Lonelygirl15#Footnotes

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Bree Avery (lonelygirl15), a homeschooled 16-year-old girl, begins posting video blogs on YouTube about her mundane daily life and her interests, such as science and her purple monkey puppet, P-Monkey.

Her best friend, Daniel (Danielbeast), occasionally appears in the videos and uploads videos of his own, and a romantic connection between Daniel and Bree starts to form as tensions regarding Bree's family's strange, unnamed religion arise between Bree and Daniel, and later between Bree and her parents.

Bree is soon chosen to participate in a mysterious ceremony for her religion, which she must prepare for by dieting, taking shots, and learning Enochian. After an argument between Bree and Daniel, Daniel starts following her outside and recording her while she prepares for the ceremony with her "helper", Lucy.

Daniel discovers that Lucy has photographs of him on her computer and staged a fake ceremony with Bree to trick him while he was recording, and Bree asks her parents to tell the deacons of her religion that she no longer wants to go through with the ceremony, to which they agree.

Later, the show moved to a bizarre narrative that portrayed her dealings with secret occult practices within her family, and included the mysterious disappearance of her parents after she refused to attend a "secret" ceremony prescribed by the leaders of the family's cult.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}}

• Jessica Lee Rose as Bree Avery (a.k.a. lonelygirl15), a bubbly teenage girl whose trait positive blood makes her the target of a dangerous cult called the Order. She gained a large following on YouTube due to her quirky video blogs.
• Yousef Abu-Taleb as Daniel Barlow (a.k.a. Danielbeast), Bree's best friend, who only wishes to protect her, but is often distracted by romantic engagements. He can often jump to conclusions, and battles with an alcohol addiction along with his parents.
• Jackson Davis as Jonas Wharton (a.k.a. jonastko), a boy who meets Bree online and discovers that his family has more ties to the Order than he realizes. He can be too willing to trust others, which often leads the TAAG (Teen Angst Adventure Group) into unfortunate situations.
• Alexandra Dreyfus as Sarah Genatiempo (a.k.a. theskyisempty99), a misunderstood 19-year-old who develops a crush on Daniel and travels with TAAG. While she struggles to figure out what to do with her life, she harbors a dark and dangerous secret.
• Becki Kregoski as Taylor Genatiempo (a.k.a. soccerstar4ever), Sarah's younger sister who has impressive computer hacking skills. A passionate soccer player, she has more social skills than the rest of her family and is often upset by their actions.
• Maxwell Glick as Spencer Gilman (a.k.a. LAlabrat), an employee at Neutrogena with connections to the Order's science division. Chosen as a good role model for Bree, he sets out to help engineer a Trait Negative Serum.
• Katherine Pawlak as Emma Wharton, Jonas's trait positive younger sister. She grows up significantly during her battle for her life against the Order, and goes out of her way to try to protect her friends.
• Melanie Merkosky as Jennie, a former Lullaby Project employee who becomes friends with Sarah. She begins a romantic affair with Jonas and gives the TAAG an insight on how the Order's structure works.
• Crystal Young as Gina Hart, Bree's trait positive older sister who was taken from her at birth and used as a lab rat most of her life. She is quiet and reserved, and feels more comfortable with art supplies than with other people.
• Raegan Payne as Sonja, A member of the Hymn of One who tried to recruit Bree and eventually left the Hymn after she was badly beaten. One of the last videos in the Lonelygirl15 series suggested that Sonja had returned to the Hymn of One.

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After quitting a plastic surgery program, Miles Beckett, who was producing video podcasts in Los Angeles, discovered YouTube in 2005 after seeing The Lonely Island's video for their song "Lazy Sunday" on Myspace. At the time, YouTube was still mostly unknown.{{cite web |last1=Falconer |first1=Ellen |title=An oral history of lonelygirl15 |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/the-wireless/374034/an-oral-history-of-lonelygirl15 |website=RNZ |access-date=May 13, 2022 |language=en-nz |date=June 16, 2016}} He got the idea for a fictional narrative story told through a series of ostensibly authentic video blogs, or vlogs, after watching videos of YouTube duo Smosh lip-syncing to the Pokémon theme song and realizing it was difficult to tell the difference between what was real and what was staged on the site.

