June 18, 2016

The horror that was Lonelygirl15.



From the list of internet things I'd forgotten. Ugh! This was horrible. The saccharine fakeness within the larger problem of the world's creepy fascination with seeing a girl alone in her bedroom.

ADDED: Here's the post I wrote at the time the fakery of Lonelygirl was conceded, back in the summer of 2006:
Did you watch these videos? I watched the first one and thought it looked too well done and too conspicuously designed to appeal to people who were not me....
That's oddly written, creating the false implication that I did like it. I meant, of course, I didn't like it, but I also thought that other people couldn't like it.

19 comments:

Laslo Spatula said...

"...the world's creepy fascination with seeing a girl alone in her bedroom."

That's "creepy"?

I thought it portended authenticity, with a chance of underwear.

I am Laslo.

CWJ said...

Loneygirl?

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks. Typo corrected.

I always loathed this girl, this actress's affectation of the worse of the female teenagers' affectation of the time.

Wince said...

Hey there Lonelygirl15

Hey there lonely girl, lonely girl
Let me make your broken heart like new
Oh, my lonely girl, lonely girl
Don't you know this lonely boy loves you

Michael K said...

ISIS was was atching even if ylu weren't.

describing how a "lonely" American girl was gradually converted to Islam by an ISIS interlocutor on the Internet. "Alex, a 23-year-old Sunday school teacher and babysitter, was trembling with excitement the day she told her Twitter followers that she had converted to Islam."

The only Muslims she knew were those she had met online, and he encouraged her to keep it that way, arguing that Muslims are persecuted in the United States. She could be labeled a terrorist, he warned, and for now it was best for her to keep her conversion secret, even from her family.
So on his guidance, Alex began leading a double life. She kept teaching at her church, but her truck’s radio was no longer tuned to the Christian hits on K-LOVE. Instead, she hummed along with the ISIS anthems blasting out of her turquoise iPhone, and began daydreaming about what life with the militants might be like.

“I felt like I was betraying God and Christianity,” said Alex, who spoke on the condition that she be identified only by a pseudonym she uses online. “But I also felt excited because I had made a lot of new friends.”

The NYT article calls the process enticing the lonely. The other phrase for it is filling the emptied. "She felt as if she finally had something to do," Callimachi wrote.


Yes, the lonely girl.

Michael K said...

Watching you....

Laslo Spatula said...

LonelyWebcamGirl15:

I'm just sitting alone, in my bedroom, thinking thoughts of how the world is so big and wondering how do I even fit in. It's scary, knowing there is all of this around me and yet I feel so lonely. Do you want me to take my shirt off?

What sucks about getting older is realizing how many people are so dishonest. When I was a child I trusted people, and now I feel humiliated that I could even believe such a thing. Do you want me to take off my pants?

So now I'm just sitting alone, in my bedroom, in my underwear, and there are people out there, and they hear me, but I know they're not really listening. I'm just words and blah blah blah, and my inner feelings mean nothing to them. Do you want me to take off my bra?

Why is it that people go through every day without seeing this? Are the people around me even real? Sometimes I think they are just robots, programmed to do what they do without ever really thinking. You know: think about things. Big Things. Do you want me to stop covering my breasts with my arms?

I mean, my parents are downstairs, but they might as well be on the moon. Their daughter is getting naked in front of strangers on the internet and they're watching 'Law & Order' reruns or something. Do you want to see my butt?

I miss my Grandfather. he seemed to really understand me, but then he died last year. It's weird, knowing that everyone you know will die. Do you want to see me bend over?

My parents, I don't even think they know I pierced my belly button. I bet my Grandfather would've laughed if he knew. He had a real laugh, not the fake laugh so many people do when they think they should laugh but don't really understand why. Do you want to see me touch my toes?

I'm getting tired. Sometimes I'm scared to sleep. Like, what if I don't wake up? I mean, there's no guarantee that I get to wake up in the morning, I could just wake up dead. That's the end of my show tonight...

I am Laslo.

Wince said...

Laslo, don't stop. I'll join the Premium Membership.

Luke Lea said...

Lucinda Williams," Lonely Girls," https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxZ_43VsD6o

Sebastian said...

"I also thought that other people couldn't like it" Perfectly reasonable reaction, but therefore a problematic failure of imagination. More dramatic case in point, illustrated by documentary being shown on ESPN: many people liked OJ and thought he was innocent.

David said...

You mean she wasn't talking to me? Oh I feel so deceived.

John henry said...

I think Ann is just trolling Lazlo now.

Keep it up!

Let me know if I ever need the premium subscription

John Henry

Fred Drinkwater said...

At least the creators of the "kremvax" hoax had a sense of humor.
(My bleeding Kindle has "humorous" in autocomplete, but not "humor". Go figure... It also didn't have "autocomplete".)

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Her eyebrows certainly look better. She resembles a tall Rachel Leigh Cook.

rcocean said...

I watched some of it with the sound off. First, that's a nice sweater. 2nd, she's has attractive eyes. 3rd, she has "Man Hands".

BTW, I don't remember any of this. But wasn't there some college girl who had like a 24 hour camera set up so that people could watch her on the net?

IRC, she did for a year and then quit. Was this similar?

Laslo Spatula said...

LonelyWebcamGirl15:

I'm reading the messages you all are sending me, and some of them are really sweet:

"LonelyWebcamGirl15, you are so pretty!!!!"

"I wish I had a girlfriend like you,LonelyWebcamGirl15!"

"You have such pretty eyes, LonelyWebcamGirl15!!"

But then some people are just mean for no reason:

"LonelyWebcamGirl15, you have Man Hands!"

"Are your hands really that big, LonelyWebcamGirl15?"

"What the fuck is with those hands, LonelyWebcamGirl15?!?!!"

And then some people just don't get me at all. I spill my heart about the World around me, I let you see into my very Soul in my very own bedroom, and then I get messages like this:

"I want to see you pee, LonelyWebcamGirl15!!!!!!!!!"

"Would you ever pee on camera, LonelyWebcamGirl15??"

"LonelyWebcamGirl15, I bet you look beautiful when you pee!"

And then there are THESE:

"LonelyWebcamGirl15, I want to see you poop."

"I bet you look like a princess when you poop, LonelyWebcamGirl15."

"Poop for us, Bitch!!!!!!~"

I'm amazed at how many people out there just want to see me poop or pee, and some of it's even worse -- I even had to look some of the words up. I just wish all the Sickos would find another WebCam Girl who does those kinds of things: I'm not like that.

I mean, isn't anyone interested in, say, the books I'm reading? Anyone?

Anyone?

I am Laslo.

jr565 said...

Hey there lonely girl
lonely girl
Let me make your broken heart like new
Oh, my lonely girl, lonely girl
Don't you know this lonely boy loves you

God, I hated htat song. It was about as sacharine as Lonely Girl herself.
But now the song is stuck in my head.

Really, doesnt much of what appears on YouTube essentially look like Loney Girl? Why is it interesting?

tim in vermont said...

"Look at me, I'm so hot and I don't even know it, even you have a chance!" - Evergreen fictional archetype from way back,

Paul Snively said...

tim in vermont: "Look at me, I'm so hot and I don't even know it, even you have a chance!" - Evergreen fictional archetype from way back.

Still never treated better than by Fee Waybill, IMO.