One room, two social media stars and a Dictaphone. We gave Freddy Cousin-Brown (of Freddy My Love) and Coco Cousin-Brown (of Coco’s World) some talking points and left them to it…
Photography: Michaela Tornaritis
Having a sister who is a YouTuber
Coco: It’s really cool having a sister who is a YouTuber because we get to go to lots of fun events that we wouldn’t normally be able to go to. But at other times it can be embarrassing because loads of my friends like your channel and watch all your videos. It’s embarrassing when you post a new video and they talk about it at school.
Freddy: Why is it embarrassing! I’m not embarrassing am I?
Coco: Oh sometimes you are.
Freddy: I love it when we’re out somewhere and you get stopped for a photo instead of me, I feel very proud of you.
Coco: I feel proud too, I feel so happy when I get stopped for photos but Freddy doesn’t!
Freddy: Haha thanks!
Being a YouTuber at Coco’s age and Freddy managing Coco’s social media
Freddy: I think we have a good balance between your social media being all about you and it being managed by me. Your Instagram is very much your style but I post everything because you are too young.
Coco: Instead of my Momager you’re my Sisterger.
Freddy: Yeah, I’m the Sisterger because I think 12 is young to have social media. I help you take photos too, don’t I?
Coco: When we’re in a nice place or we see a good background for a photo, we take an Instagram and I write the caption and everything but Freddy is the one that uploads to my account and checks the comments. I don’t actually have Instagram on my phone and all my friends say things like, “Coco did you see my latest post?” and I say, “No sorry, I don’t have Instagram on my phone so I can’t!”
Freddy: They’re like, “How do you not have Instagram? You have thousands of followers!”
Coco: I know and I have to tell them “It’s hard to explain”.
Freddy: And also I always read the YouTube comments before you do. Coco: Yeah, in case there are any mean ones. If there are, you’ll delete them and you’ll send them a special reply back, won’t you?
Freddy: It’s always really horrible kids saying nasty stuff and they can’t even spell properly so you know a child has written it. A couple of times it has made me really cross so I’ve sent them a bit of an evil reply saying, “This is Coco’s YouTube manager, your abusive comments have been reported to the Police and your parents will be notified”. And you can bet they’re not going to write another comment again!
Coco: Thank you very much for that.
Appearing on each other’s channels
Freddy: We love doing videos with each other on our channels. For me, they’re always my most viewed videos…
Coco: Yeah. When we did the ‘Sister Style Swap’, my video on my channel actually got more views than yours and I felt so proud! It’s like Mackenzie beating Maddie Ziegler!
Freddy: Haha love a good Dance Moms reference Coco, well done! Those videos are really fun to film. It’s nice because we’re very similar but also we have very different personalities and I think we bounce off each other well in our videos and people really find it funny.
Coco: Yeah, it’s the banter.
Freddy: Sister banter. Coco: Sbanter. It’s the new thing.
Coming up with ideas for videos
Freddy: I find it really hard to come up with ideas for videos on my channel. I do one every single week and I’ve been doing one every single week for three years which is quite a long time! It is really tough to get the balance between the stuff you know people want to see but that you’ve done 100 times, like hauls, and doing something a bit different that no one has really seen before but doesn’t get many views. It’s tricky to get the right amount of both. But for you, you don’t film videos too often, so it’s quite easy to think of ideas.
Coco: For me, it’s not so hard because I don’t have to post every week. I can just do a video when we feel the time is right and we have a good idea, so we don’t plan too far in advance. Most of my ideas you say are rubbish anyway!
Freddy: Haha! Coco: That kind of hurts my feelings but you know best.
Freddy singing in the tune of ‘Mother Knows Best’ from Tangled: Freddy knows best, listen to your sister.
Coco: It’s okay, I know it’s sbanter.
Challenges of being a content creator
Freddy: Like I said earlier, for me it is challenging coming up with ideas and ways to keep my channel fresh and keep people engaged so they don’t get bored and just go onto the next person. There are so many content creators out there now! I want to stand out but I also want to stay true to myself and what I love creating.
Coco: You help me a lot so it’s not as hard for me to create content – but it is tricky thinking of ideas that get your approval! Other than that, if I do see a mean comment it upsets me quite a bit. But then I’ll just brush it off and think “Maybe they’re having a bad day or they’re feeling moody, just like Freddy is most of the time!”
Freddy: Hahaha Coco!
Working with brands
Freddy: I only ever accept deals or sponsorships from brands that I already use and love. It makes it really easy and also ensures my content is always authentic, sponsored or not. Even when I was just getting started three years ago and didn’t get many enquiries, I still turned pretty much everything down!
Authenticity is absolutely key with what we do, and I also take into consideration which companies align well with my own personal brand. I always make sure that if I’m working with a brand, it should still be a standalone piece of content that I’d be happy to post anyway, even without the brand being involved. It has to blend seamlessly into the rest of my usual content, otherwise I don’t want to share it.
Getting the brand to understand and get on board with this can sometimes be tricky as they usually have a vision of how they want it to be, but most of the time they understand that it is beneficial to them, as they are trying to tap into my audience, and I know what my audience likes to see.
Working on a sponsored piece is fun as it kind of gets my imagination going when I try to work out a way to integrate the brand or product into a video. However, it can also be quite stressful as you sometimes have a global team of people who want to have an input! It’s definitely more pressure, but usually it’s worth it!
Coco: I’m only just getting started so I don’t get that many brands asking for me, although Freddy does all my emails and she doesn’t tell me anything until it’s definite so I don’t get disappointed! But I have just worked with Disney Channel which was really cool and I have another video coming up to promote a new book in one of my favourite book series ever so I’m really excited for that!
Freddy: Coco does actually get quite a few emails to her account or sometimes they approach me because they know I manage her YouTube, but Coco has only ever worked with Disney, which is the dream brand for her. Apart from that I’ve turned everything else down, as YouTube isn’t about making money for Coco at this stage, it’s just for fun. But occasionally there are amazing opportunities which we can’t turn down, like Disney.
Coco: And sometimes I do get sent stuff like Freddy does, for example Claire’s sometimes send me a big box of accessories like bows and stationery and hair stuff, which is so cool. Oh, and last year Claire’s took me to Slimefest in Blackpool which was amazing and I got to meet Jojo Siwa who is like, my idol, which was just incredible!
Freddy: My favourite campaign that I’ve been a part of has to be my Christmas video with Pandora (‘Christmas Memories Frozen in Time – A Winter Fashion Film’). I was promoting the Pandora Frozen charms and Coco and I represented Ana and Elsa; it was so lovely and magical! Other than that some of the brands I’m really proud to have collaborated with are Topshop, Clinique, Ted Baker, Kate Spade and Viktor & Rolf.