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SirQuady · Unfettered Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 576

Making a series of faux-real videos like Lonelygirl15

**Posted:** Sun Sep 10, 2006 5:06 pm

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There once was a [person] from [place]
Whose [body part] was [special case].
When [event] would occur,
It would cause [him or her]
To violate [law of time/space].

GuyP

I suspect "hoax" might be too strong a word, but I agree that if (a big if) it was meant to pass as real, they did a fairly terrible job doing it, for all the reasons Brian enumerated.

Anyway, if it was out-and-out trickery, I can't knock it - it seemed to work out pretty well in terms of buzz and hype.

If we take the recent announcement from the creators at face value - that it's just an experiment in a new kind of storytelling medium (or at least, a new kind of distribution/broadcast mechanic) - then I reckon the format was mostly influenced by it's surroundings, i.e: a ton of genuine vlogs.

The LG15 saga is a symptom of the immaturity of the YouTube phenomenon - and I don't mean that in a condescending way, but in the sense that creators are only just working out what's possible in the space. In the same way, lots of novels used to pretend to be "real" (see here). Of the tons of stuff on YT, there isn't really any proper "drama", but one day there probably will be. To me, it makes sense that the first stab at doing this mimicked the existing conventions of real-life vlogging. The same could be said of blogs, methinks, and one day you won't have to pretend to actually be a call girl or runaway in order to publish a blog about being one.

On the other hand, the existing approach definitely as it's advantages, with the mystery, speculation and detective work involved proving to be extremely compelling. It will take guts for someone to make a straight-up fictional drama, and time for people to react in a way other then "but if it's not real, why should I care?"

**Posted:** Sun Sep 10, 2006 8:24 pm

MageSteff

On the one hand, too bad it wasn't the trail head for an ARG. On the other hand, here are some good tips for PM's who might be thinking about using a similar format.

Especially this comment (vis-a-vis fake documentary, i.e. real time events) emphasis is mine

**Posted:** Wed Sep 13, 2006 2:45 pm

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Magesteff
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

GuyP

Jane McGonigal has a killer take on the community aspect of LG15, namely: it sucked.

Incidentally, I meant to add a footnote to my post that my thoughts were largely a recycled version of Sean Stewart's ideas about ARGs - here's a good example.

**Posted:** Thu Sep 14, 2006 5:15 pm

Rolerbe

**Posted:** Thu Sep 14, 2006 6:59 pm

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Failure isn't the worst thing in the world. Repeatedly trying really, really hard, then failing, now that's something.