Lonelygirl15 is not so lonely anymore

Although the concept of video blogging is nothing new to the millions that have been watching and recording video diaries since Web cams came to be, recently one video blog on YouTube.com has raised some questions about the rules and boundaries of video blogging.

Though Lonelygirl15 may seem like any and every other video blog available on YouTube, this one teen’s video diary has quickly become one of the most viewed channels on YouTube since posting her first video in June.

So what’s so special about her? Well, she’s not real. Though Lonelygirl15, also known as “Bree,” had started out posting two-minute confessional type clips that featured little more than her, a friend named Daniel, and a cast of stuffed animals, as her videos progressed, something about the highly religious, home-schooled teen seemed amiss with her viewers.

Besides being suspiciously camera friendly and well-spoken for a 16-year-old, the fact that her videos appeared too well edited, her storyline a little too neatly cut, and the video quality too perfect in comparison to a typical video blogger’s, suspicions caused several viewers to start digging through the trenches of the Internet underworld to find that 16-year-old “Bree” was actually 19-year-old actress Jessica Rose from New Zealand. And to top it all off, the entire Lonelygirl15 series had been the scripted brainchild of three independent filmmakers.

Though the creators of the Lonelygirl15 saga had originally gone through drastic measures to keep everyone a part of the project anonymous, they revealed themselves as Miles Beckett, 28, of Woodland Hills, Calif., Mesh Flinders, 26, of Petaluma, Calif., and Greg Goodfried, 27, of Los Angeles, after viewers started to question the authenticity of Lonelygirl15’s videos.

Although Lonelygirl15 lost several viewers after it was revealed that the entire blog was a hoax, the video series now has more than 45,000 subscribers and even more viewers that tune in regularly to see what strange plot twists will develop.

Though several fans initially expressed anger at being fooled into believing that they were watching a real teen’s candid videos, Beckett said in an interview with CNN that they just wanted “to create a believable character” and “never wanted to lie to people.” According to Beckett, Lonelygirl15, which has been hailed by some as “the birth of a new art form,” started out with a $130 camera, two desk lamps, and a desire to explore the genre of podcasting.

“I saw YouTube coming about and podcasting and wanted to be a part of it,” Beckett said to CNN. The Web site YouTube, which features an impressive archive of videos ranging from old episodes of “Saved By The Bell” to random clips uploaded by users, currently leads in the forefront of sites featuring free streaming video. It is currently the 32nd most visited web property and pulled in almost 20 million visitors last month. It is also the home of several thousand video blogs much like Lonelygirl15’s, only real.

Although issues of ethics and the unsaid agreement made between bloggers and their viewers are among the foremost questions raised in the Lonelygirl15 scandal, the more interesting question at hand is in what direction film and reality based media will take now that Lonelygirl15 has led the way in interactive video storytelling.