Mystery Fuels Huge Popularity of Web's Lonelygirl15
The videos are a hit on YouTube, but some wonder if the teen's posts are real or a marketing ploy.
By Richard Rushfield and Claire Hoffman
Times Staff Writers
September 8, 2006
Lonelygirl15 appears to be an innocent, home-schooled 16-year-old, pouring her heart out for her video camera in the privacy of her bedroom. But since May, her brief posts on the video-sharing site YouTube and the social networking hub MySpace have launched a Web mystery eagerly followed by her million-plus viewers: Who is this sheltered ingenue who calls herself "Bree," and is she in some sort of danger — or, worse, the tool of some giant marketing machine?
No one has publicly come forward to lay claim to her work, but she is starting to look as connected in Hollywood as any starlet. Three lonelygirl15-obsessed amateur Web sleuths set up a sting using tracking software that appears to show that e-mails sent from a lonelygirl15 account came from inside the offices of the Beverly Hills-based talent agency Creative Artists Agency.
The apparent CAA link takes its place alongside other tantalizing pieces of evidence that lonelygirl15 is not who she claims to be: a copyright for the name obtained by an Encino lawyer, and a plot line that, leading speculation suggests, will turn out to be the lead-in to a horror movie's marketing campaign.
CAA spokesman Michael Mand said he "could neither confirm nor deny" that the agency is representing whoever is behind the 27 video posts. (Other talent agencies and production companies contacted by The Times denied any connection.)
As to horror film rumors, calls made to several studios found no such plans — but plenty of fascination for the way in which a Hollywood-ready cultural phenomenon has been built from a grass-roots Web platform. Lonelygirl15, many say, is the next-generation "Blair Witch Project," using interactive forms of storytelling that, like the 1999 hit, tries to trick an audience into thinking it's true.
Indeed, if a commercial project does result, lonelygirl15 may prove to be a model of how to harness a groundswell created on seemingly populist, user-driven websites such as YouTube and MySpace.
To fans, meanwhile, it doesn't seem to matter whether lonelygirl15 turns out to be a private citizen or part of something bigger.
Riana Giammarco, a Rhode Island 20-year-old who curates a lonelygirl15 discussion board (one of several on the Web) says the mystery is the principal draw for her.
"I like the community aspect of the mystery — getting together and trying to figure it out," Giammarco said in a phone interview. "Though I would still watch if there weren't a mystery, the videos wouldn't appeal to me as much."
Lonelygirl15 began quietly, posting in May two amateurish tributes to other videos on the Web's confessional arenas. For a moment she was just one of thousands who post videos on the site each day, typically young people speaking into cameras about their personal lives, a familiar trope from reality TV.
On June 16, lonelygirl15 made her first appearance in a video, titled "First Blog/Dorkiness Prevails." Dark-haired, big-eyed and pretty, she blinked nervously and hugged her knees as she described living in a small town "hours from a mall" with strict religious parents and a friend named Daniel, who she didn't like "in that way."
Over the next three months, two dozen more videos hit the Web, spaced out every few days. Bree dangled hints about her life, revealing that she had spent her youth in New Zealand, was treated for "lazy eye" and had an obsession with physicist Richard Feynman. Oblique references popped up to "my religion," which was never named but which forbade things such as attending Daniel's high school graduation party.
Fans soon started to notice jarring details. A music clip from an undiscovered L.A. band was mixed in to her well-edited montage sequences. Her room was movie-set neat. Above her bookshelf hung a photo of famed occultist Aleister Crowley. Thin already, Bree talked about an upcoming religious ceremony that she would participate in, even though it involved going on a diet.
On the message boards, discussions revolved around the single shoot theory: that the videos must have been filmed in one batch, because they gave little or no nod to the furor erupting around them. The landscape of two outdoor videos had botanical clues that suggested Southern California.
Since June, the videos have regularly made it to the top of YouTube's daily "Most Viewed" list, averaging about 200,000 views each, with several topping 600,000 — viewership many cable TV executives would kill for.
In late August, fans discovered that the Web address for lonelygirl15.com had been purchased before the first video even appeared, with efforts made to shield the identity of the buyer.
In early September, Web forums erupted with the news that lonelygirl15 had been trademarked and the application filed by an Encino lawyer named Kenneth Goodfried. (He declined to comment for this article.) Within days, the MySpace profile of Goodfried's daughter was being combed for connections to the video.
Independent film director and blogger Brian Flemming, who is known for creating edgy film events, became wrapped into the story when viewers became convinced that Flemming had constructed the whole thing in order to promote an upcoming film.
Flemming said he received more than 300 e-mails from people accusing him of involvement.
"People have been confronting me with coincidences, and I don't know how to explain it," Flemming said, choosing his words carefully for fear of furthering the theories. "It's been pretty crazy and actually not particularly desired. It's like a big gift being handed to me that I don't want."