Beckett met Ramesh "Mesh" Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, California,{{cite web |last1=Heffernan |first1=Virginia |last2=Zeller |first2=Tom Jr. |title=The Lonelygirl That Really Wasn't |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/technology/13lonely.html?_r=0 |website=The New York Times |access-date=May 12, 2022 |language=en |date=September 13, 2006}} during a birthday party at The Gaslite, a karaoke bar in Santa Monica, in April 2006.{{cite web |last1=Brown |first1=Jennings |title=Lonelygirl15, An Oral History 10 Years Later |url=https://www.vocativ.com/327378/lonelygirl15-oral-history/ |website=Vocativ |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=June 14, 2016 |archive-date=September 28, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210928154505/https://www.vocativ.com/327378/lonelygirl15-oral-history/ |url-status=dead }} The two quickly became close and wrote a script, as well as a storyline for the first three months of vlogs, in two weeks. Together, they came up with the character of Bree, a quirky, homeschooled 16-year-old "girl next door" belonging to a strange religion who would post daily vlogs, occasionally with her best friend, Daniel, until one day she disappeared. When she disappeared, the two would make an independent direct-to-video film styled after The Blair Witch Project and based on the vlogs in which Bree's fans go looking for her. The idea for the film was eventually scrapped after the series gained traction on YouTube. Bree's character was partially inspired by Flinders's own sheltered upbringing on a commune in Northern California, as well as his knowledge of the occult. Flinders would later leave the series in 2007 to work on other projects.

Greg Goodfried, a lawyer and friend of Flinders and Beckett, was brought on to manage the business aspect of the series, while Amanda Solomon, Goodfried's wife and an attorney for Creative Artists Agency, was brought on to act as Bree online, which included managing her Myspace account and replying to emails sent in by fans. Grant Steinfeld, a software engineer from San Francisco, was also brought on to help distribute the videos and create a dummy website for the series, though he soon dropped out of the project. Before they found someone to portray Bree in the videos, Beckett and Flinders posted two video replies to popular YouTubers at the time on a channel titled Lonelygirl15. Using space and resources provided by the nonprofit organization Film Independent, Flinders, Beckett, and Goodfried held a casting call in Los Angeles, which they posted on Craigslist as The Children of Anchor Cove. After graduating from the New York Film Academy, then-19-year-old actress Jessica Lee Rose moved to Los Angeles to start her acting career. After finding the Craiglist listing, she auditioned for the role in April 2006. The three cast Rose for the role due to her youthful appearance and relative anonymity at the time, as she had only been to one other audition before that. Despite some initial hesitancy after finding out it would be on the Internet, worried that it was either a scam or a pornographic film, Rose agreed to take on the role. She later said of playing Bree, "I loved that character. It's one of my favourites that I've ever gotten to play."

Yousef Abu-Taleb, who had moved from Virginia to Los Angeles the year before his audition and was working as a server at Red Lobster, was cast as Daniel because of his "dorky", "unpretentious" look. Both Rose and Abu-Taleb were asked to delete or make private all of their online accounts by the show's creators before filming began. The cast and crew of the series were all required to sign non-disclosure agreements. In order to maintain Rose and Abu-Taleb's anonymity, both were given enough money by the show's creators to avoid having to work in public, and they stayed in their houses for three months until the series was exposed as a hoax.

In early January 2007, American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee, whose debut album was being released later that month, guest starred in an episode of the series ("Truth or Dare") after her management team reached out to the show's creators. The episode featured a song from the album.

Rose's first vlog as Bree, "First Blog/Dorkiness Prevails", was posted to the Lonelygirl15 YouTube channel on June 16, 2006. It was one minute and 35 seconds long, unscripted, and produced with a budget of $130. The video used a broken desk lamp and natural light from a window for lighting, and was filmed using a Logitech QuickCam in Flinders's bedroom, which was decorated with furniture from thrift stores and Target, including a pink feather boa and a floral blanket, to give it the appearance of a teenage girl's bedroom. Bree was nonetheless presented to viewers as a real teenage girl vlogging her day-to-day life. Each of the channel's videos were scripted, though Rose frequently paraphrased lines or improvised around them in order to make the character seem more natural. She was instructed by the show's creators to study other vloggers of the time to build her character.{{cite web |last1=O'Kane |first1=Sean |title=Lonelygirl15 is back because we can't resist sequels |url=https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/6/16/11957268/lonelygirl15-sequel-youtube-vlog-web-series |website=The Verge |access-date=May 22, 2022 |language=en |date=June 16, 2016}} According to Rose, episodes typically took about one hour to film on average. Two or three episodes would be shot per day, the day after they were written, and Beckett would edit them the day after they were filmed.

