie once again courted controversy after his fans defaced a historic World War II memorial in New York.

"Subscribe to PewDiePie" graffiti was etched on Brooklyn War Memorial in Cadman Plaza Park, reported the Independent, a UK-based media house.

This comes amid the raging online war between T-Series and PewDiePie for the most subscribed video channel on YouTube.

Unverified reports claimed other public properties also have been defaced or vandalised with similar graffiti.

On Saturday, March 11, Indian music record label T-Series overtook PewDiePie for about five minutes to become No.1 YouTube channel. This was the second instance of T-Series overtaking PewDiePie. On February 22, T-Series beat PewDiePie for about eight minutes. Both the feats were short-lived as fans rallied to get Pewds on top again.

Few hours later, PewDiePie tweeted a victory image.

pic.twitter.com/tYKQCeo9Ju — ƿ૯ωძɿ૯ƿɿ૯ (@pewdiepie) March 10, 2019

Owned by Swedish gamer Felix Kjellberg, PewDiePie held the mantle of the most followed channel on YouTube for six straight years. Since mid-2018, it started facing stiff competition from the decades-old music brand T-Series which witnessed a meteoric rise to the top propelled by India's recent game-changing mobile connectivity.

Followers' tactics to keep PewDiePie on top has attracted criticism from several units.

Last year, fans hacked printers and Chromecasts, spewing “Subscribe to PewDiePie” message. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) website was also defaced with similar message.

Last week, T-Series Chairman and Managing Director Gulshan Kumar took to Twitter with a video message, calling upon all Indians to subscribe to his channel. "There is an Indian YouTube channel on the brink of becoming World`s No.1. It has taken us a lot of effort to come this far. To take my father Mr. Gulshan Kumar`s dream forward, I started this channel. Today, it belongs to you, to the entire nation. It`s a historic moment for all of us. So let`s come together and subscribe to T-Series YouTube channel and make India proud," he said in the video message.

The subscriber gap between the two is 25,849 at the time of filling the story.