Real-Life Version of Teen Webcast Show Surprised to Discover 90% of Viewers are Middle-Aged Adult Men

A group of local teens, ages 13-16, have discovered that their weekly webcast show is not drawing the popularity seen by its fictitious counterpart, the Nickelodeon program iCarly. “We’re kinda stumped,” one of the teens said. “On the TV show, Carly’s webcasts have made her one of the most popular celebs in the country. The only emails we get are from a couple of old guys who write weird things.”


The kids were propelled to do the webcasts in the hopes that broadcasting themselves engaging in wacky hijinks and just hanging around would make them as recognized in the real world as the TV program’s kids are in their fictitious world. Instead, many of the fans they have generated are mostly middle-aged men, with several of them registered sex offenders. Kimberly, one of the teens who hosts the show, exclaimed, “I’m totally bummed. I mean, [Carly] gets messages from thousands of fans around the world. All I get is this guy from the next town over who keeps asking if I want to meet him in the town park after midnight. That’s way past my curfew.”


The fact that they are mostly a draw with middle-aged males is not the only problem beleaguering these kids. They were quick to find out that the suspension of disbelief in the fictitious TV world, which allots its denizens top-of-the-line special effects, quality writing and endless resources for a simple teen webcast does not apply in the real world. In reality, their show is plagued by long periods of awkward silence, not to mention the numerous technical snafus coupled with the realization that the sparse bandwidth they can afford often results in a frozen picture when their few fans tune in. Interestingly enough, these fans don’t seem to mind. “As long as at least one of them is on screen when the picture freezes, I’m good to go,” said a man who would only identify himself as "Philip."


Many of the teens are beginning to lose interest in the endeavor, as well as facing pressure from parents to stop the webcasts. One girl told us her father was tired of finding screencaps of her as wallpaper on his boss's computer.