She's Hot. She's Lonely. And She's Fake.
File this under heartbreak. Lonelygirl15, subject of many a breathless paean and love letter on YouTube, has been outed as a fakester.
Lonelygirl15 is (was?) a video diaryist on YouTube who started appearing over the summer. As her story unfolded, we learned that she was homeschooled by religious parents and surreptitiously webcasting her diary. It was a modern day version of every emo boy's dream: A lonesome girl, beautiful and intelligent, yearning for someone to understand her.
She didn't fool everybody. As uberfans are wont to do, they investigated every clue as to the origin of this WB-ish waif. Even the New York Times covered lonelygirl15 -- could there be a more erotically suggestive name for teenage fanboys? -- in an article a few weeks ago, in which they suggested that she was an advertising ploy. The LATimes makes more headway in an article today -- the Times' reporters link Lonelygirl15's creators to Creative Artists Agency.
Also today, the always insightful Danah Boyd links to the creators' admission that Lonelygirl15 is a product of filmmaker experimentation.
Whoever the creators are, lonelygirl15 is a definite milestone in the evolution of video sharing communities.
