Fred Cando, also known as Fregend, is a YouTuber with 200k+ subscribers. He’s known for his Asian parodies and storytimes. Fred is constantly balancing his YouTube career while studying Boston University’s Sargent College.
Q: Tell me about yourself.
A: I’m from Westchester, New York, and I’m an Undecided Major in Sargent College. Making videos, music, and flexing luxury items pretty much sums up what I do.
Q: When did you start YouTube?
A: I started YouTube in January 2016 during my sophomore year of high school.
Q: What are your favorite kinds of YouTube videos to make?
A: My favorite type of video to make is definitely song parodies. When I’m filming the music videos for those, it’s easy to let loose and go wild in public, which is something you don’t usually get to do as a student. The weird looks people have in the background always make the videos better.
Photo Credit: Fred Cando
Q: What’s your favorite thing about being a YouTuber?
A: I’d say my favorite part of making YouTube videos is that they can brighten someone’s day, even if that somebody is a stranger from halfway across the world. I used to spend a lot of my downtime on YouTube growing up and the people I used to watch would inspire me to be more creative, express myself, and to not take life too seriously. I hope that my videos can have the same effect on my own viewers.
Q: Besides YouTube, what are your other interests/passions?
A: Besides YouTube, fitness is something that I’ve started to take seriously, and living a healthier lifestyle has definitely carried over into the way people see me, both in my personal life and on YouTube. As a Filipino myself, I also have love for the Filipino community of college students here in the Greater Boston Area. I’m the media specialist for District One, which is an organization that promotes conversation and the display of our heritage.
Photo Credit: Fred Cando
Q: How do you balance YouTube and everything else?
A: As much as I want to seem put together, it’s extremely difficult to balance YouTube and school. Filming and editing videos are time-consuming, especially since the quality of videos has to be up to standard with what I usually post. Working on a video can be hard, especially when I know in the back of my head that a paper is due at midnight the next day. Many times, it’s come to either taking a break from YouTube altogether and focusing on school or taking a hit in terms of grades to follow my passion. Rarely do I find an in-between.
Q: What are some of your goals in the future— YouTube and career-wise?
A: In the future, I hope to grow my YouTube channel to the point where it can become a full-time job, especially since college isn’t getting any less expensive. I also want to become a positive role model in the eyes of the people who watch me. I want to give them the belief that they too can follow their passions and become successful. In terms of a career, I hope that the experience and skills I have learned, such as photo and video editing, music production, working with brands, and interacting with fans will help me with whatever venture I throw myself into.
Photo Credit: Fred Cando
If you haven’t already subscribed to Fregend, check out his channel now! You’ll catch yourself bopping along to his catchy Asian parodies in no time, and maybe you’ll even run into him on campus sometime.
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