Only the Lonely?

Okay folks, I've been avoiding this story until now, but it just got more interesting this week.

Over the course of the past few months, a new "It Girl" appeared on social video-sharing site YouTube. She was a homeschooled 15-year-old girl, posting video blog entries for the first time using her webcam -- she went by the name Bree and had the username lonelygirl15:

Lonelygirl15's first video posting.

She's perky and cute (for some reason, the terms "big-eyed" and "doe-eyed" keep getting used to describe her), and because of this, she started getting an insane amount of attention and a legion of fans.

Now, as is typical with this kind of Internet celebrity, people kept wanting to find out more about her, especially as word spread to the press (like the Times of London).

There were, however, doubters. Besides being too cute, people started twigging to little details: The video looked a little too good; she didn't talk about anything current; what was with the mysterious references to religious rituals (not to mention a framed photo of occultist Aleister Crowley); oh, and did we mention that someone registered her domain a month before the first video blog post?

A trio of folks from one of her Internet message boards (yes, she had fansites and message boards devoted to her) set up a sting, involving checking IP addresses and her MySpace profile. They found out that e-mails from "lonelygirl15" were originating from Beverly Hills-based Creative Artists Agency.

"Bree"'s creators came clean on one of the fan message boards (which is now down -- you can find the text of their post on blog sociologist It Girl Danah Boyd's blog). They claim they're all filmmakers and that "Bree" was conceived as some sort of high-minded art project ("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..." blah blah blah), though especially given the CAA connection and the occult references in the video, it's hard to figure this isn't indeed a viral promotion for an upcoming horror movie or as part of an Alternate Reality Game (as many have speculated).

Reactions around the Internet range from "I knew it!" to "You fake !@#$%"; sample some commentary from Metafilter (including this one that suggests they really blew the reveal); the Fark thread and even the Wikipedia entry.

I suppose now is the right time to do my own reveal: The editor you know as "Joe" is actually an amalgam of seven different people in three different countries; together, we assemble and publish the incessant blather and occasional useful tidbit for this blog....

Okay, I would finish that bit, but I know that people don't read, sarcasm doesn't come through well in text, and someone might actually take that paragraph seriously. So I just wanted you to know that, yes, I am real.

It's "blogger John Scalzi" who's the complete fabrication.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: bree, youtube, lonelygirl15, john scalzi, danah boyd, viraladvertising