[Update: You might also be interested in my posts on lonelygirl15 – commodification of a social space? (Sept 13) and why they get upset about fictions (Sept 12)]
Anders asked, as an aside, what I thought LonelyGirl15 was about. Lonelygirl15? Oh no, not another viral thing I’ve not even heard of – how sad is that, when a new media researcher can’t even keep up with the latest viral narrative? Anyway, a google quickly gets some answers. Here’s a resumÈ of the story by a fellow mockumentary maker, and a newspaper article arguing that Lonelygirl15 is presumably a viral marketing ploy. Basically this is a purportedly real video diary on YouTube, that ran in early August, where cute, homeschooled Lonelygirl15 talks about Daniel, this guy who has a crush on her, or she on him or something (I’ll watch it later, after I write some more reports). Other YouTubers have responded with their own videos – some arguing that she’s a hoax, others defending her as the real thing. Some of the defenders and critics might also be hoaxes, of course (like the guy in the video below with the cowboy hat – he can’t be for real, surely? the lighting’s too bad!), but however that works out, they’re now parts of her story.
9 thoughts on “lonelygirl15”
Leave A Comment
Recommended Posts
LonelyGirl15 Fan Club - » The Last 24 #4
[…] Doublecool.com introduces Lonelygirl15 to their readers. They have some details that they couldn’t know unless they new LG15 personally. Or maybe they are just assumptions. I think they’re assumptions. A vexed Kiwi! Virginia Heffernen talks with Brooke Gladstone in this transcription of an interview I found via Jabbertalk. jill/txt discovers LG15 and blogs a bit about her. Skip this one if you’ve heard it before. Such Language, oh my. CGM Suggests that we now label videos to identify if the videos have a commercial slant to them. LG is brought up as part of the discussion. This is where the tough questions are asked. Yeah… they ask “Is lonelygirl real?” The Range War is on boths sides of the fence. He could teeter one way or the other. Juansito.org takes the gaming angle and points readers to a discussion on the whole ARG theory which, as it turns out, is a link I brought to you last week. There is now a reward out for Lonelygirl15’s identity. Well not really her identity but you need to prove she is a fake. In order to do that you basically have to find her and expose her. […]
andrew stern
I got turned on to LonelyGirl15 a few weeks ago at the NYTimes — http://screens.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=61.
It’s great. It must be a hoax — she’s too damn cute and the lighting and editing is too good.
If it’s not a hoax, then the future of user created content is brighter than I thought…
Martin
Somebody admitted to being the creators over on lonelygirl15.com (link in the wikipedia article on her). And somebody caught the IP adress of someone pretending to be lonelygirl coming from a Hollywood casting agency.
The whole thing reminds me of the footage story in William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.
Jill
I know, I thought of Pattern Recognition too! Although that was more, well, subtle…
Martin
As it turns out, Gibson thought of Pattern Recognition, too.
Vanessa
I went to school with Jessica aka Lonely girl and she is an amazing person with a lot to ffer
Josh Mills
I can’t believe all of this outbreak about lonelygirl. I even thought to myself that “it seems like a soap opera”, but could have never guessed that it was all a production. Gets me thinking twice about alot of the other youtube videos that I watch… 🙂
At least these other guys are genuine about what they’re trying to do…
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ebayauction
jill/txt » lonelygirl15 - commodification of a social space?
[…] [Update: You might also be interested in my posts on lonelygirl15 (Sept 5) and why they get upset about fictions (Sept 12)] The New York Times has an article this morning detailing the creation of lonelygirl15, complete with photos of Jessica Rose, the actress who portrayed Bree, and comments from Grant Steinfeld, the software engineer who helped filmmakers Ramesh Flinders and Miles Beckett to produce the show. So that’s solved, then. Luckily the end of the article gives hope that we’ll get more of the story despite the denouement, though apparently not at YouTube. […]
jill/txt » why they get upset about fictions
[…] [Update: You might also be interested in my posts on lonelygirl15 (Sept 5) and lonelygirl15 – commodification of a social space? (Sept 13)] […]