Ah YouTube, the place where dreams come true. (Or the American dream lives on, on the Internet?)
The place where if you have talent, you will eventually find your audience. Justin Beiber, who started on YouTube, proved ascension to fame through the site was plausible, and easy.
Singer-songwriter Lauren, who goes by loveworthfallingfor (and lists her age as 17) on YouTube, has been strumming her ukulele on the site for more than a year. loveworthfallingfor is young, attractive, and relatively talented, but none of her videos has reached more than a thousand views.
That all changed today, when a friend posted her song “The Fight” on Reddit.
The reddit link to her video, titled “This is a 15 year old that actually deserves to be famous. I told her I’d help out” (a dig at Rebecca Black), was submitted by HashHopper. HashHopper writes in the comments: “She would love to be famous and this is the best way I know to try and get her name out there.”
A lyric in the “The Fight” is especially poignant: “one day you’ll see my name in big lights”:
Well, is it working? Is loveworthfallingfor getting famous?
The reddit link received more than 2000 upvotes and more than 500 comments in 7 hours. Over on YouTube, the video has gathered more than a thousand likes, but the 301 bug prevents any accurate traffic data readings.
YouTubers are aware of loveworthfallingfor’s linkage on reddit; with SuperBrosefStalin64 writing “Get lots of hits from Reddit. Deal with creepy fat men hitting on you,” but for the most part, YouTubers are supportive.
shortinos writes: “When she’s famous i can totally be like “Yah i totally liked her when she was underground” /hipster4life.”
The best part of this moment in loveworthfallingfor’s Internet identity? The end of her video, where she has a quasi-argument with her mother.
Lauren: Mom, come here. Come here, you’re going to be on camera.
Lauren’s mom: I don’t want to be on camera.
Lauren: Why don’t you want to be on YouTube? Just be on YouTube!
The argument takes on meta proportions when you consider the closing generational gap happening on YouTube, as reported by the latest Pew Internet Survey.