[Air-L] Ten years ago: The lonelygirl15 scandal

[Rainer Hillrichs]

Dear colleagues,

today ten years ago, the *LA Times
<http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/08/entertainment/et-lonelygirl8>
*reported
that an Email sent from the lonelygirl15 YouTube account had been tracked
back to the Creative Artists Agency. A couple of days later, three men in
their twenties stepped forth and revealed that they were running the
lonelygirl15 and Danielbeast channels and producing the videos. Bree
(lonelygirl15) and Daniel were not teenagers vlogging their lives but
fictional characters played by two obscure actors. Fans were divided about
what to make of the news; some of them were seriously disappointed.

In my open access e-book *Poetics of Early YouTube: Production,
Performance, Success* <http://hss.ulb.uni-bonn.de/2016/4407/4407.pdf> I
deal - among other things - with modes of performance in early YouTube
culture. I show that video blog­ging was not a practice of confessional
self performances which was corrupted by the insincerity of 'fakes' like
lonelygirl15 but a practice in which different modes of performance were
creatively employed from the very beginning.

If you want to review the book for a journal: You're most welcome!

Best,
Rainer

-- 
Dr. Rainer Hillrichs
Universität Mannheim
https://uni-mannheim.academia.edu/RainerHillrichs