Lonelygirl15: All Viral Publicity Is Good Viral Publicity

The L.A. Times has done an analysis of YouTube celebrity Lonelygirl15 that’s about as in-depth as anything we’ve seen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lately. Excerpt:

Since June, a series of videos has been posted on the YouTube website featuring a young woman calling herself Bree, 16, sitting in the bedroom of a suburban home, speaking into a camera about her life, complaining about her parents and sharing intimate confessions about her relationship with her best friend Daniel, whom she doesn’t like “in that way.” …

Whether it is the superior production values of the video, or the endearing/irritating (depending whom you ask) traits of its star or the gradually unfolding soap opera between the leads, Bree’s is the face that has launched a thousand replies … Adding to the madness is a heated, nearly violent debate over whether the videos are authentically the work of a lonely teenage girl living miles from civilization (“three hours from a mall” she claims) or a stage-managed Internet fraud.

While Lonelygirl15 has apparently convinced inquisitors as authoritative as the NY Times that she is legit and not part of an advertising campaign, we don’t believe it for a minute. Lots of amateur sleuths are on the case now, so the truth will out. The question is, will the outing help or hurt whatever product or corporation she represents?

We’ll go with the “all viral publicity is good viral publicity” school here, and say Lonelygirl15 will become a star, and her employer will laugh all the way to their PayPal account.

Tags: pr dallas