HiQ Magazine | Superstars of our time

Photo: Epicrapbattlesofhistory.wikia.com/

PewDiePie, one of YouTube’s biggest channels, is run by 26-year-old Gothenburg-born Felix Kjellberg. More than 43 million subscribers follow his YouTube clips where he plays and comments on computer games. The most popular videos are those where he screams out loud in terror during a variety of horror games. In 2014 PewDiePie reported earnings of around six million euros.

PEWDIEPIE

Photo: Sverigesradio.se

In 2009 15-year-old Clara Henry sat in her bedroom and uploaded a video to YouTube.

Today her humorous video about julmust, a Swedish soft drink sold only at Christmas, has been seen more than half a million times and Clara’s YouTube account has 380,000 subscribers. Meanwhile Clara has become an author, a TV host, a radio celebrity, a comedian and a self-appointed expert on menstruation.

She posts one video a week and can live off the earnings from her YouTube channel.

CLARA HENRY AVICII

SUPERSTARS OF OUR TIME Today’s digital platforms are creating brand new opportunities for just about anyone to reach a huge audience. The most successful YouTube, Instagram and Twitter profiles have millions of followers and earn lots of money from internet ads and sponsorship agreements.

Here are a few of our current Nordic favourites.

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Tim Bergling started to produce house music as a hobby in 2006. His initial recordings were distributed free through well-known international blogs. From there, one thing led to another. On 27 February 2014 his “Wake Me Up” passed the 200 million plays milestone to become the most played song ever on Spotify.

Today Avicii is a world-famous DJ with more than three million Instagram followers and 19 million likes on Facebook.

Sara Maria Forsberg from Finland has an amazing gift for mimicking the cadences of different languages. When she published her 1 minute 45 second video “What languages Sound Like” on YouTube in 2014 it took only hours before she was world-famous. Now, two years later, the video has been viewed almost 17 million times and her SAARA channel has more than 500,000 subscribers.

These successes have led to a recording contract with a major US studio and a number of film roles. In December it was revealed that Sara is the creator of the alien language in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Photo: Helloimsaara.com

Photo: Edmchicago.com

SAARA

Photo: Norran.se

Photo: Angelicablick.se

Sascha Richardson from Skellefteå in northern Sweden started uploading videos with make-up tips to YouTube when she was just 13 years old in 2013. Today she has 165,000 subscribers and a devoted base of fans known as “Saschers”. She earns money from internet ads and regularly works with a number of advertisers.

With 1.2 million Instagram followers 24-year-old fashion blogger Angelica Blick is one of Sweden’s biggest names on social media. She has won a long list of blog prizes, appeared in the TV talent show Swedish Idol and designed her own collections for BikBok and Nelly.com.

With so many followers she also earns big bucks from sponsored content.

SASH MMIISAS Photo: Iltasanomat.fi

ANGELICA BLICK JUSTIMUS Photo: Hmlviihdekeskus.fi

In 2009 three young men from Haapavesi (a small town in the Finnish provinces) started the YouTube channel Justimusfilms. Juho Nummela, Sami Harmaala and Joose Kääriäinen soon became a hit with their sketches and in 2012 the trio of comedians-cum-musicians were given their own series on Finnish TV. Two years later they released their first album, which, inevitably, topped the Finnish charts.

Today they have 400,000 subscribers and almost 84 million views on YouTube.

They are, of course, also big on Instagram and Snapchat.

21-year-old Miisa Rotola-Pukkila likes to call herself “the Internet kid”. She rapidly became one of Finland’s biggest internet stars after starting her YouTube channel in 2013 with her own take on the Harlem Shake. Three years later her video blog and YouTube channel have more than 240,000 subscribers and 275,000 people follow her day-to-day life on Instagram. In 2015 Miisa was voted best female vlogger at the TubeCon event and in January 2016 she was listed among the Top 100 Most Influential Finns in the country’s biggest business newspaper, Kauppalehti.

JONIELOL

Photo: Shortcut.se

Johanna Nordström, alias Jonielol or skitjobbig (“damn nuisance”), is 20 years old and hails from Västerås.

Currently ranked as Sweden’s sixth most influential Twitterer, she has more than 80,000 followers for her humorous and often ironic tweets. This success has earned her a job with Lajkat, the viral news site of the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, and she has also produced podcasts and released a song.

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