Lonely Girl

If YouTube's Teen Phenomenon is the Real Deal, I Will Remove My Right Kidney on a Live Webcam With My Bare Hands

Posted by Bob Garfield on 09.02.06 @ 01:22 PM

This week in my other life -- NPR's On The Media -- we looked at the teenage YouTube phenom "lonelygirl15," who has been posting vlogs on the site for months and building a vast audience of fans and skeptics. My co-host Brooke Gladstone discusses all the intriguing ins and outs of the situation with Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times.

The main question: Is Lonely Girl a genuine, disaffected 15-year-old vlogger with freakishly religious parents who just soooo don't understand? Or is she some sort of poseur?

Answer: b)

You don't have to look at a single one of the thousands of Lonely Girl-obsessed blog and vlog postings to be suspicious here. Just look at one of her videos and you will see the hand of grownups at work.

Not just grownups, but grownups in the employ of an advertising agency. When this all shakes out, you will see Lonely Girl revealed as a singer, an actress, a movie character, a line of clothing or some other commercial pop-culture enterprise.

Whereupon her worldwide legion of fans will turn on her. Because people don't mind being manipulated by advertising (which happens in full view with everybody's eyes wide open to the exercise) but they despise being toyed with by stealth.

There is a term for this: "Astroturf." It comes from politics, when various advocacy organizations would get their members to inundate media or officialdom with supposedly spontaneous letters of outrage. But these campaigns weren't really "grassroots" -- hence astroturf.

The same is happening on the web, as political groups, marketers and others contrive phony communities, fan sites, blogs and so on to create the illusion of spontaneous consumer/voter interest.

Coca-Cola famously got caught faking a cult of Coke Zero.

It's an outgrowth of Listenomics, and also a perversion of Listenomics. And wherever it is discovered, the backlash will be severe.

5 Comments

By ronpersonal | MENDHAM, NJ September 3, 2006 08:49:23 am:

One of the hallmarks of public affairs astroturfing is that it is usually hilariously unstealthy: think of all the organizations with overblown names that couldn't possibly be legitimate - and aren't. In advertising it's usually even more obvious. Would you go to a dermatologist with a degree from the Ponds Institute?

The sham is pretty obvious here, too. Miss Jailbait is obviously no 15-year-old (and if she is her parents *should* lock her up) and the production values, especially lighting and camera, are awfully good for a webcam.

Nevertheless, I agree that it seems more deceptive somehow. I wonder why that is. Do we feel more used because we have higher expectations for a medium that is inherently free of corporate control? Or are we just worried that one of these days the fakery is going to get harder to detect?

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By pblackshaw | COVINGTON, KY September 5, 2006 06:25:05 am:

I share your skepticism, but even if lonelygirl15 does turn out to be the real thing, the ad community still needs to be proactive in "preserving the commons" of marketing integrity by drawing a better line between consumer and marketers generated messaging. There's no question the video space is making this all quite messy, and our first instinct as advertisers tends to be to exploit the ambiguity versus clarify it.

Perhaps what we need is the advertising equivalent of "organic labeling" when it comes to consumer generated media (CGM). Have not thought through all the "practical" issues of execution/implimentation, but there's no question this would hold agencies and brands more accountable....and rebuild consumer trust (which we all know is a depleting resource).

- Pete Blackshaw

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By JOHN | WASHINGTON, DC September 5, 2006 12:34:44 pm:

Advertising/marketing that involves you via a "wink-and-a-nod" entertainment is great. There have been plenty of examples of fake stories handled this way that have been accepted by users.

But those that cross the line into deception, where it is possible to believe one way or another are really low. In 'personal media' we get to know people, we embrace the idea that many people are trying to share something genuine about their experience, thoughts, values. So we want to let down our guard.

If this is heading where you say - some ploy (which seems inevitable) - than it's just one long interactive episode of "Punk'd". A show that was never supposed to go on for more than a few minutes.
- John H. Bell, Washington DC

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By Jonathan_Trenn | FALLS CHURCH, VA September 5, 2006 09:33:50 pm:

If this proves to be a charade as you say - and I think it will be - then it shows, in my opinion, how personal media will meet a rough road ahead. We've recently seen the Al Gore/YouTube flap.

If this is fake, then perhaps the negative press beforehand will make the agency and/or its client kill the campaign for fear of embarrassment.

The real decision makers are, though, her 'fans'...likely teens who would end up being the target of the campaign. Let's hope the value the genuine aspects of consumer generated media.

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By comdesigns | Idaho Falls, ID September 6, 2006 09:11:01 pm:

The great irony is that I heard the story on "On the Medaia" and as a result decided to look up lonley girl. The reality is that media coverage is one part of the equation that feeds the machine. I won't likely follow lonely girl, but I am now "brand aware."

Mike Hart, Idaho Falls ID (heard story on NPR in Boston, found your Blog googling Lonley Girl when I was back home, podcast was on my computer when I got there)

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