Lonely Girl 15

About a year or so a go, thousands of fans were logging on to You Tube to watch the video blogs of what seemed to be a shy, overprotected, homeschooled girl, Lonely Girl 15. The video blogs are usually Lonely Girl sitting in her bedroom in front of her computer. She talks about her worries and problems and her family life, which seems to be very strange. Later, it was announced that Lonely girl was not in fact your average teenaged homeschooler, but was an actress. The whole life and the events that had taken place had been fake.
I believe this is relevant with some of the issues we have been discussing in class because it very closely deals with the issues of online identity. Online, a person's real world identity is of no concern, people can be whatever they want and can do so easily. Lonely Girl had thousands of viewers that really did think she was a homeschooler. They were concerned for her well being, hated her parents, and were fascinated by her sheltered life. The fact that she was not real was a shock to viewers, but they really should not have been surprised because in the internet blogging world, nothing is what it seems. Once I was talking to a friend who had had the shock of running across their own blog on myspace, a blog he didn't even know existed. This is a concern that people should remember when interacting with others online. The person that's your number one friend on Myspace might be an actress or a creepy old man. Even if a person is actually who they say they are, not a completely different person or an actor, we need to keep in mind that people are always slightly different online than in real life, its inevitable. I have met many people that I only knew online in real life and I am always surprised how different they seem. Lonely Girl is an interesting video blog, but its also reminds us to be careful of what we believe and who we trust when we are online.


http://youtube.com/watch?v=dZN-Wye4rDE