Learning From YouTube: A Parody of Fred

Of course, some fans of Fred like him. Ari and Lauren frame their video "Judy and Bertha" with the text, "This is just a parody of Judy and Bertha on Fred ... P.S. We love Fred!"

But note the definitive ambivalence of their introduction and friendship. The girls are about to engage in what they hope will be an amusing imitation of Fred. They take up his signature direct-address, bad-video, vblog form, and even his staple tactic—ridiculing the friends he loves. But unlike Fred, they undermine their efforts, not fully carrying off their lampoon, by instead counter-productively stating the reverse: we love Fred!

Theirs is a poor imitation that reveals another common practice of Fred fan videos, subscribing to (while refuting) his logic of subscriptions. Before we see them, before they even really begin, they beseech us, they plea, as so many do on YouTube, to "subscribe, comment and rate them." Julie Levin Russo suggests that the girls "have absorbed and uncritically regurgitated YouTube's toxic schema of popularity while Fred is an expert manipulator of it." But given how simple Fred's work appears, it is confusing to figure out why he deserves traffic, attention, and interest, particularly since this attention is from people equally or even more untalented and uninteresting given that all they have to say is a poor imitation of what Fred has already said, arguably or perhaps uncertainly, poorly himself, but clearly to great attention and millions of subscriptions.

"Fred you are such a loser," says "Judy." "Yeah, you're such a loser," replies "Bertha." Loser? Isn't he the guy with all the subsribers (and even a hit TV movie?)? These are the views the girls want, or maybe don't, because if they did they might spend just a little more time on their dialogue, allowing it to be at least articulate enough for their video to have a message, or an analysis, an important component towards any mature and meaningful fan-vid practice.

"Jeez you guys are so errr with people. You don't even know them and you just start making fun of them." "Yeah, I mean God."