Lucas Cruikshank is a 15 year-old YouTube mogul.
My recent post about “Bad Puppetry” stirred up some interesting discussion and generated a lot of feedback. I’m still sorting through some of it, but one of the things that has been most surprising to me was how many puppeteers are actually hostile towards many of the pioneering shows out there and who still don’t grasp the potential the internet offers puppetry as an art form.
A discussion about the current state of puppetry on the web is a debate for another day, but to everybody out there doesn’t yet grasp puppetry’s potential online I have a two word rebuttal: Lucas Cruikshank.
You probably haven’t heard of Lucas before; I hadn’t either until a few months ago. He’s a 15 year old who posts short, improvised videos on YouTube in the guise of Fred, an annoying six year-old with a squeaky voice. Lucas has the number one most subscribed channel on YouTube and was the first YouTube user to have one million subscribers. He’s not even old enough to drive, but Lucas has already earned well in to six figures thanks to sponsorships and an advertising deal with Google. Sure, Fred is annoying to most adults, but Lucas doesn’t seem to care. He has a simple formula for success, he listens to and understands his audience and he’s created a character that they love and identify with.
The recession is hitting artists everywhere really hard. I know a bunch of puppeteers who are currently either unemployed or under-employed, myself included. I can’t help but notice though that the people who sound the most pessimistic are the ones who seem to be doing the least to embrace and experiment with new media. If you look at what Lucas has done – his videos have been viewed over 260 million times, he has more subscribers than most major media companies and tens of thousands of dollars in monthly income – he’s attracted a bigger audience and makes more money than just about every puppeteer I know of. There’s absolutely no reason why puppeteers can’t learn from new media pioneers like him and replicate that kind of success.
Of course most puppeteers won’t – either because that’s not what their work is about (which I respect) or more likely because it’s just a little too much work. That’s unfortunate though, because for the few that do make the effort I think there is bright, bright future ahead for them. As dark as the current economic clouds are, I don’t think there has ever been a better or more exciting time to be involved in puppetry.