After it was revealed that the series was a hoax, the storyline went on to grow more complex and include more characters, with four to five episodes being posted to YouTube, Revver, Myspace, and the show's website per week.{{cite journal |last1=Page |first1=Ruth |title=Seriality and Storytelling in Social Media |journal=Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies |date=2013 |volume=5 |page=37 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5250/storyworlds.5.2013.0031 |access-date=May 11, 2022 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press|doi=10.5250/storyworlds.5.2013.0031 |jstor=10.5250/storyworlds.5.2013.0031 |s2cid=142020543 |url-access=subscription }}{{cite web |title=Katharine McPhee to guest on 'Lonelygirl15' |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16671707 |website=NBC News |access-date=May 23, 2022 |date=January 17, 2007}}{{cite web |last1=Dobbs |first1=Sarah |title=A tribute to LonelyGirl15 |url=https://www.denofgeek.com/culture/a-tribute-to-lonelygirl15/ |website=Den of Geek |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=August 6, 2007 |archive-date=May 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220510070832/https://www.denofgeek.com/culture/a-tribute-to-lonelygirl15/ |url-status=dead }} The series developed into an alternate reality game, with comments underneath the videos influencing plotlines in the series and getting acknowledged by characters, who would ask for viewers' help with solving puzzles.{{cite magazine |last=Irwin |first=Mary Jane |date=June 2007 |title=Dude, Get a Clue! |url=https://www.wired.com/2007/05/press/ |url-status=live |magazine=Wired |publisher=Condé Nast |page=50 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200408000000/https://www.wired.com/2007/05/press/ |archive-date=April 8, 2020 |access-date=September 9, 2022 }} [https://archive.org/details/wired-2007_06/page/n53/mode/2up Alt URL] The first season of Lonelygirl15 ended in August 2007 after 260 episodes, with the season's final 12 episodes being released exclusively on MySpaceTV and Lonelygirl15.com over 12 hours.{{cite web |title=Web show 'LonelyGirl15' ends 1st season with death of its star |url=https://azdailysun.com/lifestyles/web-show-lonelygirl15-ends-1st-season-with-death-of-its-star/article_7a0a0735-107d-5797-bcb9-c5c533694324.html |website=Arizona Daily Sun |access-date=May 21, 2022 |language=en |date=August 4, 2007}} Bree's death at the end of the first season was prompted by struggles to renegotiate Rose's contract as well as requests from Rose herself to have the character die. The series continued until August 1, 2008, when the channel's last video was posted.{{cite web |last1=Weiss |first1=Geoff |title=Precisely 10 Years After Its Premiere, Cult Sensation Lonelygirl15 Is Readying A Relaunch |url=https://www.tubefilter.com/2016/06/16/10-years-after-premiere-lonelygirl15-readying-a-relaunch/ |website=Tubefilter |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=June 16, 2016}}

According to Flinders, Lonelygirl15 was largely self-funded in the beginning, and he and Goodfried went into around $50,000 of credit card debt trying to fund the series. In October 2006, Lonelygirl15 partnered with the United Nations to make an advertisement for its Millennium Campaign's "Stand Up" anti-poverty project, in which Bree spoke to viewers about poverty and what could be done to stop it.{{cite web |last1=Vranica |first1=Suzanne |title=U.N. Enlists Internet Star for Antipoverty Pitch |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116035279914686330 |website=Wall Street Journal |access-date=May 23, 2022 |date=October 9, 2006}} Regarding the campaign, a writer for Gawker asked, "...does an internet celebrity carry any weight when said celebrity is more or less nonexistent?"{{cite web |author=Jessica |title=Lonelygirl15 Co-opted for Charity |url=https://www.gawker.com/206167/lonelygirl15-co-opted-for-charity |website=Gawker |access-date=May 23, 2022 |language=en |date=October 9, 2006}} Lonelygirl15 later became the first web series to include product placement when its creators signed a five-figure deal with Hershey's for Bree to chew Ice Breakers Sours gum in an episode in March 2007.{{Cite news | url = https://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/hotsites/2007-08-03-lonelygirl15-finale_N.htm | author = Gentile, Gary | title = Web drama wraps groundbreaking first 'season' | publisher = USA Today (Associated Press) | date = August 3, 2007 | access-date = 2009-10-13 | archive-date = 2009-02-08 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090208231603/http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/hotsites/2007-08-03-lonelygirl15-finale_N.htm | url-status = live }} The show's creators, worried that fans would be upset by product placement, posted a poll to the Lonelygirl15 website, to which 90 percent of respondents said they approved of the series using product integration.{{cite web |last1=Gentile |first1=Gary |title=Ads turning up in 'Lonelygirl15' |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17843500 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201126052949/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17843500 |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 26, 2020 |website=NBC News |access-date=May 21, 2022 |language=en |date=March 28, 2007}} Around that same time, static pay-per-click advertisements were included at the end of episodes by Revver.

