Tcritic by Karl Long – The Daily T-Shirt Blog Covering Indie Fashion and Design

You may never have heard of Fred, but he is a hit “with the kids”. So much of a hit that his YouTube show is sponsored by a little IM/texting device called a Zip-It, which he has seamlessly blended in to his show. What I find amazing is how the show sold out so shamelessly and yet so seamlessly it almost adds to the show’s appeal. The show consists of a 14 year old kid playing a 6 year old kid, with a high pitched squeaky voice, it’s kind of like Peewee Herman. Here’s a sample episode (be warned i don’t believe anyone can be ambivalent about this character):

The show is incredibly popular and in fact every episode get 3+ million views. The crazy folks at Blogscoped calculated that the Fred videos have been watched a total of 48 million times. Robert Scoble may call it stupid, but I think that is selling short the very clever and deliberate ascent to stardom of this internet celebrity. If you watch the first and last episodes of Fred you can see how the character has developed over 2 years from a very rough first attempts to a fully realized character today.

Anyway, my point is he has sold out so seamlessly that why the hell isn’t he selling the t-shirt that he wears in every episode?

This post is tagged internet, social-media, weblebrety, youtube