Who is Lonelygirl15? Your kids probably know.

by Kristin Darguzas (Subscribe to Kristin Darguzas's posts) Sep 9th 2006 4:00PM

Categories: Playground Bureau, Media, That's Entertainment

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The Internet has exploded with controversy about Lonelygirl15 - a very popular YouTube video blogger.

Lonelygirl - aka Bree - claimed to be a home schooled teenager with an obscure religion. Her age was never clear, but she was believed to be in her early teens. She had a dedicated cult following of people interested in what her background was and what her religion was all about. Was she a satanist? Who was she?

Well, it turns out it was all a fake - orchestrated carefully by a LA talent agency - probably to promote an upcoming movie or project.

I think it's a fairly brilliant, cutting-edge marketing strategy, but it does bring to mind several items of food for thought:

1) It is easy to be a fraud on the Internet
2) Teenagers are easy targets for fraud - because they spend so much of their time in online communities like MySpace and YouTube where, historically, images have been taken at face value.
3) I wonder if bloggers and vloggers have an obligation of sorts to let their audience know if components of their story is fabricated. Unlike reality TV, nothing on the web is regulated and audience members don't know the credentials of the orchestrators.

It's interesting stuff, I think. And hopefully something for the kids to remember the next time they make friends with the "13-year-old girl from Oklahoma" on MySpace. She might be a 64-year-old studio head from Los Angeles.

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TechAddress 9-09-2006 @ 9:20PM

Lonelygirl15 is fake: Tops YouTube Ranking

Check it out:

http://techaddress.wordpress.com/2006/09/09/lonelygirl15-is-fake-tops-youtube-ranking/

ann adams 9-09-2006 @ 5:15PM

It's so easy for kids to be taken in. Even otherwise intelligent adults are often duped; otherwise there wouldn't be so many warnings sent out about this and that scam.

How do we really know who anyone is on the net? I could be inventing myself as I go along.

I'm not of course. Really I'm not. What you see is what there is. But I could be. It's great fun to have online friends. It took me out of my loneliness after I retired and moved to a town where I knew no one.

Meeting a few of the "friends" I had known only through the net is something I'll treasure the rest of my life.

Still all of us, adults and kids, need to be careful.

san 9-09-2006 @ 9:19PM

What surprises me is that if you put this in a book you'd be flayed alive for the misrepresentation. For example, James Frey wrote a well regarded memoir about his drug abuse and recovery, that turned out in places to be embellished. This is of course memoir, which is kind of an open area; it often supports a lot of embellishment. And they took this guy to the mat. But do it on the Internet and its wildly creative, or innovative "viral" marketing, or what have you.

There's a caveat emptor sensibility on the Internet, for good reason. But I think the same environment of wariness makes marketing people and even more altruistic sources play a little loose on the Web -- because after all you should be watching out.

Rose 9-09-2006 @ 10:42PM

I heard that this story was a hoax a few days ago. Very sad and certainly believable as on the internet you can be anyone and I think we all need to remember that especially children.

VL 9-10-2006 @ 9:19PM

I know this is a little off-topic, but it annoys me that a marketing firm would portray a homeschooled child this way. It's irresponsible. It just reinforces the stereotype that homechoolers are extremist religous wierdos. I don't homeschool, but I know many people who do and they are all great. I also know many who homeschool for secular reasons, like chronically underfunded schools. Getting off my soapbox now...