The truth about lonelygirl15?

Although there have been several hints and rumours, which I have written about here and here — and which Virginia Heffernan at the New York Times and others at the L.A. Times, the Times of London and elsewhere have written about — the truth about who is behind the “lonelygirl15″ videos on YouTube has remained elusive.

Is Bree just a regular teenager with religious parents who spends a lot of time in her room and fights with her boyfriend from time to time? Or is it a calculated viral marketing effort for a movie? The latest twist is a message purported to be from the creators of the lonelygirl15 phenomenon, who say that they are just filmmakers and artists who are trying to get people involved in their art.

But the letter — excerpted here at Danah Boyd’s blog Zephoria — is vague and generally short on details, and the website it was originally posted at appears to be down at the moment. All I get is a database error.

Here’s part of the letter:

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. Regardless, there are deeper mysteries buried within the plot, dialogue, and background of the Lonelygirl15 videos, and many of our tireless and dedicated fans have unearthed some of these.

Plenty of comment on the letter at lonelygirl forums, including this one. Some are disappointed that the mystery is over, some don’t believe it. As usual, Virginia Heffernan has the scoop (what the heck is she going to write about on her blog if the mystery is over?) And BusinessWeek media writer Jon Fine, who also got sucked into the lonelygirl15 vortex, says “It’s over, thank God.”

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Tagged as: lonelygirl15, Video, viral, youtube

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Stu 2 years ago 1 point
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Dude, at least you admitted in your previous posts about the subject that you've got too much time on your hands. :D

I stumbled upon one of her videos a couple of weeks ago while looking for something on YouTube, it was some fight with her friend that she had filmed. Okay, that was annoying enough, but fine, whatever. But then when I saw all these video replies by all these random people, particularly some 3 or 4 minute advice piece by some girl in the UK or Australia, I think that's the precise point where I gave up on humanity.

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Tailrank - lonelygirl15 creators out themselves
September 8, 2006 at 1:23 am

[...] lonelygirl15 creators out themselves lonelygirl15.com Found 1 hour ago ...
Techmeme
September 8, 2006 at 11:29 am

Mathew Ingram / mathewingram.com/work: The truth about lonelygirl15?
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September 10, 2006 at 10:13 pm

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