Cheer Up LonelyGirl15
Today a little bit of me died when the supposed creators of YouTube auteur LonelyGirl15 came out and announced their presence. For those of you who haven’t been arduously investigating the mysterious LG, I’ll fill you in because she’s my new favorite obsession now that I no longer have cable television.
LG has taken the place of Laguna Beach in my heart. Not only because this season of Laguna is now colossal suck, but also because she’s so damn cute. Her first videos were mediocre, but I kept watching because she was just so charming, her screen presence is amazing. After I developed my crush on her, coherent storylines started to develop in her short posts and speculation about her authenticity rose keeping me even more interested. I read as much about her as possible from the NY Times, LA Times, New York Magazine, Business Week, and even became a big time lurker on the forum. The theories surrounding her were so fascinating and ranged from her being a viral marketing concoction to a covert religious message (and an occultist one at that) to a Brian Flemming TV show pitch. And then even weirder shit started happening like a crazy creepy audio file from a girl once briefly mentioned in an episode arrived in Times’ blogger Virginia Heffernan’s inbox and then people kept pointing out Aleister Crowley references. The only thing that would make it better would be a note written in blood hung to Virginia’s door with a butcher knife warning her to stop probing.
But sadly, the creepiness ended when the creators gave some existential rationale behind the whole charade:
“Right now, the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is “who is she?” We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us.”
While Glitterfish bossman Andres tells me this is just the beginning of LG, part of the fun that was LG has died to me. It was fun sometimes to pretend like this could be real, that there really is a charming, little home-schooled occultist out there. It was just as much fun to make up theories about her and try to catch her missteps, and I was definitely not alone here (gohepcat’s my favorite LG investigator). The other part of the fun was the video responses to LG. I wonder what kind of impact knowing she’s fake forreal will have on these as most center around the fake vs. real. Is it possible to interact with fictional characters like they’re real? The creators say they want to “usher in an era of interactive storytelling where the line between ‘fan’ and ‘star’ has been removed, and dedicated fans like yourselves are paid for their efforts.” Paid for interacting? Something sounds a little bit off about that. Yes, this is the beginning of something new, but I’m going to miss my old LG. Check her and her fans out before cash flows and superstardom corrupt her and she starts giving us coked up videos where she ditches her loser pal Danielbeast for someone hotter and who actually has enough balls to hit it.
I’m glad I got to know LG15, good luck on your next journey. Stay Sweet! Kisses!