Carly Shay (Miranda Cosgrove), is a strong, stable young girl, who accidentally falls into hosting a webcam show on the Internet. Carly spends a great deal of her time trying to keep her best friend Sam (Jenette McCurdy), out of trouble, which is exactly how the webcam show began in the first place. Many of their friends start watching the accidental webcam broadcast, so they begin to really broadcast a web show. Their viewing audience then really took off.

Carly and Sam’s other best friend, Freddie (Nathan Kress), handles all the technical parts of the show for them; that is when Sam isn’t picking on him too badly!

Carly lives with her older brother Spencer (Jerry Trainor), because her father is stationed on a naval submarine. Her grandfather also lives fairly close by, in case they need him. Although Carly has become almost a celebrity, she doesn’t let it go to her head and she remains very honest. She is aware of the fact that Freddie has a major crush on her, but seems to think he may get over it, if she keeps ignoring it.