In the last week, the videos have developed seemingly ominous themes. In "Bree the Cookie Monster," Bree and Daniel, on her bedroom floor, sample cookies they say they have made. Judging a contest is a purple monkey puppet, who holds up scores for each cookie recipe. The first cookie was given a "10." The second a "12," the third "06."
Viewers immediately asked: Why 06 and not just 6? Soon, a posting told the virtual crowd that Aleister Crowley was born on October 12, 1875." Could it be that the ritual lonelygirl15 had been preparing for would take place on Crowley's birthday?
But the most compelling mystery has become who is behind lonelygirl15, and fans soon became proactive in trying to solve that bigger puzzle. Driven by hours of conjecturing and late-night instant-messaging analysis, three amateur sleuths who met on the discussion boards on lonelygirl15.com hatched a plan in August to lure lonelygirl15 to MySpace profiles they had created for the purpose.
They were Shaina Wedmedyk, an 18-year-old Oberlin College freshman; Chris Patterson, a 36-year old software engineer from Tulsa, Okla.; and a 23-year old law student in Pennsylvania who declined to be identified by name.
On Aug. 29, they sent an e-mail from a profile they had created for "Seth," an imaginary 17-year-old from Ohio. He told lonelygirl15, "You seem really cool!! I added you and I hope you will add me back. We have the same interests! Your videos are cool, where do you host them? MySpace?"
Later that day, they received an answer. It read simply, "Hi seth :) I think I added you…. The videos are on youtube. What sort stuff are you into?"
Using the tracking software, the team was able to see that seconds before lonelygirl15 had sent the note, someone had looked at Seth's profile. This visit was the only one the profile had received in 17 hours, suggesting that whoever was at the controls of the lonelygirl15 account on MySpace looked at Seth's page before sending the message.
The user's IP address — the number assigned to any Internet-connected computer — was traced to the private server of CAA in Beverly Hills.
Tuesday night, lonelygirl15 posted a sexually tinged video titled "Poor Pluto," in which Bree bemoans the demotion of Pluto to sub-planetary status.
Sprawled on her bed, she stares into the camera and remembers her brief time at a regular high school, when she loved stars.
"They said I was doing something with my teacher, and that's when I stopped asking questions about stars."
Another riddle that will move the story forward?
Or, perhaps, there is a truly mind-blowing explanation for lonelygirl15, albeit one that keeps receding ever further into the realm of the unlikely: just a bored teenager with a camera.
Lonelygirl15's revelation: It's all just part of the show
By Richard RushfieldTimes Staff Writer
September 9, 2006
The latest confession to stun the entertainment world is an unusual one: "We are filmmakers."
The team behind the lonelygirl15 YouTube mystery has come forward, claiming that lonelygirl15 is part of their "show" and thanking their fans effusively for tuning in to "the birth of a new art form." They are not, they insisted, "a big corporation."
After amateur sleuths uncovered apparent links between the Creative Artists Agency and the official lonelygirl15 MySpace page, a statement claiming to be from "The Creators" was posted on the lonelygirl15 website late Thursday. It read in part:
"Our intention from the outset has been to tell a story — A story that could only be told using the medium of video blogs and the distribution power of the Internet. A story that is interactive and constantly evolving with the audience."
The statement sidestepped the issue of lonelygirl15's real identity, saying cryptically, "Right now, the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is 'who is she?' We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone."
The statement's authors wrote that they are "in the process of building a website centered around video and interactivity."
Along with her friend "Daniel," lonelygirl15 appears in a series of video blogs, confessional screeds spoken into a video camera and posted on websites such as YouTube. Since June, viewers have questioned whether the videos really depicted a home-schooled, shy girl named "Bree, or whether they were part of some larger project or promotional scheme.
Early reaction from fans to the seeming admission has been mixed. Asked via instant message if she was disappointed, Riana Giammarco, who curates a lonelygirl15 discussion board, said, "Not at all. I knew they were acting, and whether or not it was independent or represented, I didn't really care." She warned, however, that lonelygirl15 "has the potential to become uninteresting if they don't spice it up a bit now that their secret is out."
Chris Patterson, the Tulsa, Okla., software engineer who is part of the group that discovered the CAA connection, said in a phone interview, "I still want to see how the story ends." As for the disappointment many fans are venting on the YouTube pages, Patterson said, "You mess with the emotions of real people and then tell them it was fake and they feel betrayed."
Naturally, some suspect the confession itself might be a hoax. On Friday, the day after it was posted, the lonelygirl15 website could not be accessed, either because of a crash, foul play or another turn in the story. As of press time, neither lonelygirl15 nor the "filmmakers" could be reached for comment.
I found lonelygirl15’s myspace page. She is Jessica Rose.
http://profile.myspace.com/jeessss426
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‘Lonely Girl’ (and Friends) Just Wanted Movie Deal
A nearly four-month-old Internet drama in which the cryptic video musings of a fresh-faced teenager became the obsession of millions of devotees — themselves divided over the very authenticity of the videos, or who was behind them or why — appears to be in its final act.
