31 Comments Add your own

• 1. Steve Safran  |  August 24th, 2006 at 2:16 pm

  A hoax. A very entertaining and watchable hoax. But a hoax. And bravo for whomever is behind it - nobody would have expected this kind of viral buzz.

  As has been pointed out - the “unofficial” Lonelygirl15.com fansite was registered a month before her first video appeared on YT. And it’s anonymous.

  Good hoax, though. PlainLayne would be proud.

• 2. Cory  |  August 24th, 2006 at 3:15 pm

  I tend to agree, and now the question is, which major media company is behind it. One theory is a record label, because of the music interludes, although I don’t know if anyone has checked to see if all the artists are from the same label.

  And the next big question is, will this end up as positive publicity or a nasty backlash? Big media manipulating people through lies? What’s new, but if it’s indeed the case, I think this will backfire on them.

• 3. Safran  |  August 24th, 2006 at 3:34 pm

  Any publicity is good publicity. Especially in America today. No way it backfires. It may not end up as a positive - but it won’t hurt whomever is behind it.

• 4. Rex  |  August 24th, 2006 at 3:50 pm

  I have a strong hunch who’s behind it, and it’s not major media company. It’s someone who just enjoys these kinds of ruses. Virginia Heffernan has some good posts about it today:

  http://www.fimoculous.com/archive/post-1286.cfm

• 5. Rocker  |  August 24th, 2006 at 4:06 pm

  Is it a hoax? You’re kidding right? But she is very good. I’ll look forward to the TV show.

• 6. flotsam  |  August 24th, 2006 at 5:07 pm

  15? Large cash bet says no way but that is not really the question.

  The question is not hoax or not, the question is where’s the book deal? Or the blog deal?

  This is, after all, the way Sex in The City Started. Isn’t it?

• 7. Eric  |  August 24th, 2006 at 9:06 pm

  You guys are giving the major media companies far too much credit. If this is a hoax, which I find unlikely, then it would demonstrate a remarkable level of sophistication that most major media companies just do not have when it comes to viral video sites like You Tube. Afterall, the folks at NBC and the like have actually just discovered YT — and so now you expect them to have the foresight and discipline to mount a stealth production and keep it quiet for this long? Nah, unlikely. The egos are just way too big at the major media companies. Someone by now would have likely either claimed credit for her success or at least leaked out who was behind it. I’m just puzzled that people find it suspicious that a kid (or however old she actually is) can set up a shot with decent lighting and composition. The big media companies just aren’t smart enough to pull something like this off even if they wanted to.

• 8. anton  |  August 24th, 2006 at 9:25 pm

  seems like jennycam…interesting cuz its first….but far from interesting.

• 9. Kerry  |  August 24th, 2006 at 11:11 pm

  It is entirely possible it is a hoax, just as much as it is entirely possible we’re watching a creative student who is going to go forth into the industry and do really well, based on the current quality of her work.
  Then again, it could also be a hoax.

  And if it is a hoax, do you know who it might be from? As above… “a creative student who is going to go forth into the industry and do really well,” yada yada. Every good director needs a good actress.

• 10. Darrien  |  August 25th, 2006 at 12:50 am

  Hoax… she even has a friend “danielbeast” with simlarly edited videos.

• 11. Clément  |  August 25th, 2006 at 2:06 am

  There is not a single doubt this is a hoax.
  Many good reasons can be found on the internet (including a disturbing one involving Satanism, check it out). But the thing that bugs me the most is the fact that she has never in her videos adressed the subject of her incredible popularity and the whole debate over the authenticity of her diaries. You’d think the girl would be thrilled to be featured on the New York Times website and all over the internets, and that she would react to the fact that so many people dispute her very existence !
  In any case, the whole thing is brilliant.

• 12. Mike  |  August 25th, 2006 at 5:53 am

  It’s so obvious to me this girl is “acting”. I put that in quotes because if you can tell someone’s acting, they’re not doing a good job of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is somehow tied to one of the new network TV programs debuting this fall.

• 13. thebeijingchannel  |  August 25th, 2006 at 5:59 am

  i’ll reserve comment as i’m still thinking the rocketboom-thingy was just a hoax.

• 14. Alyssa  |  August 25th, 2006 at 7:55 am

  They’re so strict that they let her have all this Internet access? Seems odd.