Lonelygirl15 signed a deal with now-defunct digital music store Amie Street in May 2007 to include music uploaded to the store in the series.{{cite magazine |last1=Van Buskirk |first1=Eliot |title=LonelyGirl15 Soundtrack Will Use Amie Street Artists |url=https://www.wired.com/2007/05/lonelygirl15-to/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=May 21, 2022 |date=May 15, 2007}} In June 2007, while the show was being funded through fan donations, it was announced that Lonelygirl15 had signed a six-figure deal with Neutrogena to fund its second season, in which a "branded character"–Spencer Gilman, who worked for Neutrogena as a mad scientist–would appear.{{cite web |last1=Cresci |first1=Elena |title=Lonelygirl15: how one mysterious vlogger changed the internet |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/16/lonelygirl15-bree-video-blog-youtube |website=The Guardian |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=June 16, 2016}}{{cite web |title=LonelyGirl15 gives Neutrogena some face time |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna19340312 |website=NBC News |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=June 20, 2007}} Bloggers and critics were polarized by the decision, which some described as innovative and others considered selling out.{{cite web |last1=Meyers |first1=Michelle |title=LonelyGirl partners with Neutrogena: Sellout or smart business? |url=https://www.cnet.com/culture/lonelygirl-partners-with-neutrogena-sellout-or-smart-business/ |website=CNET |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=June 21, 2007}} The show's end in 2008 was primarily due to a lack of funding as a result of the Great Recession.

In order to increase the popularity of Lonelygirl15{{'}}s early videos on YouTube, Beckett replied to every comment so that the videos would appear in YouTube's "most discussed" section. He also figured out what part of the videos YouTube's algorithm picked out a thumbnail from so that they could strategically place the best thumbnail at that point in the video, which yielded more views. "My Parents Suck", a video posted to Lonelygirl15's channel two weeks after "First Blog/Dorkiness Prevails", gained over 500,000 views in a week, with Flinders attributing the spike in viewership to Bree's relatability. Lonelygirl15 quickly became the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, surpassing geriatric1927, and 24 more videos were posted to the channel over the following three months, most of which appeared in YouTube's "most viewed" section.

By the time Lonelygirl15 was outed as a hoax, the series had accumulated over two million views on YouTube.{{cite web |last1=McNamara |first1=Melissa |title=Lonelygirl15: An Online Star Is Born |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lonelygirl15-an-online-star-is-born/ |website=CBS News |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=September 11, 2006}} Following the reveal that Lonelygirl15 was staged, its viewership tripled. By early 2007, the series was receiving about 300,000 to 900,000 views per episode, and, according to Bennett, it received the most views during the spring and summer of 2007.{{cite web |last1=Morrissey |first1=Brian |title=Lonelygirl15 Hawks Gum |url=https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/lonelygirl15-hawks-gum-88356/ |website=Adweek |access-date=May 23, 2022 |date=March 20, 2007}}{{cite web |last1=Wei |first1=William |title=Where Are They Now? Creators Of "Lonelygirl15" Turned Web Series Into A Multi-Million Dollar Company |url=https://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/WHERE-ARE-THEY-NOW-Creators-Of-Lonelygirl15-2536587.php |website=Business Insider |access-date=May 12, 2022 |date=July 20, 2010}} By the end of the series, each of its videos had collectively garnered over 60 million views on YouTube.

