Tom Parker and Elvis would be all over facebook and Youtube, id have some little blue suede shoe logo id click , to download hs latest mp3,

To the media tortured youth nowadays he must be like a Messiah, who shows a way out of the trap. That’s the mass phenomenon. But people always screwed up in understanding their Messiahs. As they preserved what he was saying and not what he really meant, if Fred really means something.

So, the question is now, can he hold the level that high or will it burn down as quickly is it came. Or will it end up in some more bullshoe merch forcing kids to buy it for the sake of industry Cool™.

I don’t know how the phenomenon of New Rave was in the US, but in Europe and Russia it opened up the possibility for a huge crowd of kids to take part in an anti hero/anti meaning movement (just be). The duller you were, the cooler, bigger goggles and strange painful colored accessories, self made or bought. So every “looser”, nerd or anti-hero had the chance of exactly underlining that and being cool by that.

From Kazifornia with love

Kazmonavt

I think you’re pretty dead on when it comes to why he is funny to the demographic, although i wanted to gouge my eyes out. By being counter to what the teens expect and would normally do he is setting himself up to be laughed at, which is what he wants. Teens spend a good deal of time making fun of each other for being exactly what fred is, but to a more realistic and lesser degree. By immersing himself in the epitome of what teens dread being his comedy is damn near failsafe.

The numbers are huge, scary huge. And while its not records, as Seth has already pointed out, or any other type of guaranteed sale it is a massive audience ripe for target practice. And its also something mainstream media, and by proxy corporate ad buyers, care more about. We as internet marketers and content producers have spent years trying to sell focus demographics to companies as the wave of the future. Fred has numbers and a loosely focus demographic that the companies are more used to seeing.

He probably started his channel like every other teen, to be heard and to make people laugh. There didn’t seem to be a marketing plan. You’re right about the initial premises of the article though 45 million can’t be wrong, to dismiss it would be like canceling Seinfeld after the first season, stupid.

Nevertheless: The phaenomenon Fred was before they started the campaign.

“As it turns out, Fred—whose real name is Lucas Cruikshank—has been making amateur videos for some time, many of them with his two cousins. Cruikshank was scouted by an L.A.-based ad firm looking for the next tween thing to anchor the launch of the Zipit product. “Fred’s huge online following among teens and tweens, and their passion for the character, was just the magic bullet we were looking for in creating a new campaign for Zipit,” said David Abehsera, the President of WOO Agency, in a statement.”

Which proves that his success is not random or just calculated corporate YouTube manipulation. Teens and twens do really think he’s awesome. More details on LATimes.com

It’s well paced. The movie is well cut, there is a constant push and whenever you just caught something just too cliché/stupid it’s already over and you already missed the next three lines. Yeah, it’s stupid, but it’s very “in your face” stupid, don’t underestimate this young prick. Not only is it well cut, there is really good dramatic pacing in there. There is not a single line too much, every line has a function and pushes you into another mood. Ok, I know you might be choking in disbelief but I really mean it: It’s well scripted. 99% of YouTube videos are none of the above.

It has structure, starts in the inside, starting a story, then changes to the outside, the pool scene (aargh) with the voices and some kind of climax, we have running and back into inside. The hair is wet, by the way, 66% percent of YouTube directors wouldn’t care about such a detail. That’s a lot of motion and action, no?

The voice helps. Nobody likes too much speaking so just make it faster. Plus, the artificial result creates distance to the subject (no self confession crap) and closeness at the same time (Mickey Mouse and talking like little babies is familiar to you too, no?). The speed also has something hypnotic to it, no? You just keep listening, not sure what the heck you’re actually seeing here.

The overall result is like watching a car accident: It’s so terrible and you don’t want to watch but you just have to keep staring at it. We know that from YouTube ok, but this fucking annoying idiot really does it well.

I have more! It’s a very strange character, isn’t it? Watch the movie again, and try to see what you think of gender and age during the whole thing. Isn’t it shifting sometimes? I bet that’s something that keeps some of the viewers interested. Those small amount of creeps, oh my god is he doing this. I’m totally not surprised that something like this must spread like wildfire on schoolyards. Of what age are most of the hardcore YouTube viewers? Are there some statistics?