Being a Freak on YouTube

Sometimes you don’t have to be creative, cute or attractive to become famous on YouTube. On the contrary. You can be annoying, weird and offensive and still gain millions of subscribers. How does that happen? Let’s find out by learning the stories of the most popular weirdos on YouTube!

Miranda Sings

What started as a simple parody turned out to be a very successful project. Colleen Ballinger was 21 years old when she started creating satiric videos featuring a fictional character Miranda Sings. Miranda was a typical bad singer who overestimated her vocal abilities and wanted to break into show business.

Colleen was a vocal-performance major and wanted to entertain her musical-theatre friends. But videos quickly went viral, getting lots of fans and haters. Many people didn’t get the point and left tons of negative comments about how horrible Miranda’s singing was. Inspired by those comments Ballinger kept posting videos as Miranda. Little by little the character evolved and became a full-fledged alter ego with a piercing voice, bad makeup and a fair dose of narcissism.

Now Miranda Sings has 10,8 million subscribers on YouTube, her own show on Netflix “Haters back off” and lots of haters who don’t get the joke. What made Ballinger so popular? Her ability to act funnily and annoyingly at the same time, keeping the joke going and not being afraid of hatred on the internet. And, of course, her great sense of humor.     

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HowToBasic

Want to make a tutorial? How about a completely useless one? That’s what you’ll find on the HowToBasic channel which has 14 million subscribers. It all started with silly how-tos on very simple actions like picking up an umbrella and turning the door handle. Now there are hundreds of videos that start as regular tutorials and end with unexpected over-the-top actions like smashing raw eggs and creating an awful mess. Frankly, it’s easier to show than to explain: 

HowToBasic is not just popular, it’s one of the biggest Australian YouTube Channels. How so? The creator of the channel (who remains anonymous) mocks common YouTube tropes in a very cheeky way. And people who are tired of identical pieces of content that fill YouTube, get the point of those videos and laugh. On the other hand, those videos are pretty addictive in that weird way when even if you don’t like it you keep watching it. 

Filthy Frank 

Last but not least… And actually the weirdest one on our list is Filthy Frank! And “filthy” is not just a pseudonym, it’s a very specific characteristic. Frank’s videos are super strange, offensive and even a little disturbing. Remember the Harlem Shake meme? Well, yes, it all started with his video: 

Filthy Frank is a fictional character. Seems like his creator, singer Joji, wanted to make the most unpleasant character on YouTube. Filthy Frank did disgusting things, offended many people and smugly made fun of the whole thing. Of course, it all was on purpose, an extreme type of satire. Frank brings it to the point where you don’t really understand if it’s just a stupid video or a social experiment. And, as usual, his audience includes both people who get it and those who hate it but keep watching and leaving comments.

Filthy Frank had several channels on YouTube. The last one, TVFilthyFrank, was active 2 years ago. But who knows, maybe 6,8 million subscribers on that channel know what they’re waiting for.