The woman who plays lonelygirl15, whose first-person videos are among the most-viewed on the clip-sharing Web site YouTube, has been identified as Jessica Rose, a twentyish resident of New Zealand and Los Angeles and a graduate of the New York Film Academy. And the whole project appeared to be the early, serialized version of what eventually would become a movie.
Matt Foremski, the 18-year-old son of Tom Foremski, a reporter for the blog Silicon Valley Watcher, was the first to disinter a trove of photographs of the familiar-looking actress, who portrayed the character named Bree in the videos. The episodes suggested Bree was the home-schooled daughter of strictly religious parents who improbably stole time to upload video blogs of her innermost thoughts.
The discovery and the swift and subsequent revelation of other details surrounding the perpetrators of the videos — and the phony fan site that accompanied them — marks the end of one of the Internet’s more elaborately constructed mysteries. Whether fans, whose disbelief in lonelygirl15 was not willingly suspended, but rather teased and toyed with, will embrace the project as a new narrative form, condemn it, or simply walk away, never to be fooled again, remains to be seen.
The masterminds of the “lonelygirl15” videos are Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, Calif., and Miles Beckett, a doctor-turned-filmmaker. Many of the lonelygirl15 videos were shot in Mr. Flinders’s bedroom. Together with Grant Steinfeld, a software engineer in San Francisco, Mr. Flinders contrived to produce and distribute the videos so as to pique maximum curiosity about them.
The photographs of the actress, which made it clear that Ms. Rose has been playing Bree in the videos, were found through Google.
“We were all under N.D.A.’s” Mr. Steinfeld said, referring to the non-disclosure agreements that the cast — and their friends — were asked to sign, in order to preserve the mystery of lonelygirl15. “They had a lawyer involved,” he said. “My first impression was like, wow, can this be legitimate? Is this ethical? I was very concerned about that in the beginning.”
But after he came to understand the project, Mr. Steinfeld said, he came to believe that something truly novel was at hand. “They were like the new Marshall McLuhan.”
Mr. Flinders and Dr. Beckett obscured their location by sending e-mail messages as “Bree” from various Internet computer addresses, including the address of Creative Artists Agency, the Beverly Hills talent agency where the team is now represented. Amanda Solomon Goodfried, an assistant at the agency, is believed to have helped Mr. Flinders and Dr. Beckett conceal their identities. Moreover, Ms. Goodfried’s father-in-law, Kenneth Goodfried, an attorney in Encino, Calif., filed to trademark “lonelygirl15” in August.
The story of how Mr. Flinders, Dr. Beckett and Ms. Rose were discovered in spite of their efforts to hide, and prolong the mystery, sheds light on the nature of online, wiki-style investigations and manhunts. When Mr. Steinfeld’s dummy site, which had been set up before the first lonelygirl15 video was even posted, struck users as suspicious and unsupervised — Mr. Steinfeld says he grew tired of running it, and dropped out of the project — fans set up their own site devoted to lonelygirl15, which soon attracted more than a thousand members.
Both sites drew contributions from novelists, journalists, academics, day-traders, lawyers, bloggers, filmmakers, video-game designers, students, housewives, bored kids and experts on religion and botany. In the cacophony of conjecture, analysis, close-readings, jokes, insults, and distractions, good information sometimes surfaced.
Last month, a lonelygirl15 fan discovered and posted a trademark application by Mr. Goodfried, which seemed to prove that the videos, which presented themselves as nothing but a video diary, were at least in part a commercial venture. Then, last week, three tech-savvy fans, working together, set up a sting on the e-mail address that was being used by “Bree”; the operation netted them the Internet address of a computer at Creative Artists Agency.
On the strength of this information, Mr. Foremski was confident he could find some trace of “Bree” on the Internet. He was sure that any participant in a semi-professional production like “lonelygirl15” would have posted pictures somewhere. Sure enough, he was right.
Mr. Steinfeld, on learning that Mr. Flinders and Dr. Beckett had been found out, offered his photographs of Ms. Rose as proof of his involvement in the “lonelygirl15” videos. He had been hired to take the on-set pictures at the start of shooting.
The series, which Mr. Flinders and Dr. Beckett plan to continue on a site overseen by them, may play differently with fans now that they know for sure that the Bree is an actress. Part of the appeal of the series was that, in the serious-minded, literate Bree, it offered an unbeatable fantasy: a beautiful girl who tech-savvy guys had something in common with.
On learning that Ms. Rose is an actress whose interests, unlike the scientific and religious issues that fascinated Bree, run to parties and posing, one fan wrote, “Very cute, but she’s really not into Feynmann and Jared Diamond! (I’m heart-broken. ... But a wonderful actress, had me fooled into thinking she was a geek like me.)”