According to Goodfried, viewers began commenting on Lonelygirl15 channel's videos with accusations that they were scripted after the account posted its second or third video. Viewers found that Bree's life seemed too similar to common plot points found in fictional series, and were skeptical of her lack of response to the hoax accusations and her rising fame, the consistent neatness of her room, the lighting and editing in her videos, and a photo of occultist Aleister Crowley hanging above her bookshelf.{{cite book |last1=Strangelove |first1=Michael |title=Watching YouTube: Extraordinary Videos by Ordinary People |date=2010 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto, Canada |isbn=9781442610675 |page=65 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt2tv1kq.8 |chapter=Video Diaries: The Real You in YouTube |jstor=10.3138/j.ctt2tv1kq.8 |quote=Slick editing, lighting, and flawless dramatic performance gave Bree away as a fraud. Lonelygirl15 was too real to be real.}} Many guessed that each video had been filmed in the same time frame and edited to look like they were filmed individually. Viewers assumed that the series was part of an advertising campaign, particularly for a horror movie or for Target, the latter of which was based on one viewer matching the SKUs of Target items with items in Bree's bedroom.{{cite web |last1=Rushfield |first1=Richard |last2=Hoffman |first2=Claire |title=Mystery fuels huge popularity of web's Lonelygirl15 |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-lonelygirl15-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |access-date=May 11, 2022 |date=September 8, 2006}} Others speculated that the videos might be part of an alternate reality game.

Discussions about the potential hoax took place in the forums on Lonelygirl15.com, which some users noticed had already been registered as a domain name by an anonymous buyer two weeks prior to Bree joining YouTube.{{cite web |last1=Cook |first1=Dee |title=LonelyGirl15 – Is She or Isn't She? |url=https://www.argn.com/2006/08/lonelygirl15_is_she_or_isnt_she/ |website=ARGNet |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=August 29, 2006}} Forum members surmised that Bree was based in Los Angeles in spite of her claim that she lived "100 miles from a mall", as the plants in her hiking videos, such as Nolina parryi, closely resembled those found in Los Angeles, and the music in her videos was often from unknown Los Angeles bands.{{cite web |last1=Nudd |first1=Tim |title=Lonelygirl15 still a mystery, for now |url=https://www.adweek.com/creativity/lonelygirl15-still-mystery-now-18443/ |website=BusinessWeek |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=September 1, 2006}}{{cite web |last1=Gilbride |first1=Tricia |title=How Lonelygirl15 taught us to doubt everything on the internet |url=https://mashable.com/article/lonelygirl15-ten-years-later |website=Mashable |access-date=May 12, 2022 |language=en |date=June 16, 2016}} Rose was also spotted at a Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica by a viewer, who later commented on a video about the encounter but denied that it was Rose.{{cite web |last1=Orenstein |first1=Hannah |title=LonelyGirl15 Reveals Why She Came Back to YouTube 8 Years Later |url=https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/interviews/a41314/actress-jessica-lee-rose-reveals-why-lonelygirl15-came-back-to-vlogging-8-years-later/ |website=Seventeen |access-date=May 13, 2022 |language=en-us |date=June 21, 2016}} Forum members also discovered that Kenneth Goodfried, Greg Goodfried's father, had successfully applied for a trademark of the name Lonelygirl15.

In August 2006, three members of the forum—Shaina Wedmedyk, Chris Patterson, and an anonymous law student—embedded an IP address tracker to a fake Myspace profile under the name Seth and messaged Bree, and the IP address that viewed their profile was linked to Creative Artists Agency's private server. They reached out to journalist Richard Rushfield, who published their findings in the Los Angeles Times in September 2006. Weeks later, journalist Tom Foremski published discoveries made by his son, Matt Foremski, on his blog Silicon Valley Watcher, which revealed the true identity of Bree as Jessica Lee Rose.{{cite web |last1=McLean |first1=Bonnie |last2=Weir |first2=Bill |title=The Secret Life of 'LonelyGirl15' |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2662652&page=1 |website=ABC News |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=November 18, 2006}}{{cite web |last1=Foremski |first1=Tom |title=The curious case of LonelyGirl15 |url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-curious-case-of-lonelygirl15/ |website=ZDNet |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=March 11, 2014}}{{cite web |last1=De Maria |first1=Meghan |title=The Lonelygirl15 YouTube Channel Is Back |url=https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2016/06/114438/lonelygirl15-youtube-return |website=Refinery29 |access-date=May 20, 2022 |language=en |date=June 20, 2016}} Matt Foremski found her identity through a cached version of her Myspace profile posted in a comment on TMZ's website.{{cite web |last1=Jardin |first1=Xeni |title=LonelyGirl15: Jessica Rose is the fake Hollywood videoblogger. |url=https://boingboing.net/2006/09/12/lonelygirl15-jessica.html |website=Boing Boing |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=September 12, 2006}} The New York Times also published an article confirming that Rose was the actress portraying Bree.

On September 7, 2006, a message was posted to Lonelygirl15.com, signed by "The Creators", in which they confirmed that the show was scripted and called Lonelygirl15 "the birth of a new art form."{{cite web |last1=Gentile |first1=Gary |title=Web video-diary mystery again deepens |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14791085 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522070929/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14791085 |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 22, 2022 |website=NBC News |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=September 11, 2006}}

After launching the production company LG15 Studios, Beckett and Goodfried created KateModern, a British Lonelygirl15 spinoff. It ran from July 2007 through June 2008 on Bebo, and took place in the same fictional universe.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}} LG15 Studios became EQAL in 2008 after receiving $5 million from Spark Capital. EQAL's second Lonelygirl15 spinoff, LG15: The Resistance, premiered in September 2008, with 10-minute-long episodes being released weekly on YouTube, MySpaceTV, imeem, Veoh, and Hulu. It was produced by Amanda Goodfried, with Yusuf Pirhasan as director and Joshua Hale Fialkov as head writer. The series starred Jackson Davis and Alexandra Dreyfus, who reprised their roles as Jonas and Sarah, respectively, as they hunt down members of The Order.{{cite magazine |last1=Hart |first1=Hugh |title=Lonelygirl15 Team Launches Sci-Fi Resistance |url=https://www.wired.com/2008/08/qa-lonelygirl15/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=August 27, 2008}} Since 2009, EQAL has aired two more spinoff series which are produced by contest winners, including LG15: The Last, which started airing in January 2009, and LG15: Outbreak, which began in January 2010.{{citation needed|date=May 2022}}

In June 2016, on the tenth anniversary of the first video posted to the account, a trailer for a relaunch of Lonelygirl15 was posted to their YouTube channel, which featured Rose returning as Bree. The trailer was filmed two days before it was posted. Beckett planned the relaunch alongside Jenni Powell, a production assistant for the original series. Powell wrote in an email regarding the relaunch that the two hoped "to bring the show to a whole new audience while utilizing technologies that weren’t available 10 years ago to create new storytelling experiences." Speaking of the relaunch, Rose shared that a Snapchat channel for Daniel, a Facebook page, and an interactive website would all be involved, and clues about the series would appear in all three. To date, no relaunch has materialised.

Image:Lonelygirl15 bree pmonkey.jpg

Joystiq{{'}}s V. Cole praised the interactivity of Lonelygirl15 prior to its reveal as a scripted series, writing, "The interaction between whoever's producing these videos...and the millions of players is intricate, exciting, and very game-like at heart."{{cite web |last1=Cole |first1=V. |title=The hottest ARG ever: lonelygirl15 |url=https://www.engadget.com/2006-09-05-the-hottest-arg-ever-lonelygirl15.html |website=Joystiq |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=September 5, 2006}} In 2007, Robert Capps of Wired wrote that the plot of Lonelygirl15 "has morphed from early-year 90210 angst to a confusing poor-man's Alias".{{cite magazine |last1=Capps |first1=Robert |title=SXSW: Lonelygirl15 is alive and well |url=https://www.wired.com/2007/03/sxsw-lonely-gir/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=March 12, 2007}} Helen A.S. Popkin of NBC News opined that the end of the first season was "tragic", but "somewhat anticlimactic" and "lackluster", calling the season's cross-country trip plot "convoluted" and calling Daniel "tiresome" as a character; Den of Geek{{'}}s Sarah Dobbs also remarked that "the plot got more and more convoluted" as the series went on. Also in 2007, Virginia Heffernan wrote for The New York Times that there was "widespread animus" and "hostility" towards Lonelygirl15 due to the series growing "too big for its britches".{{cite web |last1=Heffernan |first1=Virginia |title=YouTube Awards the Top of Its Heap |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/arts/27tube.html?_r=1&oref=login |website=The New York Times |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=March 27, 2007}} In 2010, Time included Lonelygirl15 on their list of the 50 best YouTube videos of all time.{{cite magazine |last1=Webley |first1=Kayla |title=YouTube's 50 Best Videos |url=https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1974961_1974925_1974042,00.html |magazine=Time |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=March 29, 2010}}

