|
Title: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Tale on October 13, 2006, 03:16:25 PM William Gibson's most recent book, Pattern Recognition, involves people obsessed with "the footage", a mysterious set of film snippets making their way onto the Internet from an unknown source. It was written well before the YouTube-led video craze, which is typical of Gibson who wrote on a typewriter about "cyberspace" well before the Internet boom.
Last month, Gibson himself blogged "LONELYGIRL15 = FOOTAGE?" (http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_09_01_archive.asp#115774814111392954). Well, LG15 isn't the footage, but it's a similar phenomenon gone mass market. This weekend is crunch time for LG15, which you've probably heard of (it turned out to be a professional experiment in serialised Internet storytelling). It's been a bit boring since the creators went public, but here's a recap: * Too-cute 16-year-old "Bree" (Lonelygirl15) posts first video blog (http://youtube.com/watch?v=-goXKtd6cPo). It's a little too well-lit and edited, but this is later explained as her friend "Daniel" (Danielbeast) helping out. * People spend months debating whether she's real or fake. Many more videos go online. It becomes the most popular series on YouTube. * A "tribute site" springs up at www.lonelygirl15.com, but someone discovers the domain name was registered before the first video blog appeared. * Someone tracks down her identity as recently trained actress Jessica Lee Rose, and Danielbeast as actor Yousef Abu-Taleb. They and the creators do TV interviews, but the series continues. * Stupid people who thought LG15 was real start hating the series. Others just continue watching. * Plot evolves: Bree's family has a strange religion (picture of Aleister Crowley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley) on wall, occult references to Thelema, Order of Denderah and so on). Romance between Bree and Daniel against her strict parents' wishes. Bree is being groomed for a religious ceremony. Bree ditches Daniel when he tries to come between her and the religion. Ceremony approaches ... Clues in the videos suggested October 12, 2006 (Crowley's birthday) was a significant date and sure enough, that was the ceremony. Cue a Blair Witch-style video from Daniel (http://youtube.com/watch?v=4n0dhLtBbCQ) as he is discovered at the ceremony and chased. And then a seemingly drugged and weak Bree with a bandage on her arm, frowning when she says she feels fine, trying to blog as normal (http://www.lonelygirl15.com/?p=81&play=1) ... Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Margalis on October 13, 2006, 07:04:32 PM That all sounds retarded. I had never even heard of this stuff until last week or so.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Fabricated on October 13, 2006, 08:23:36 PM I wish the people who propelled this retarded LonelyGirl stuff to popularity would get hit by a truck.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Righ on October 13, 2006, 09:12:04 PM Do you have any idea how much damage hitting that many people would do to a truck?
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Samwise on October 13, 2006, 10:58:09 PM There was a series on icebox.com somewhere around 1999 that was similar. It was called "The Hanged Man."
The premise was that a serial killer with a Tarot fixation planted a hidden webcam in his victims' homes, left it there for a day or two, and then killed them on camera, leaving behind a tarot card and a cryptic clue/taunt. The show's website was part of the fiction, set up by the Hanged Man himself so that he could broadcast his work to the world, and included a live feed of the next victim's house, an archive of "highlights", and the Hanged Man's bizarre journal entries. A link on the website led to the internal network of the fictional police department that was tracking the Hanged Man (theoretically the Hanged Man had hacked his way in so he could keep tabs on their progress), and through that we learned about the detective who was developed as the killer's frustrated archnemesis. I thought it was pretty cool, but it definitely wasn't for everyone. I think it was the only one of Icebox's shows that there's absolutely no trace of now. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Krakrok on October 14, 2006, 12:13:07 AM I've always thought blogs were akin to Peter (?) and his sister posting under multiple pseudonyms to sway public opinion in the Enders Game series. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Tale on October 14, 2006, 01:24:25 AM This is like if I mentioned my tie was made of nanobots and you said "that tie sucks". It's made of fucking nanobots.
