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Meet YouTube's most unlikely video star

Jefferson Graham
USA TODAY

Judy Graham is the host of the Knitting Tips by Judy video series on YouTube--and the mother of USA TODAY reporter Jefferson Graham

VENICE BEACH, Calif. -- She's got more than 12.4 million views on YouTube and 34,000 subscribers for her how-to videos.

Knitting Tips by Judy is a most unlikely hit on a network best known for a very youthful audience.

And she happens to be my 78-year-old mom.

Click the link above to listen to Judy Graham chatting with me on the TalkingTech audio podcast for an extended chat about forging a success on YouTube at any age.

She also puts out a shout-out for seniors and tech. Despite the myth that they're helpless with new technology, "Seniors do know about tech, and they do use it," she says.

I can account for this. My mom has a Samsung Galaxy phone (she didn't want an iPhone, "because I don't want to have what everyone else has") she reads on a Kindle device and uses a Windows laptop. She's always the first to like anything I put on Facebook, usually seconds after I've clicked post.

That's how often she's online.

She points to her 93-year-old father-in-law, who is "on his computer all day," as well, watching YouTube videos (old TV shows mostly) researching recipes and reading restaurant reviews.

"Anything he wants to know, he looks up....I have friends my age who do nothing with the computer, and it drives me crazy. I don't feel like I have the same relationship with them," she says. "It's so easy to write them one line, `Hey, thinking about you--how you doing?""

The reader could now be saying, sure, they're from a tech family. But she's the one posting 300 videos to YouTube, creating Vlogs, keeping in contact with her hundreds of Facebook friends and pinning things to Pinterest. Her son isn't doing it for her.

And for the record, she's anti Apple Watch, has no interest in mobile payments, and doesn't want a tablet either.

My mom started making videos in 2007 after I did a piece for USA TODAY about how seniors were pulling in extra bucks by creating how to content for Google. I suggested she give it a try, and she ran with it.

Google's AdSense program rewards you by putting ads on your content, giving you a chunk of the ad revenues. It's those AdSense ads that appear on her YouTube clips. For her efforts, my mom has consistently been paying her real estate taxes with Google income.

But as Google has gotten bigger, the AdSense revenue has gone down, even as her views have gone up, and that frustrates her. "There's nobody at Google you can talk to--it's a machine."

Her videos are simple, produced on a point and shoot Lumix camera, focusing on her hands as she narrates knitting techniques and projects.

She began knitting as a teenager back in Indianapolis, and forged a career in Hollywood making sweaters for TV and movie productions. This year,, she did sweaters for Ellen DeGeneres and the Big Bang Theory. Freddy Krueger wore her most iconic red and green striped sweater in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 movie poster

Judy Graham's videos can be seen at Youtube.com/user/knittingtipsbyjudy.

Below, an earlier video interview I did with my mom a few years back, before she switched her hairstyle to pink streaked pigtails.

And for those who'd like to know more about the Graham family, have a listen to the talented musical stylings of Judy's other son, Atlanta-based brother Jez Graham.

Fellow Jefferson Graham and Judy Graham on Twitter.

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