After Rebecca Black here comes Jemma Pixie Hixon

Following in the footsteps of Rebecca Black the latest singing sensation to be discovered on YouTube is 20-year-old Jemma Pixie Hixon, whose recordings of pop songs have gone viral around the world.

However, there is one crucial difference between the two. Hixon is actually a talented singer who began posting her songs online when she was struck down by agorophobia and could no longer perform in public.

She has been affected so badly by the condition that she has apparently not left her house in Malvern, Worcestershire, for two years and only began to make a name for herself when she built a makeshift recording studio in her parents' home and used a webcam to post footage on the internet.

Now her videos have had almost 2.5 million hits and she has become one of the most popular video performers in China and Japan. Indeed, she and seven other YouTube singers have combined to record a song in aid of the Japanese tsunami victims.

The irony of going global while housebound is apparently not lost on Hixon. She said: "It is weird to think that there are people in China and Japan with my poster on their walls and songs on their iPods while I haven't left the house for two years."

As you would expect in an unforgiving environment like the internet, her success has been tempered by a fair few critical comments, but the 20-year-old thinks that the 'trolls' could even be helpful to her recovery. "In a way I think being online prepares me for the outside. You get a lot of negative comments as well as nice comments," she says.

Even if she does overcome her fear of open spaces, she may want to think twice about heading into Malvern. The town is also the home of terrifying X-Factor wannabe Cher Lloyd, whose love of the limelight is such that she may not want any other performers strutting their stuff on her turf. ·