14-year old Lucas Cruikshank makes “Fred” his YouTube Meal Ticket
As a devoted YouTube connoisseur, I can’t help but be aware of “Fred” and his ever growing popularity. “Fred”, 14-year old Lucas Cruikshank, has over 200,000 subscribers and over 5 million channel views.
Lucas recently did an interview with NTV, where he confirmed that he made a total of $14,000 on YouTube for 7 million video plays (in February). The $14K included some of the Zipit money that he makes for plugging the product in his videos from time to time. Cruikshank told NTV that he came up with the idea for “Fred” two years ago after his mom bought him some new video editing software. Like many vloggers, Cruikshank is a self contained production machine – he scripts, shoots, edits and uploads all of his own videos. His ‘360’ verité style, signature chipmunk voice and ongoing story threads keep his audience enraptured.
Unlike most vloggers, Fred isn’t just interwebs famous. He told NTV that when he goes for auditions in LA (he now has goals for tv/films), kids recognize him on the street, take photos with him and ask for his autograph.
I thought it was funny that some of the kids asking for his autograph are actual tv/film actors, while his resume is still technically “blank” (his words).Lucas may have started out making these videos just for fun, but they are now an enviable source of income. He has a deployment strategy as well that he shared with NTV: