Once again, there’s been no lack of media love for the lonelygirl15 story. It was recently revealed that Bree, the webcam star of the YouTube phenomenon, was really Jessica Rose, a 19-year-old actress from New Zealand. Mashable also reported yesterday that Jessica would appear on The Tonight Show.
Right before going to sleep, I caught Jessica on The Tonight Show last night. Following the monologue, she introduced herself to Jay Leno and revealed that she was not Bree (16 years old and homeschooled), but rather Jessica Rose (19 years old and from New Zealand). She didn’t seem overly comfortable, going to commercial doing an odd little dance with someone I couldn’t quite recognize. Anyone see the rest of the Tonight Show?
Despite its ridiculousness, this is a pretty fun story. And I’m not sure it could have worked any other way: the filmmakers made their own world that seemed to appeal to the YouTube voyeur, not to mention that Bree/Jessica is adorable, whether any particular audience member is genuinely interested or creepily interested. When it broke that it was fake, backlash could have occurred, but the story looks to be clean – who can blame LA transplants for wanting to get ahead in the tough Hollywood world?
Although it’s nothing new, it’ll be interesting whether it was the mystery or the sheer entertainment that kept audiences interested. The cat is out of the bag, so this is the first case study of the consumer-generated generation – do I have to fake it to make it big? Is there a mystery factor that is necessary? There’s no doubt that suspension of disbelief is necessary when the actors or actresses have public personas, but consumer generated content might be playing by different rules. One thing that’s cool in this new world is that fun is fun, no matter where it comes from.
No doubt that the filmmakers will be able to ride this media wave a bit longer before moving on to bigger and better things.
Will this type of independent content make it to communities like iLetYou?
Rodger Visitacion's Blog: Life in the Startup Lane 
I began watching “Bree’s” video blogs after I found out that she was a fake and that she was ranked number 1 viewed on youtube. Haven’t finished watching all of it, but yes, she is a good actress…she reminded me of one of my friends at some points, but I think that there is NO excuse for the reason why she chose to do this. (Money? Probably…) In a way, it’s pretty easy to see that the video blogs are fake, because they have a soap drama ring to it…and if you watch Danielbeast’s videos, (they correspond with “Bree’s”) it becomes even more dramatic. I’m sorry, but the actor who plays Daniel sucked at making his videos…he made his character seem very obsessive…(sorry, you have to watch the videos to understand!)
…and all of the videos were edited quite nicely with songs and clean cuts…and the audience is expected to believe that they were edited by a 16-year old? (Heck, I’M a 16 year old, and pretty tech savvy, but my own videos aren’t as good as hers.)
Yet besides the fakeness of it all, Bree’s story is really good. On Youtube, there are a lot of people getting really really pissed about it and making movies about how pissed they are, and I think that’s equally as sad. So her story touched you. Yet it was fake. Certain movies touch me, yet I know and am conscious of the fact that those characters are portrayed by actors, and those actors don’t really act like their characters in real life. So here’s what I say: just pretend that it’s another movie, another soap opera, whatever. You have to admit, it’s a pretty good storyline. Well done, Jessica…it just would have been nicer if everyone knew it was just a drama.
Spot on with this write-up, I seriously think this amazing
site needs a lot more attention. I’ll probably be back again to read more, thanks for the advice!