“Congratulations” by Roomie, Pewdiepie & Boyinaband

“Congratulations” is a song in which YouTube celebrity PewDiePie is leading a mocking of India-based record label T-Series for surpassing his channel as the most-viewed on YouTube (with both of them having viewers in excess of 92 million). In other words, PewDiePie and his collaborators, Roomie and Boyinaband (both musicians and fellow YouTube personalities), are congratulating T-Series while simultaneously dissing it and pretty much the entirety of Asia in the process.

As such, if you just listen to the chorus, where sentiments of congratulations are being expressed, you would believe that the artists are indeed sincere in their good wishes. But during the verses you will actually notice that PewDiePie and Boyinaband in particular don’t feel that T-Series has earned its status fairly while already having a rocky relationship with the company. What stands out the most from this track is not the fact that PewDiePie and the boys are upset about Pew losing his status as the number-one YouTube channel, though obviously they are.  Rather it is PewDiePie, being Swedish, comparing his viewer base to T-Mobile’s, implying that the reason they have been able to surpass him is because the population of their country is greater. But he doesn’t stop there.  He pokes fun at T-Mobile’s past, which includes them being founded on illegal song distribution and also apparently having mafia connections. They also brings up India’s “caste system”, “crippling poverty” and “poor people”, and although the way these terms are used is not directly offensive, at the same time it is not in such a context that most Indians would likely appreciate. Putting it succinctly, PewDiePie and co. have somehow made “T-Series” synonymous with “India” and in the process insults an entire country and indeed continent while really having beef with just a single business entity.