If you have ever seen someone’s name used as a song lyric in a video on social media, chances are, Carl Bradbury made that happen. His “Facebook Names in Song Lyrics” series and its spin-off, “Pranking People on Facebook with Song Lyrics” have made him a YouTube star. Offline, however, Bradbury said that he is “just a regular guy from the UK with a dream of brightening up your day through my love of creating videos.” Whenever he uploads something, Carl’s main goal is to make his viewers laugh and for people not take him too seriously: “I’ve always loved making people laugh, ever since I was little. Knowing that I was able to put a smile on someone’s face makes my day!”
Carl uploaded his first song lyric video in July 2016 and he realized that “it instantly received so much love and support….” Now, nearly two years later, he has over one million followers on Facebook which is difficult for him to comprehend: “It’s still very hard to believe that over a million people would follow a regular guy from Sunderland. I am so grateful to have all of these people supporting me and my videos. It seems unbelievable to me that I’ve managed to reach and entertain so many people doing something that I love! I thank and love them all!”
“When I first created my Facebook page, I spent so long trying to come up with a good idea for a video. I posted video after video but nothing seemed to go down well with my followers at the time. The first hit I had was my first ‘Facebook Names in Song Lyrics’ video. I began receiving so many messages supporting my videos and telling me how much I’ve brightened their day, it was an amazing feeling. I even got to go on TV on E4’s Virtually Famous to show my Facebook lyric videos! It was incredible!”
As mentioned on Virtually Famous, Carl discovered that “There is a name for anyone and anything on Facebook! The trick is to find the lyrics you’re going to use first. Choose a small set of lyrics from a well-known song and begin searching for names on Facebook that sound like the words. It takes a long time to find the perfect match, but I’ll get there eventually!”
Surprisingly, Bradbury’s favourite video is not music related, but rather a video he made with his mother: “It definitely has to be a lesser-known video I created with my Mum entitled ‘Teaching My Mum How to Text’. I look up to my Mum so much. At the time of filming, we were all going through a traumatic time, so being able to put a smile on my Mum’s face was unforgettable!”
At the beginning of 2018, Carl began a new YouTube series called “Idiots of the Internet”, in which he pokes fun at strangers and even himself. He admitted that he has always “found it hilarious” to self-deprecate and he plans to continue making people laugh with his videos for the rest of the year, and hopefully many years to come: “I look forward to dedicating a lot more time to my YouTube channel. I want to provide as much content as my little brain can handle, whether that be a new series or more Facebook lyrics videos. I just love creating!”
Carl Bradbury’s creativity has brought joy to so many people and he believes that others are capable of doing the same thing with their own work. He offered the following advice for other Content Creators out there: “Never give up. If you are a passionate Content Creator on Facebook or any other social media platform and feel like your content isn’t going anywhere, the worst thing you can do is give up. If you really want to get yourself out there and get noticed, don’t give up, because it does only takes a post, a photo, a video to get yourself noticed by so many people….It is important that when you do put yourself out there for the world to see, you don’t take people too seriously and don’t take yourself too seriously. If people want to make fun of me, either in ‘jokey’ or ‘non-jokey’ way, I just laugh it off!”
Photo and video courtesy of Carl Bradbury.