LG15's story may be a bit deficient and now overhyped, but it's a new form of storytelling. They successfully developed a plot and an audience by inserting fictional, interacting characters among real people online. It made an unknown actress into a global star. That's so cyberpunk. Remember the dramas in your MMOG server communities and how you followed them. The real ones, the ones exposed as fakes. People you've known on message boards whose life stories take twists. Bloggers who suddenly become the centre of attention. We've been following stories this way for years. Now it's being seen by Hollywood as a new medium for writers, actors, directors. Where does it go? P.S. My tie just rebuilt itself to suit the fashion. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: XboxGod on October 14, 2006, 01:43:43 AM There was a series on icebox.com somewhere around 1999 that was similar. It was called "The Hanged Man." The premise was that a serial killer with a Tarot fixation planted a hidden webcam in his victims' homes, left it there for a day or two, and then killed them on camera, leaving behind a tarot card and a cryptic clue/taunt. The show's website was part of the fiction, set up by the Hanged Man himself so that he could broadcast his work to the world, and included a live feed of the next victim's house, an archive of "highlights", and the Hanged Man's bizarre journal entries. A link on the website led to the internal network of the fictional police department that was tracking the Hanged Man (theoretically the Hanged Man had hacked his way in so he could keep tabs on their progress), and through that we learned about the detective who was developed as the killer's frustrated archnemesis. I thought it was pretty cool, but it definitely wasn't for everyone. I think it was the only one of Icebox's shows that there's absolutely no trace of now. That actually sounds pretty cool. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Mr_PeaCH on October 14, 2006, 08:09:20 AM This is like if I mentioned my tie was made of nanobots and you said "that tie sucks". It's made of fucking nanobots. LG15's story may be a bit deficient and now overhyped, but it's a new form of storytelling. They successfully developed a plot and an audience by inserting fictional, interacting characters among real people online. It made an unknown actress into a global star. That's so cyberpunk. I quite agree. And William Gibson is fucking MONEY. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: WindupAtheist on October 14, 2006, 10:23:54 AM Getting worked into a lather about "the internet revolutionizing stuff" is so nineties. Yeah, let's all get bulges in our pants over "a new form of storytelling". Then we can go watch Hackers, before piling in the car and driving twenty miles to the largest arcade in the state to don fifteen-pound VR goggles and play some shit game. It's not very fun, but that whole cyberspace thing is the future.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Big Gulp on October 14, 2006, 10:39:36 AM Then we can go watch Hackers The fact that the evil, smarmy hacker badguy also rides around on a skateboard TO THE X-TREME is dope. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: WindupAtheist on October 14, 2006, 12:16:06 PM I just get tired of hearing "TEH WORLD IS BEING REVOLUTIONIZED! OMG CYBERSPACE! GIBSON PREDICTED THIS!" everytime some nimrod films himself taking a shit and posts it on YouTube.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Margalis on October 14, 2006, 01:32:46 PM Isn't hypertext the new form of storytelling? Non-linear, branching, interactive novels?
Remember when people could say that with a straight face? :-P Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: stray on October 14, 2006, 01:50:30 PM Video games are the "new" form of storytelling.
That's pretty obvious though, especially considering where I'm posting at. 8-) Lonelygirl is just an online version of Ali G (or to sound more sophisticated: Antonin Artaud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud)). Nothing new really. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Tale on October 14, 2006, 02:28:23 PM Mister "UO is the only game for me" derides something as "so nineties".
Gibson's books this decade are not about cyberspace. The Myspace and YouTube sales happened for different reasons to the Internet start-up boom. I guess if your life revolves around the year 1997, you can't tell the difference. Your defence is to be cynical. Make a joke about Hackers and VR goggles. That kind of thing. Non-linear, branching, hypertext novels? I write for a living, I was writing about the Internet for magazines at that time, and that never interested me. I couldn't tell you a story that way. This way, I could. It's a direction that artistic people could go in, as opposed to engineers. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Murgos on October 14, 2006, 02:57:44 PM I just get tired of hearing "TEH WORLD IS BEING REVOLUTIONIZED! OMG CYBERSPACE! GIBSON PREDICTED THIS!" everytime some nimrod films himself taking a shit and posts it on YouTube. You should probably read the story in question before commenting anymore. You really just look like a dipshit now.Listen up chucklefuck. Gibson wrote a story about someone putting video clips into weird corners of the internet as a form of viral marketing. Some one just did this. It's a relevant comparison. Also, Neuromancer was written in 1983. It actually IS pretty impressive how much of the modern computer scene he was able to forsee; even if you're tired of hearing about it. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Merusk on October 14, 2006, 03:26:46 PM I'm still awaiting my wetware eyes and Spads & Fokkers games. I'm getting impaitent.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Llava on October 14, 2006, 09:30:33 PM I'm not into cyberpunk that much, but I will be /all over/ wetware stuff. Can't wait.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: WindupAtheist on October 15, 2006, 12:10:50 AM Quote from: Margalis Isn't hypertext the new form of storytelling? Non-linear, branching, interactive novels? Remember when people could say that with a straight face? :-P Chose Your Own Adventure books were awesome. Quote from: Murgos Listen up chucklefuck. Gibson wrote a story about someone putting video clips into weird corners of the internet as a form of viral marketing. Some one just did this. It's a relevant comparison. Also, Neuromancer was written in 1983. It actually IS pretty impressive how much of the modern computer scene he was able to forsee; even if you're tired of hearing about it. A month or two back I was browsing around the "Something Weird" section of my cable company's on-demand service. Mostly it's burlesque shorts from the forties, Cold War duck-and-cover school films, shit like that. What I happened to put on was a little ten minute promotional cartoon from the sixties about the future of telecommunications, produced by... some company, I forget. I figured it would be worth a chuckle. None of the names for things were right, and the producers couldn't help throwing in a little "flying car" bullshit to show that this was the future. But it showed Dad sending faxes from the office, Junior getting his lessons from what appeared to be a little desktop PC, and Mom... well... shopping online. I mean she had what looked like a TV remote instead of a mouse, but there she was clicking to browse through pics of dresses. In a cartoon from the fucking sixties, back when computers were still just huge beasts you'd only find at a university or military base. So yeah, Gibson predicted a mildly clever online marketing scheme of 2006, all the way back in 2003. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: CmdrSlack on October 15, 2006, 09:53:23 AM "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one."
Clearly, LBJ was predicting WUA's emergence. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Murgos on October 15, 2006, 11:15:07 AM A month or two back I was browsing around the "Something Weird" section of my cable company's on-demand service. Mostly it's burlesque shorts from the forties, Cold War duck-and-cover school films, shit like that. What I happened to put on was a little ten minute promotional cartoon from the sixties about the future of telecommunications, produced by... some company, I forget. I figured it would be worth a chuckle. Did you actually just offer up an anecdote relevant to the topic as proof of why relevant anecdotes shouldn't be used as a basis for something being interesting or worthy of discussion? Good luck with that line of argument. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Morfiend on October 15, 2006, 11:26:59 AM I'm thinking about getting robot legs. It's a risky operation, but I think it's worth it.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Lantyssa on October 15, 2006, 01:22:36 PM I'm thinking about getting robot legs. It's a risky operation, but I think it's worth it. Digitigrade ones? Totally.Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Margalis on October 15, 2006, 03:49:18 PM Isn't LG15 just an online version of the Blair Witch Project?
What annoys me as an engineer is when people think something is new just because it is online. Fiction posing as reality is new? That was Blair Witch. Our government puts out propaganda pretending to be news stories all the time. Porn stars on MySpace pretend to be average people. James Frey put out a fictional memoir amongst a mass of real ones. Men in WOW pretend to be women. "Astroturf" campaigns in message boards. The only thing that stands out about LG15 is that it is popular, not that it is somehow new and different. I highly doubt that this is a new form of storytelling - it's a "new" form of marketing. And not new at all. At a basic level it's not really any different than Sony Pictures inventing a movie critic to give their movies good reviews. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Krakrok on October 15, 2006, 07:52:16 PM Speaking of interactive storytelling (http://www.ddj.com/192503697;jsessionid=K2DXIEGO3G15UQSNDLPSKHSCJUNN2JVN?_requestid=678950)... Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: WindupAtheist on October 16, 2006, 12:56:06 AM (http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/GrimDysart/homeimg.jpg)
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: HaemishM on October 16, 2006, 11:18:59 AM New forms of storytelling, same old stories.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Krakrok on October 16, 2006, 06:20:39 PM I'll top your puny little VR helmet with the Toshiba Walmart security camera helmet (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=410642&in_page_id=1770). (http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2006/10/virtualPA_468x335.jpg) Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Kitsune on October 16, 2006, 08:27:28 PM Gibson didn't foresee anything, at least not in the technological department; he barely knew the first thing about computers when he wrote Neuromancer. In fact, I believe he mentioned having written it on a typewriter. He has a keen eye for social trends, which translates well into predicting what people will do with all of the technology available to them, but trying to directly link any piece of technology to Gibson requires a loooot of stretching.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Righ on October 16, 2006, 08:36:58 PM What he said. And the picture above that? Must be a new Residents album.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Tale on October 17, 2006, 01:48:34 AM Gibson didn't foresee anything, at least not in the technological department; he barely knew the first thing about computers when he wrote Neuromancer. In fact, I believe he mentioned having written it on a typewriter. He has a keen eye for social trends, which translates well into predicting what people will do with all of the technology available to them, but trying to directly link any piece of technology to Gibson requires a loooot of stretching. Exactly right. He isn't predicting anything when he writes, he's just making sense of things and where they might be headed, via writing novels. The world just happens to go in similar directions to the concepts he thinks up - or maybe people read them and think "that would be cool" and he influences it. Neal Stephenson does the same kind of thing in a different way (although lately he writes more alternate histories than futures). Gibson actually blogged on Friday about the typewriter you mentioned (http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2006_10_01_archive.asp#116080158534918744). Quote As anyone knows who's ever looked at any bio notes on me, Neuromancer was written on a typewriter. This is often presented as evidence of weird lotek eccentricity on my part, but in 1981 I didn't know anyone who wrote on a computer. All the hotshit professionals had the IBM Selectric, which turned out to be the endpoint of typewriter evolution. Stephen King may have already had his Wang, which was the first I heard of anyone writing fiction on a new-fangled "word processor". Me, I was writing on a Hermes 2000 (http://www.geocities.com/wbd641/EuropeHermes.html). Mine was identical to the 1933 example mid-way down the page. It was built by E. Paillard & Cie. S.A., Yverdon (Suisse) with all the precision of a Swiss mechanical watch. That precision, plus the rigidity of the small but heavy steel frame, made it one memorably fine writing tool. I had inherited it from my wife's step-grandfather, who'd been a journalist. I wrote all my short stories on it, Neuromancer, the first half of Count Zero, and then some crucial doohickey broke. There were absolutely no NOS 1933 Hermes parts available, in Vancouver. I made do with a really horrible manual office machine, all I could afford at the time, until Bruce Sterling's dad gave him an Apple II and I started hearing really a lot about that. But if the 2000 (I'll bet they were thinking about the year, Gernsback Continuum style) hadn't broken, I'd probably have gotten into computers even later. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Tale on October 17, 2006, 02:30:01 AM Isn't LG15 just an online version of the Blair Witch Project? What annoys me as an engineer is when people think something is new just because it is online. Fiction posing as reality is new? That was Blair Witch. Our government puts out propaganda pretending to be news stories all the time. Porn stars on MySpace pretend to be average people. James Frey put out a fictional memoir amongst a mass of real ones. Men in WOW pretend to be women. "Astroturf" campaigns in message boards. Good post. I think it's different from Blair Witch because of the audience interaction, the creation of a persistent online property (they could sell some serious ads, probably for years), and the way the character was hatched into the online world before the story started. They inserted two artificial kids into the Myspace and Youtube generation. Their online lives existed for weeks before people really noticed them, and then their story. Zero promotion was done. It's slow like a persistent world. It's not over in a couple of hours, it could go for years and could go in any direction, into other media and back. That's got to be of immense interest to marketers due to the ongoing exposure. Blair Witch was a movie and a talking point. LG15 seems more versatile. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Daeven on October 17, 2006, 07:28:23 AM None of the names for things were right, and the producers couldn't help throwing in a little "flying car" bullshit to show that this was the future. But it showed Dad sending faxes from the office, Junior getting his lessons from what appeared to be a little desktop PC, and Mom... well... shopping online. I mean she had what looked like a TV remote instead of a mouse, but there she was clicking to browse through pics of dresses. In a cartoon from the fucking sixties, back when computers were still just huge beasts you'd only find at a university or military base. Ook ook! Flying car bullshit! (http://www.moller.com/skycar/) Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Roac on October 17, 2006, 08:07:12 AM People have been dreaming up what they'd like from the future since Jules Verne, Leonardo da Vinci, or even further back. It's intelligent but not genius to figure out what one would like to do with the future, especially if you don't have to worry all that much about how to make it practical. Flying cars show up because people think they would be cool, as does warp travel and so forth, but it's not likely. It's not so much predicting the future as it is wishing on it, and sometimes finding out that what's possible more or less lines up with what you want.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Ironwood on October 17, 2006, 09:22:58 AM I always find it interesting how many imaginings of the future have actually made it into reality tho. Even if you imagine something as fanciful and asstastic as Star Trek, the amount of stuff that has since come to pass is a little strange.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: stray on October 17, 2006, 10:43:10 AM There's a funny documentary that's been playing on the History Channel recently called "How William Shatner Changed the World".