For NBC News, Helen A.S. Popkin called Bree "the unofficial face of Web 2.0", and wrote that the success of Lonelygirl15 "was arguably a driving factor behind Google's $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube, as well as MySpace's addition of short-form video to its social networking site."{{cite web |last1=Popkin |first1=Helen A.S. |title=Lonelygirl15, face of Web 2.0, dies at 17 |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna20199343 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111214155/https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna20199343 |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 11, 2020 |website=NBC News |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=August 9, 2007}} For The Guardian, Elena Cresci described the series as YouTube's first web series, and wrote that it proved to the public that making YouTube videos could be profitable. Geoff Weiss wrote for Tubefilter that Lonelygirl15 was "light years ahead of the curve in terms of showcasing YouTube's potential as a platform for scripted content" and described its interactive content as "groundbreaking". In her 2014 book The Television Will Be Revolutionized, Amanda D. Lotz identified the premiere of Lonelygirl15 on YouTube as a key development in the digital distribution of television.{{cite book |last1=Lotz |first1=Amanda D. |title=The television will be revolutionized |date=2014 |publisher=NYU Press |location=New York, New York |isbn=9781479865253 |page=142 |edition=2 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfwq5.9 |access-date=May 20, 2022 |chapter=Revolutionizing Distribution: Breaking Open the Network Bottleneck|jstor=j.ctt9qfwq5.9 }} Because of the videos' early popularity, Bree is often described by critics as the first viral YouTube star.{{cite web |last1=Saul |first1=Heather |title=Lonelygirl15 is back with a very eerie video |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/lonelygirl15-one-of-youtube-s-first-ever-viral-stars-returns-after-eight-years-in-eerie"-video-a7097411.html |website=The Independent |access-date=May 21, 2022 |language=en |date=June 23, 2016}}{{cite web |last1=Kleinman |first1=Zoe |title=YouTube 'star' Lonelygirl15 back after seven years |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36557864 |website=BBC News |access-date=May 13, 2022 |language=en |date=June 17, 2016}} The series has also been considered influential on vlogging, especially on YouTube, and online video-based storytelling.{{cite web |last1=Orenstein |first1=Hannah |title=The Vlogger That Fooled the Whole Internet Is Back on YouTube After 8 Years |url=https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/news/a41277/the-original-2006-youtube-star-lonelygirl15-is-back-10-years-later-with-a-scary-video/ |website=Seventeen |access-date=May 13, 2022 |language=en-us |date=June 20, 2016}} Kyle Kizu of IndieWire described Lonelygirl15 as "the series that defined YouTube-based vlog storytelling", also calling it "one of if not the first [series] of its kind."{{cite web |last1=Kizu |first1=Kyle |title=Watch: 'Lonelygirl15' Web Series Returns to YouTube 10 Years Later |url=https://www.indiewire.com/2016/06/lonelygirl15-web-series-return-vlog-1201689528/ |website=IndieWire |access-date=May 13, 2022 |language=en |date=June 16, 2016}} In 2016, The Verge{{'}}s Sean O'Kane wrote that "the craziest thing about

Lonelygirl15 is how prescient it was", as "Bree's vlogs don't look all that different from what you find on YouTube today." For New York, Adam Sternbergh described Lonelygirl15 as "the birth of WikiTV", which he defined as "a television show created by a broad community of participants and built not of sequential, hour-long episodes, but of two-minute interconnected parcels" wherein the storyline is "both linear...and expansive" and "anyone can join in."{{cite web |last1=Sternbergh |first1=Adam |title=Lonelygirl15's Online Diary Is the Birth of a New Art Form |url=https://nymag.com/arts/tv/features/19376/ |website=New York |access-date=May 23, 2022 |language=en-us |date=August 17, 2006}}

