It was only a few days ago that I first heard about lonelygirl15, but I’ve already become fascinated by the concept. Let me explain.
In last week’s edition of On the Media, there was a piece talking about “The lonelygirl15 Phenomena” that has is this summer’s YouTube craze. To summarize, lonelygirl15 is a video blogger that uploads periodic posts to YouTube for the internet to watch. In her blog, she portrays herself as a normal 16 year old girl, who has typicaly teenage problems.. but something’s just not right. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but she doesn’t “seem” to be only 16 years old.
That’s where the plot begins to thicken. There are a number of clues and various tidbits of information that are slowly leaked throughout her many video posts, which takes on a “Lost”-esque appeal. Then, today, there was an article in the LA Times about the lonelygirl15 mystery. According to the LA Times:
No one has publicly come forward to lay claim to her work, but she is starting to look as connected in Hollywood as any starlet. Three lonelygirl15-obsessed amateur Web sleuths set up a sting using tracking software that appears to show that e-mails sent from a lonelygirl15 account came from inside the offices of the Beverly Hills-based talent agency Creative Artists Agency.
It’s an interesting concept that might develop, if this is in fact a movie in the making.. stemming out of a user-generated content idea, it created such a buzz and viral marketing effect, that it seems like a clever way to promote a new product or film.. though, it certainly does blur the lines between advertising and content.. it’ll be interesting to see what happens with our friend Lonelygirl15..
Totally fake. She doesn’t look 16. She doesn’t act 16; in fact, her acting is piss poor. I just watch three little blogs and they look like Swans Crossing episodes. Oh, and I’d like to punch Daniel in his face.
Dude, thank you for mentioning Swans Crossing. Captain Larby was a huge fan of that cheezy teenage soap opera back in the day. Mrs. Larby would be interested to know that her role model, Buffy, began her acting career on Swans Crossing.
Do you remember Tribes? Good, good stuff. That was when after school tv was real!