Tuesday, September 19, 2006
LonelyGirl15
"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 on the video-sharing site YouTube.com has been identified as Jessica Rose, a 20-ish resident of New Zealand and Los Angeles and a graduate of the New York Film Academy. And the whole project appears to be the early serialized version of what eventually will become a movie."Why is this so important? I have a difficult time understanding the relevance of this story. Perhaps the truth about the identity of this girl was revealed at this time intentionally. While the world is plagued by war, famine, disease, Mid-East tensions, etc., the identity of this girl makes front page on news websites in America and I am on the internet blogging about this. How sad.
Yes, it is sad on one level that this powerful tool for education and information is dominated by fluff like this but if we are to understand the digital world we need to recognize this new culture of online celebrity.
The promotion of celebrity, the marketing of images, the selling of social networks is becoming big business and these are the new tools of mass persuasion.
The question is why does this story make it to the front pages?
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