Fred, meet Molly.



As you may know, I think Fred is fantastic.

And now, I've found him a friend.

Molly is a 19-year-old Brit living in Canada. Her collection of 51 original videos on YouTube have around 20 million views in total. Not quite Fred's 100 million, but it ain't bad. As she puts it on her blog, she posts "mainly pictures of myself because I'm a huge self-obsessed bitch."

Her rise to popularity was triggered by a video which asked, "Are you anyone's favourite person?"


That video alone has been seen by almost 3 million people. There are 200 video replies and over 19,000 comments.

When I wrote about Fred, I started to list some factors that I think contribute to creating successful online content. I'm going to add to and refine them, as examples like what Molly is doing shed more light on what works and what doesn't:

1. Funny matters.
2. Irreverence improves spreadablility.
3. Parents should hate it, not understand it or be worried about it.
4. It is best when parents don’t know about it at all.
5. Nothing beats original.
6. Happy helps
7. Authenticity creates a following
8. Imitation is not flattery. It is pretty boring.
9. Conversations are key
10. Bite size is better
11. Lots of little beats one big thing
12. Experimentation is ok

As Molly puts it, "i've tried pretty hard to stay neutral on the internet. i guess i'm elitist about pop culture and who i talk to and stuff. but i don't discuss serious issues in my videos. it's all very self-indulgent and superficial, which is great. i think when something recreational assumes a more 'important' purpose, it loses a lot of the fun."

Fred and Molly are not trend or fads, folks. You're looking at one part of the future of content.


And no, I'm not playing matchmaker for them.

For the record, i-boy is not Match.com.