Fred No Longer King of YouTube; All Hail Nigahiga
Fred, the fastest-growing and largest channel YouTube had ever seen, was overtaken on Friday by Nigahiga, a longtime comedy channel on the site. Nigahiga, a series of rants, lip-syncs and sketches, is run by 19-year-old Ryan Higa. Fred, as we’ve written many times on this site, is the high-pitched brainchild of 15-year-old Lucas Cruikshank, a fictional show that attracts gobs of young fans but befuddles the post-Nickelodeon demographic. As of Sunday night, Nigahiga had 1,389,953 subscribers, compared with 1,363,342 for Fred.
Based on this sample set of two, one takeaway is certain: Young people are far better at programming for the younger generation than the traditional television business allows. (The third-most popular YouTube channel, Smosh, is done by a couple of 21-year-olds.) Higa, who started out making videos as a high school student in Hilo, Hawaii, and is now studying film at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, created his channel in July 2006, back in the Wild West days of YouTube. His style relies far more on humor than production values. And he’s overcome adversity on the way to the top; tens of popular Nigahiga videos, including many lip-syncs and the break-out hit “How to Be Gangster,” have been taken down due to use of copyrighted music, with the entire Nigahiga account suspended for a short time earlier this year. However, at this time, with the infringing videos unavailable, Higa makes money from his channel by participating in the YouTube partner program.
Off of YouTube, Higa last year made a film Ryan and Sean’s Not So Excellent Adventure with Nigahiga collaborator Sean Fujiyoshi. It was not widely debuted in theaters, but it recently hit as high as No. 22 on iTunes after being released as a $9.99 download. Here’s the trailer:
Though Higa may have been riding high this weekend, he didn’t rub his ascension to the YouTube throne in Cruikshank’s face. Higa wrote to his fans, “I really appreciate all of your support and everything, but don’t hate on fred, thats [sic] not cool.”
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With all due respect to ryan, its hard to see a racial slur as #1. Also,thousands of freds fans probably don’t know how to subscribe to youtube. He’s still got over 100,000 more views than nigahiga.
What a racist Fred fan ^
Sorry, but Nigahiga can easily get that many views and more in his new short film, “Ninja Melk” which is coming in the following days.
Who don’t know how to subscribe?
Nope, the rest of viewers are haters – and give the haters just one reason to subscribe, you dirty racist.
Ryan Higa himself is japanese.
In a video on TonyaTKO’s channel, Ryan Higa explained that “niga” in nigahiga actually means rant in japanese. This of course makes obvious sense because Nigahiga did tons of rants early in his youtube career.
no ryan higa is asian
Wow! What’s with all the spear throwing this early on a Monday morning???
Big ups to both Ryan and Fred. Keep that creativity coming!
I agree with Druu! They both deserve to be hailed and praised. You can’t stay on top forever, plus, they’re two completely different entities. Fred is a series whereas Nigahiga is a sketch show. So they’re both number 1!!!!!
No, they’re not both number one, Fred is number two.
hahaaaa this made me laugh
i agree with jim and druu. they are two diff people with two diff genre type things…. both are awesome and number one (but nigahiga isnt exact numberone in my eyes, just because i’ve seen fred longer)
So you’re saying that we’re too old to get anywhere? Damn.
fred’s voice sounds like a squeaky fart. it’s sad what kids are entertained by these days
but fred is awesome. i doubt people care about the comedy he produces, people only seem to care about the voice. if you dont like it, dont watch the videos. if you hate him, then dont start a hate club, just move on to a new youtube star instead of insulting him.
ive been looking into this, and i have come to the conclusion that nigahiga bout subs off ebay.
AWESOME! SIMPLY AWESOME!
Nigahiga’s videos are awesome.
I don’t understand Fred’s videos…
They’re just a random comedy..
Haha, read this so late XD
i hate the rateing thing but come on fred is awsome if you dont understand it thats okay but really there eaqual or whatever how you say it or type it but anyways i dont really understand the japan boy hes boreing but i still dont like that theres a stupid king of yutube its not fair
ryan higa is asian
NIGAHIGA PWNS