• 15. thomas  |  August 25th, 2006 at 11:31 am

  Hoax or not, I think there is a motive behind these videos. One idea I have goes as follows:

  1) put videos online
  2) generate a huge following
  3) advertise something (a tv show, a movie, new iPod..)
  4) profit

  Dont really know how realistic that is as a marketing campaign but it might work.

• 16. Rex  |  August 25th, 2006 at 12:44 pm

  I’m launching a competitor to lonelygirl15:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36MG0rzdg7Y

  My first video blog!

• 17. thedetroitchannel  |  August 25th, 2006 at 1:13 pm

  i like point 4)

• 18. WiggyWack  |  August 25th, 2006 at 1:48 pm

  That room is way too stark and plain to actually be that of a 15-year-old girl.

• 19. tish grier  |  August 25th, 2006 at 7:43 pm

  man! what a hoax! definitely not 15, room seriously too clean and un-lived-in, too slick, too staged, too edited….

  but the lines are blurring more and more between what’s unreal and what’s real…what’s advertising and what isn’t. Did we forget about Fox buying advertising on the Paris Hilton channel already?

  to paraphras YouTube’s marketing exec: all that matter is that it’s good content.

  not if it’s an ad posing as reality, or an ad on another ad…an ad by any other name….

• 20. Fell the Don  |  August 26th, 2006 at 9:39 am

  I dunno, I am surprised there are that many persons that believe ti a hoax. I’ve met plenty of girls growing up with strict Christian upbringings that keep their rooms (and houses) stark and sanitization-clean. All kids have internet access these days, so that’s not a surprise.

  I stumbled across her clips by chance on YouTube. They are not very entertaining and the humour is childish and lame. To be honest, the only reason I wanted to watch them is because I found her exceptionally attractive.

• 21. Havelock Holmes  |  August 26th, 2006 at 3:30 pm

  Thought it was a hoax the first time I viewed it. The “talk to the webcam” style rampant in user generated video has been carefully sweetened with jump cuts, and the monologues are overly scripted. In one scene, the putative boyfriend unconvincingly fiddles with something for ten minutes. He is a prop, illustrating the current “concern.”

  Who knows? It may be a hoax for the sake of hoaxing. Or to create a property that can be further exploited in television or film, or in books. Viewer attention, no matter how achieved, is negotiable currency.

  HHCD

• 22. Temmer  |  August 30th, 2006 at 10:43 pm

  I know through an inside source that LG15 and DB are going to be interviewed on national TV right after Labor Day. Think NBC. The beans will be spilled.

• 23. Lonny Paul  |  September 5th, 2006 at 10:40 pm

  We all need to find out - i mean, come one, america wants to know. Why hasn’t Bree been more vocal on her “real factor?”

• 24. Lost Remote TV Blog&hellip  |  September 8th, 2006 at 12:48 pm

  [...] Earlier: Is lonelygirl15 an elaborate hoax? [...]

• 25. Seen on craigslist los angeles  |  September 8th, 2006 at 4:32 pm

  Do you think it is really her? I mean ex as in “ex” LG15?

• 26. Re: Seen on craigslist los angeles  |  September 8th, 2006 at 4:33 pm

  guys this is a hoax!!!! probably not

• 27. spiritual forum on craigslist  |  September 8th, 2006 at 4:37 pm

  I just saw it

  “D are you out there? b”

  has to be her

• 28. Monkeyman  |  November 18th, 2006 at 9:06 am

  I have just heard of this, yes this is definetly not what it seems. Do you really think a 15 year old girl could do this? The jumping, the fast speed play and the music skillfully done? No way. I wouldnt say it was a network or anything like that though, maybe a indie production team making a series?

• 29. shemales pictures  |  January 31st, 2007 at 7:05 pm

  Since one of the ideas is to split strings not into words, but hopefully into phrases more semantically informative than the words they are made of, doing that better should mean better suggestions, and avoiding what essentially are word n-tuples should make for smaller data and slightly faster querying.

• 30. eomxinfnbb  |  June 18th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

  Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! oxtmzfagddnp

• 31. Lucy  |  January 14th, 2008 at 11:28 am

  Wow, thanks for the excellent information!

Leave a Comment

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed