As far as social media fairytales go, no one’s found a happy ever after quite like Amelia Dimoldenberg.
Her dry sense of humour and awkward ‘dates’ with celebrities in fried chicken shops have earned her more than three million YouTube followers and even an invitation to the Oscars red carpet.
But the latest venture from the usually savvy influencer has got social media insiders asking: What went wrong?
Because, when footwear giant Converse announced it was launching a dating show to be hosted by the 31-year-old Londoner, it seemed like a shoo-in for success.
The YouTube series, called Chuckmates, sees singletons pick from a line-up of three partners – based primarily on whose pair of Converse ‘Chuck’ shoes they like the best.
But, a fortnight since the first episode was released, the US series has failed to take off – with viewers criticising Amelia’s robotic, scripted hosting style in contrast with the wry spontaneity that’s made her such a phenomenon.
‘It’s been terribly executed and misses the mark completely,’ one insider says.
‘The biggest issue here is that the video is a world away from what Amelia is good at and what she is known for.
The YouTube series Chuckmates, hosted by Amelia Dimoldenberg, sees singletons pick from a line-up of three partners – based on whose pair of Converse ‘Chuck’ shoes they like the best
‘It is not a comfortable watch. What a wasted opportunity.’
Fans have called the content the ultimate ‘flop’ – pointing out that, even though both episodes of ‘Chuckmates’ have a combined total of 3.5million views, they have just 30 comments.
‘Kind of weird to me that Amelia would even have done this, She has such a strong grasp of culture and YouTube, you would think she’d have known this would have flopped,’ one fan said.
And, more importantly, it appears Amelia herself feels the same.
Despite the comedian’s social media profiles being tagged in every post from Converse, Amelia has failed to share or promote any of the content.
She hasn’t even given it today’s most modern seal of approval: an Instagram like.
While she has ‘collaborated’ with the footwear giant on two TikTok clips, that means little more than that she has been ‘tagged’ in their videos.
Instead, Amelia seems to have focused on her own YouTube series, Chicken Shop Date, uploading her interview with model Bella Hadid a week ago, which has racked up 6.2million views.
In other recent social media content, she has shown herself dancing and joking in what seems to be her London apartment.
In none of them does she mention Chuckmates or even wear a pair of Converse.
Although it’s unclear how much Amelia would have been paid for the gig, it begs the question of why she has so far failed to promote the show.
Amelia started Chicken Shop Date as a column in a youth club magazine, and has since gone on to interview musicians including pop star Sabrina Carpenter
She has also had the likes of Cher on her hit YouTube show, in which she interviews guests in a comical, awkward way, asking them questions about their love life
One confused source says: ‘You can only imagine how Converse executives who signed off on this deal feel about Amelia’s seeming lack of support.
‘They must have thought this was going to be the ultimate collaboration.’
And the show certainly seems like a misstep when one considers Amelia’s extraordinary rise to building a £5million social media empire.
Born in Westminster in 1994, Amelia always had her sights set on becoming a journalist.
She studied Art and Design and a BA in Fashion Communication at Central Saint Martins, graduating in 2017.
While a student, she started Chicken Shop Date as a column in a youth club magazine called The Cut.
She began interviewing friends of friends in the music scene alongside her studies and the links to her online articles started getting traction.
Amelia has since said she took her idea to people in ‘big places’ but said they struggled to know what to do with it – which led her to begin recording her chats and posting them on YouTube in 2014.
The videos see her interviewing the guests in a comical, awkward way, asking them questions about their love life.
And, to this day, she says her unusual interview style is authentic.
‘I wanted to be the antithesis of a bubbly presenter because I was bored of seeing that,’ she told Complex magazine.
‘The average TV presenter was very good at being non-stop chatty and bubbly; I wanted to be the opposite of that and make that my thing. It’s an exaggerated version of myself.
‘In fact, when it first started it wasn’t a character, it was never meant to be like that. It’s literally how it happened, people must have just assumed I was so bizarre or so weird it had to be a character.’
Indeed, her first big hit came when she interviewed rapper Ghetts in 2014, a British artist who has worked with the likes of Stormzy.
Since then she has interviewed stars including actor Paul Mescal, Wicked actress Cynthia Erivo and even pop legend Cher – earning around £6,000 per episode
She also appeared on the Oscars red carpet this year as a ‘correspondent’ for the ceremony, where her flirtatious interview with Hollywood star Andrew Garfield racked up millions of view on social media.
Amelia launched Dimz Inc, a production company which she describes as being ‘refreshingly awkward’ and ‘allergic to being generic’ in 2018. She has also collaborated with brands such as sporting giant Nike, beauty brand Olay and clothing line Levis, and even made it on to prime-time television when she appeared on the most recent series of the Great British Bake Off.
So it’s no surprise that this year’s collaboration with international giant Converse must have seemed like an easy yes.
It is thought that more episodes are yet to premiere of Chuckmates, with Converse continuing to push the content out to their 156,000 YouTube subscribers.
Whether or not Amelia will also start to promote the dating show is unclear. But, some might wonder, perhaps it’s best she sticks with her own.