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Merusk on October 17, 2006, 06:56:47 PM There's a funny documentary that's been playing on the History Channel recently called "How William Shatner Changed the World". Yeah I'm still surprised that it was a Star Trek: TNG episode that inspired the iPod. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Lum on October 17, 2006, 08:34:24 PM The PADD from Star Trek:
(http://toshitin.hp.infoseek.co.jp/library/padd.jpg) My latest laptop: (http://content.gateway.com/www.gateway.com/programs/convertible/img/1_280tablet.gif) Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Margalis on October 17, 2006, 09:08:18 PM Dude, its a flat tablet that has a screen!
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Lum on October 18, 2006, 12:04:20 AM That you can write on!
It's like a PDA, only laptop size. It makes more sense than you'd think, mainly because handwriting recognition has gotten so much better (it can read my chicken scratch fairly adeptly). I take notes on it profusely and am totally addicted. Plus, you can twist the screen to roll out the keyboard underneath and turn it into a regular laptop. Basically, if it had voice recognition it'd be a PADD. http://www.gateway.com/programs/convertible/index.shtml?rdr=status109 Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Ironwood on October 18, 2006, 04:24:17 AM Indeed. Those things are awesome, Lum, and we're going to be getting a few.
There's even ones with Fingerprint recognition and whatnot. It's supersweet for a gagdet guy. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Miasma on October 18, 2006, 07:15:55 AM We've had a few people here get those tablets, the novelty wears off in a few months. They have all switched back to normal laptops now (which also have fingerprint recognition). By the end they had perverted them into desktops with docking stations, full sized keyboards/mice and external monitors. They would make sense for people who walk around a lot like warehouse managers but aren't very productive for typical office workers.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Ironwood on October 18, 2006, 07:20:10 AM Our caseworkers do a lot of work out at the clients house.
Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Righ on October 18, 2006, 11:21:49 AM Right. They're certainly niche, but its a decent sized niche, and for the right people they'd be excellent. It's good to see that it's not aimed at the top end of the laptop market, since I could imagine many potential customers in healthcare & government wanting them. Does anybody do a ruggedized version?
Edit: the only ruggedized convertible I could find is the Panasonic Toughbook CF-18. Around four grand. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Nazrat on October 18, 2006, 03:36:51 PM Right. They're certainly niche, but its a decent sized niche, and for the right people they'd be excellent. It's good to see that it's not aimed at the top end of the laptop market, since I could imagine many potential customers in healthcare & government wanting them. Does anybody do a ruggedized version? Edit: the only ruggedized convertible I could find is the Panasonic Toughbook CF-18. Around four grand. Child Protective Services in Texas just issued these to their investigators. They are pretty nice. I am holding my breath until I get them in the AG's office. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Lum on October 19, 2006, 01:31:51 PM We've had a few people here get those tablets, the novelty wears off in a few months. They have all switched back to normal laptops now (which also have fingerprint recognition). By the end they had perverted them into desktops with docking stations, full sized keyboards/mice and external monitors. They would make sense for people who walk around a lot like warehouse managers but aren't very productive for typical office workers. Where they really shine is in taking notes during meetings. Typing on a laptop is awkward and also considered rude sometimes, but writing on a slate is fine. OneNote and Evernote both do good jobs of organizing notes. When not in a meeting 90% of the time I'll have it in laptop mode. Title: Re: The footage, aka Lonelygirl15 Post by: Tale on November 10, 2006, 12:34:46 PM Welcome back to amateur hour. One of the main actors posted this on his MySpace blog.
