Dorkiness Prevails
So, my new addiction is, sad to say lonelygirl15.
I'd kind of ignored it, despite all the press coverage, #1 subscribed channel on youtube, etc. Then a couple of weeks back, I thought, hey ho, let's see what the fuss is about. And now I'm an addict, sigh.
For the rock-hiders, lonelygirl15 started out as a fake vlog on youtube, featuring posts by "Bree", who managed to combine astoundingly well-shaped eyebrows with an interest in Richard Feynman. After a couple of months of is-it-fake speculation, the creators owned up, and the whole pretense of reality has pretty much gone down the drain by now.
So... why do I like it? Well, on many measures, it's not great: the acting is sometimes ropey, the plot is pretty herky-jerky, and the whole Teen Angst thing gets tiresome quite quickly. Its biggest weakness is also it's biggest strength: they're making it up as they go along. It's quite weird seeing a new artform being developed: it's not TV, it's not fan video, it's a weird new thing that doesn't really know what it is.
There are some restrictions: the main one being that it has to happen in "real time", with the videoing, editing and uploading being supposedly done by the characters. There's no anonymous authorial voice, if one of the characters is climbing over a wall, he carries the camera up with him. This produces some weirdness, e.g. watching the characters war-walk around trying to find unprotected WiFi networks they can piggy-back onto to upload the video you are currently watching. And sometimes it breaks down, e.g. when Bree isn't talking to Daniel (who supposedly does her editing for her) but still her videos are edited in the same style. Hmm... But when it works, it's surprisingly effective, and at times has an almost Zapruder film quality about it.
But some of what I really like requires spoilers...
For me, catching up with LG15 via youtube and avoiding the forums, there was a jaw-dropping moment of finding out about the OpAphid / Tachyon Alternate Reality Game (ARG). I knew there was an element of fan interaction, but I'd not realized quite how deep it went, until the point that OpAphid turns up in the videos, and I had to go and check out her videos, and OK wow those were weird. Followed up by the wonderful Alias super-spy moment where Tachyon's theme kicks into Human Ransom and the distinction between the game and the video series vanishes.
The ARG is an expression of the unusual degree of interactivity LG15 has: the creators are monitoring the forums quite carefully, and will respond either as The Creators, or, more often, in character. The forums are very chatty and with a general feeling of community, and produce some odd discussions, e.g. due to the "Bree's religion" subplot there's a fair bit of discussion about Crowley, Thelema, Egyptology, etc., all wrapped up into an ARG which is largely a big crossword / code-breaking puzzle. Reminds me in some ways of playing Call of Cthulhu back in the 1980s, only with a much larger group, and with actual real-life Thelemites chipping in.
So I am currently signed up to the discussion boards, joining in trying to work out what the hell the sequence Tau+Phi, Lambda+Sigma, Theta+Mu, Theta+Eta is meant to mean, and why Theta+Eta is meant to refer to a group of textual critics looking into notions of free will in a Theta+Mu Thelemite/Masonic/Illuminati Big Conspiracy.
How to catch up on LG15: go to http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=lonelygirl15 and note that the editors are very good at getting shots of Bree as the sample image for her vlogs. Then go back to the first vlog First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails, and start watching her videos. Every so often, a new character is introduced with their own youtube account, so you'll end up jumping around a bit. I found the easiest thing to do was to concentrate on Bree's videos, and following the "this video is a reply to" chain back to catch up on the other characters. The style of the videos changes quite drastically after the first few months, so be ready for some bumps in the road. Ooh fun!
I'd kind of ignored it, despite all the press coverage, #1 subscribed channel on youtube, etc. Then a couple of weeks back, I thought, hey ho, let's see what the fuss is about. And now I'm an addict, sigh.
For the rock-hiders, lonelygirl15 started out as a fake vlog on youtube, featuring posts by "Bree", who managed to combine astoundingly well-shaped eyebrows with an interest in Richard Feynman. After a couple of months of is-it-fake speculation, the creators owned up, and the whole pretense of reality has pretty much gone down the drain by now.
So... why do I like it? Well, on many measures, it's not great: the acting is sometimes ropey, the plot is pretty herky-jerky, and the whole Teen Angst thing gets tiresome quite quickly. Its biggest weakness is also it's biggest strength: they're making it up as they go along. It's quite weird seeing a new artform being developed: it's not TV, it's not fan video, it's a weird new thing that doesn't really know what it is.
There are some restrictions: the main one being that it has to happen in "real time", with the videoing, editing and uploading being supposedly done by the characters. There's no anonymous authorial voice, if one of the characters is climbing over a wall, he carries the camera up with him. This produces some weirdness, e.g. watching the characters war-walk around trying to find unprotected WiFi networks they can piggy-back onto to upload the video you are currently watching. And sometimes it breaks down, e.g. when Bree isn't talking to Daniel (who supposedly does her editing for her) but still her videos are edited in the same style. Hmm... But when it works, it's surprisingly effective, and at times has an almost Zapruder film quality about it.
But some of what I really like requires spoilers...
For me, catching up with LG15 via youtube and avoiding the forums, there was a jaw-dropping moment of finding out about the OpAphid / Tachyon Alternate Reality Game (ARG). I knew there was an element of fan interaction, but I'd not realized quite how deep it went, until the point that OpAphid turns up in the videos, and I had to go and check out her videos, and OK wow those were weird. Followed up by the wonderful Alias super-spy moment where Tachyon's theme kicks into Human Ransom and the distinction between the game and the video series vanishes.
The ARG is an expression of the unusual degree of interactivity LG15 has: the creators are monitoring the forums quite carefully, and will respond either as The Creators, or, more often, in character. The forums are very chatty and with a general feeling of community, and produce some odd discussions, e.g. due to the "Bree's religion" subplot there's a fair bit of discussion about Crowley, Thelema, Egyptology, etc., all wrapped up into an ARG which is largely a big crossword / code-breaking puzzle. Reminds me in some ways of playing Call of Cthulhu back in the 1980s, only with a much larger group, and with actual real-life Thelemites chipping in.
So I am currently signed up to the discussion boards, joining in trying to work out what the hell the sequence Tau+Phi, Lambda+Sigma, Theta+Mu, Theta+Eta is meant to mean, and why Theta+Eta is meant to refer to a group of textual critics looking into notions of free will in a Theta+Mu Thelemite/Masonic/Illuminati Big Conspiracy.
How to catch up on LG15: go to http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=lonelygirl15 and note that the editors are very good at getting shots of Bree as the sample image for her vlogs. Then go back to the first vlog First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails, and start watching her videos. Every so often, a new character is introduced with their own youtube account, so you'll end up jumping around a bit. I found the easiest thing to do was to concentrate on Bree's videos, and following the "this video is a reply to" chain back to catch up on the other characters. The style of the videos changes quite drastically after the first few months, so be ready for some bumps in the road. Ooh fun!