Refinery29{{'}}s Meghan De Maria called Lonelygirl15 "one of the first major Internet hoaxes", while Heather Saul of The Independent described it as "one of the biggest internet hoaxes of the decade." For Film Quarterly, Lucas Hilderbrand wrote that the hoax of Lonelygirl15 "called into question the authenticity of video blogs generally".{{cite journal |last1=Hilderbrand |first1=Lucas |title=YouTube: Where Cultural Memory and Copyright Converge |journal=Film Quarterly |publisher=UC Press |date=Fall 2007 |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=48–57 |doi=10.1525/fq.2007.61.1.48 |url=https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2007.61.1.48 |access-date=May 10, 2022|url-access=subscription }} In Time{{'}}s 2006 edition of their Person of the Year issue, which focused on user-generated content online, Lev Grossman wrote, "Of course, in the post-Lonelygirl15 era, there's always that question mark: How authentic are these faces on the computer screen?"{{cite magazine |last1=Grossman |first1=Lev |title=Power To The People |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570816,00.html |magazine=Time |access-date=May 20, 2022 |date=December 25, 2006}} For Eureka Street, Marisa Pintado wrote that the exposure of Lonelygirl15 as a hoax was "perhaps the moment that [the YouTube] community lost its innocence", adding that it "prompted many to ask why we are still so trusting of what we find on the Internet."{{cite web |last1=Pintado |first1=Marisa |title=Lonelygirl15 exposes the Net's illogical sense of community |url=https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/lonelygirl15-exposes-the-net-s-illogical-sense-of-community |website=Eureka Street |access-date=May 22, 2022 |date=September 18, 2006}} Flinders similarly said in an interview with The Guardian that Lonelygirl15 caused everyone to "never trust anyone on YouTube again at face value." Mashable{{'}}s Tricia Gilbride wrote that "Lonelygirl15{{'}}s legacy is the currency of uncertainty", calling the series "the first long con of the internet's attention economy -- the kind digital fame-seekers take for granted these days."

Various YouTubers, including the Green brothers, have cited Lonelygirl15 as what inspired them to join YouTube.{{cite news |last1=Peterson |first1=Andrea |title=The Green brothers say someone on Vine will make them irrelevant. 'Which is great.' |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/02/11/the-green-brothers-say-someone-on-vine-will-make-them-irrelevant-which-is-great/ |newspaper=Washington Post |access-date=August 4, 2022 |date=February 11, 2014}} The 2006 Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Weeping Willow", in which Michelle Trachtenberg played a vlogger named Willow, was based on Lonelygirl15.{{cite web |last1=Devoe |first1=Noelle |title=16 Celebs Who Got Their Start on "Law & Order" |url=https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/movies-tv/g2577/celebs-who-got-their-start-on-law-order/?slide=1 |website=Seventeen |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=September 22, 2015}}

Lonelygirl15 won the VH1 Big in '06 Award for Big Web Hit, and was nominated for Best Series at the inaugural YouTube Awards in 2007.{{cite web |title='VH1 Big In '06 Awards': The Big Winners |url=https://www.accessonline.com/articles/vh1-big-in-06-awards-the-big-winners-57028 |website=Access Hollywood |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=June 27, 2007}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/arts/27tube.html?_r=1&oref=login|title=SCREENS; YouTube Awards the Top of Its Heap|last=Heffernan|first=Virginia|date=27 March 2007|work=The New York Times|access-date=20 July 2010|archive-date=20 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181120063150/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/arts/27tube.html?_r=1&oref=login|url-status=live}} For her performance in Lonelygirl15, Rose won the inaugural Webby Award for Best Actress at the 2007 Webby Awards.{{cite web |title=Webbys for lonelygirl15, YouTube |url=https://www.smh.com.au/technology/webbys-for-lonelygirl15-youtube-20070607-gdqbyk.html |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |access-date=May 10, 2022 |language=en |date=June 7, 2007}}

• Marble Hornets

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• {{official website}}
• {{youTube|u=lonelygirl15|Lonelygirl15}}
• {{IMDb title|id=1039793|title=lonelygirl15}}

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