Quote from: Yousef Abu-Taleb Wednesday, November 08, 2006 not on lonelygirl15 any more So yeah, today was an extremely shitty day for me. Basically to sum it up, because I dont want to get into the specific's I was told that I will not really be part of the LG thing anymore. That sucks. So I will be looking for another job in the resturant business. Thats what I was told, to start looking for another job today. It sucks to think that now I'm not a good enough actor to be on a show I was cast for, but hey, it is what it is. So I want to say to all of my new friends that it was a pleasure being able to talk with as many of you as I could. I will truly cherrish that in my heart. The breif time that I had was wonderful. I will still aspire to be a successful actor, looks like I've just hit a speed bump. Take care everyone, and good luck Jess, you were the best and I cant thank you enough for being in my corner. I cant thank you enough for the wonderful expeirence it was to work with you. Knock'em dead His wiki entry name was changed to Alan Smithee (movie industry code for a filmmaker protesting being cut off from their creation). But then there was an official statement: Quote Dear Fans, Tensions have been high in the Lonelygirl15 world. We would like to clarify a few things that have recently come up. First off, Yousef Abu-Taleb is NOT being fired from the show. The character of Daniel is still very much a part of Lonelygirl15. Secondly, we have NOT "gone corporate." To the contrary, we are almost completely out of money. We are still financing Lonelygirl15 out of personal savings and maxed out credit cards. The little money that we do have goes to pay for the actors and the few items needed to film the videos (P. Monkey eats a lot of bananas). Why are we still doing this? For you. We care as much about this show and this new medium as you do, and we are doing our best to keep it going. You might see some banner ads and Google AdSense popping up. We're gonna make some T-Shirts. We'll also be producing some DVD's. All we want to do is create a FANTASTIC show to entertain you. Thank you for watching! Miles, Mesh, Greg, Amanda, Vanessa, Jessica, Yousef, Jackie, Kevin Huh? They've got a background in advertising, they created a huge Internet property, they run their own fansite, got huge media coverage ... and they're running out of money? All this time, they've never even put ads on their website, sold any merchandise or DVDs. And they've only started thinking about it now? That's pathetic. The cast should be on strike, not committing to work for free ... Quote from: Yousef Abu-Taleb Nov 10, 2006 7:51 AM Subject: LG15 statement I will start by saying thank you. I say thank you to all the fans for the wonderful support and positive comments I've received. I enjoy working with both the LG15 cast and crew. They have given me an incredible opportunity and I recognise all that they have done for me. I'm extremely lucky to have had the chance to have a fan base and I will never forget that, no matter what happens to the future of my career. I also want to say that I feel that you the fans of lonelygirl15 deserve to see a conclusion to our story that we have worked so hard to produce. Daniel will not be leaving, and I would never quit doing this show that I have come to truly love being a part of. I am very passionate and devoted to this project and the character that I have worked to produce. I truly have felt blessed to have had a chance to work on the show. I heard that we have run out of budget, but when we started working on Lonelygirl15 we had no budget either. So I say, when we started we had no money and when we finish it can also be without any money. I would do this project for free. I just want this project to work. I loved everything about this project, and still do. I think it has been a very compelling story and really want to leave you all, the fans, without a loss of an ending. I think that you all deserve nothing less. For the future, when I said that you all have truly touched my heart I meant it. To all of my new friends who I have spoken with, or who have left me a wonderful comment, or message I say thank you! I want to say to you that I feel so lucky to have had you. This business is full of ups and downs and when its down it's a horrible feeling of worthlessness, but you all have helped me feel like an accomplished person, whether or not I succeed in the future. To all of you who I have not spoken to I want to apologise. I really have tried to respond to everyone who has commented to me. I do not take anyone of you for granted, and never will. In fact one of the best days that I can remember is the first time I sent out an autograph through the mail. I was so excited, that I took a nerdy pic of myself with the envelope right before I sent it out. It might sound strange, but to know that I was able to make someone happy by sending them a picture of myself with only my autograph on it, was so uplifting. It might seem corny, but that's why I would say that I am as big of a fan of you as you might be of me. I cannot stress how wonderful you all have made me feel in such a short time and if I am never able to do another project at least I will be able to look back at this time. Thank you all, from the cast to the crew and most of all to the Friends! I will never forget you all! |