The New Wave of Online Celebrities

 

Besides the high profile examples of Dane Cook, Arctic Monkeys and Esmeé Denters. There is an increasing number of people using web 2.0 to launch there entertainment careers.

Dane Cook is credited as one of the first comedians to use a personal webpage and MySpace to build a large fan base.

Arctic Monkeys are heralded as one of the first acts to come to the public attention via the Internet, with commentators suggesting they represented the possibility of a change in the way in which new bands are promoted and marketed

Esmeé Denters regularly covered other artists like Justin Timberlake and Natasha Bedingfield’s songs on YouTube.  It was because of this that led Justin Timberlake to notice her and subsequently signing her to his record label.

These were more of the main stream examples of people who leveraged their career through the use of technology; now let’s have a look at the people under the radar. 

People you may not of heard of but are carving out their own niche in the online world;

Fred

Fred is a fictional character created and portrayed by American actor Lucas Cruikshank.  The videos are centred on Fred Figglehorn, a fictional 6-year-old who has a dysfunctional home life and anger management issues.  Cruikshank  created the character for his channel on YouTube, he filmed his first Fred video in late 2006.  This was the first Youtube channel to gain 1 million subscribers. 

His celebrity on Youtube has lead to him filming a motion picture for Nickelodeon, which is hoped to become a franchise.

Fred: The Movie  features Lucas Cruikshank as Fred, UK pop sensation Pixie Lott as Judy and WWE wrestler John Cena as Fred's dad.

KassemG

Kassem started out doing stand up in the local LA stand up scene and gained some ground in a short amount of time opening for Dane Cook & Daniel Tosh at sold shows.  He was disillusioned with the stand up scene.  He began to upload comedy videos of himself interviewing passers-by on Venice Beach in a similar style to Sacha Baron Cohens comedy. Kassems massively popular “California On” web series has been the main reason he has attracted over 130 million views on Youtube. Kassem had over a million followers on YouTube and is one of the most viewed comedians online. 

Kassem has featured in huge number of comedy shorts on Youtube, including a spoof Apple commercial with Jane Lynch of Glee fame. He has subsequently joined the online comedy show the Station and by popular demand (from his 1 million followers) he is due to return to the comedy scene.

 

Amir Blumenfeld

Amir Blumenfeld is a senior writer and actor at College Humor (College Humor is a comedy website based in New York City.  Amir rose to internet prominence with the Jake and Amir web series, and Prank Wars with Streeter Seidell.  

It is from these endeavours that have led him to presenting Pranked on MTV.   He is due to appear in the third film of the highly successful Harold and Kumar pictures. 

Philip DeFranco

Philip DeFranco is an American video blogger on YouTube, and a YouTube celebrity. His videos are centred around current events, politics and celebrity gossip in which he gives his opinion, usually presented ironically and with frequent jump cuts to create a fast-paced feel. He has over 1.4 million subscribers, and is the 11th most subscribed YouTuber of all time.

It has been claimed he makes over $250,000 from a number of sources on the Internet, not just YouTube, but he has denied it in several videos.  He has been paid by companies to create videos to promote Carl's Jr.'s burgers, and the US television series Lie to Me and Fringe.

In October 2008, DeFranco started acting and he became the star of Hooking Up, a promo from HBOLabs (the online arm of HBO).  Hooking Up is a scripted 10-episode Web-based series set at a fictional university where the students spend most of their time emailing and using Facebook, but still manage to miscommunicate.

By the show's second day on YouTube, it had received more than 450,000 views. Bobbie Johnson of The Guardian said that many Web surfers had "scoffed at what they see as a cynical attempt to cash in."

Lisa Donovan

Lisa Donovan is an American actress and writer. She self-produces comedic short films, published under the username LisaNova on YouTube.

Donovan moved to Los Angeles with the hope of becoming an actress.  Upon the realisation that it is very hard to get noticed in the industry, she set up her own production company (Zappin Productions) specializing in viral videos.

Donovan has parodied a number of celebrities and public figures, including Keira Knightley, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Lindsay Lohan, Heidi Montag, Lauren Conrad and Kim Kardashian. LisaNova is listed as the 33rd most subscribed of all time and 9th most subscribed for directors with 594,423 subscribers.

She is also part of the YouTube channel 'The Station'. She worked in parodies with other YouTubers such as ShayCarl, Davedays and Ceciley.

Donovan was chosen as the Youtube representative to interview Katy Perry for a feature interview for the site.

Lisa once said in an interview that she would love to meet Jane Fonda, this sparked a splurge in online traffic from Lisa’s followers to Jane Fonda’s blog.  The comments that Lisa’s followers left on the blog convinced Jane Fonda to agree to the interview which took place 5 days after Donovan said she would love to meet her!

Lisa Donovan was given a featured player role in MADtv.  She debuted in a spoof of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she played Salma Hayek.