[SoccerDude28]

Anyone here is a YouTube junky?

If you didn't know, there is this girl who is video blogging her life events on YouTube and she goes by the nick of LonelyGirl15. He name is Bree, she is home-schooled, has strict parents, is an American living in New Zealand, and has a really dorky boyfriend. She is only 15, AND SHE IS REALLY cute. So all this seemed to make her very popular in the YouTube community, with her videos always getting 100's of thousands of viewers and reaching the top most viewed videos on a regular basis.

But it turns out that LonelyGirl15 is a fraud. She is an actress wannabe and the whole thing was acting staged by a bunch of guys and LonelyGirl15. She is 19, living in LA, not homeschooled but rather film-schooled, and her name is not Bree. She is not even American but from New Zealand.

So a lot of watchers in YouTube were outraged and felt betrayed for investing so much in the life of a fraud.

So the question is, how would you feel if you learn that someone you really like and admire on AG (or any other online place) is really not who they say they were?

[bysmitty]

I know I would be crushed if I found out you were not the 28th dude of soccer.

...bysmitty

[SoccerDude28]

Originally Posted by bysmitty

I know I would be crushed if I found out you were not the 28th dude of soccer.

...bysmitty

I'm now the 30'th dude of soccer That was 2 years ago.

[Lucien21]

Ok I confess.

My real Name is Vlad. I'm a 4ft midget from Siberia. (god it's cold)

[bulldog]

I would feel betrayed. I can forgive a lot of things but I can't forgive lying or cheating. I feel that I can be honest with others without hurting their feelings (I try not to hurt peoples feelings.... b/c I don't like it done to me).

[RLacey]

I don't personally like being lied to, so I'd feel more than a tad insulted if someone on AG - anyone - turned out to have been entirely inventing themselves as we knew them.

I actually find the whole LonelyGirl15 thing surreal; not because of the fact that she was making it all up - quite frankly, if you were to believe everything that you saw on YouTube, or anything that you read in a blog, you'd be something of a fool - but because of the mass hysteria surrounding the fact that she was a fraud.

Certainly, it's not as bad as some of the frauds I've read about. I could be wrong here, but I seem to remember someone in the Kingpin: Life of Crime (an old PC FPS) community that invented a persona that they then claimed had died, and some of the rest of the community actually started raising money in this guy's memory. When they found out that it was all fake they were seriously annoyed, and I can understand that. Don't forget, though, that they'd actually had a personal link to the fake person, something that simply isn't the case with LonelyGirl15.

So, um, yeah. This post really has no point to it. Carry on, people.

[rlpw]

My goodness I'm not in the least worried about who people really are! The very fact of anonimity is one of the greatest parts of the internet. heck, for all anyone knows I could be the the real Prince of Persia or the man who lives in the shed behind your house and steals your bandwidth from your 802.11g router(and you know he's out there)

What I'm saying is that you can tell somebody as much as you want to or you can be entirely fictional, that's the draw of the net

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by SoccerDude28

So the question is, how would you feel if you learn that someone you really like and admire on AG (or any other online place) is really not who they say they were?

If, like you say it's someone I like a lot and admire, I'd of course be disappointed, and perhaps angry for being made a fool of, since I'm being honest and open about myself.
But I guess there are some even here on the forum (perhaps not the regulars, that would be hard to manage) who aren't exactly who they claim to be.

[Squinky]

Well, the majority of people I like and admire on AG are people I've met in person, so if they ended up being frauds, then that would be really weird.

[Giligan]

There's many people on the forum who are geniune, are there are just as many who are frauds. I realize that; there's probably a few right here on this forum. Because of that, I enjoy being on a forum, talking to all kinds of people, but I really don't take any of it too seriously. And I'd certainly not give out any personal info.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Lucien21

Ok I confess.

My real Name is Vlad. I'm a 4ft midget from Siberia. (god it's cold)

F***ing HOT!!!

[SakSquash]

I wouldn't care at all. Anyone who would care needs to get a life.

[Spiwak]

Sadly, I'm actually with Sak on this one.

I've seen some of LonelyGirl15's videos and it's not like they weren't obviously fake. She wrote in her little YouTube blog that she doesn't know how to edit and gets the guy to do it for her...but in at least one video he's getting onto her about recording their private arguments and stuff....so why the hell would he help edit her videos and submit them to YouTube for her?

At that, her little life problems weren't that interesting. At that, the reason she became such a YouTube phenomenon is because internet guys are creepy. Women tried to give her advice and what-not occasionally, but most of the comments typically revolve around how cute she is.

If anything I find what she and her friends did admirable. Being able to fake her life reasonably well and more over get people to buy into it. She and her friends clearly have some talent.

But to Sak's point, I'm not emotionally invested in any one of you, and thus wouldn't care if one of you comes out and tells us all you're actually a spy from JustAdventure, or whatever. That's not to say I don't care about the board; Adventure Gamers is, collectively, a kinda friend...but I don't know anyone on it individually.

[Lee in Limbo]

I think I've been doing this online thing too long. I'm basically so jaded that I tend to politely acknowledge or disregard most folks with extreme equanimity. The few people I run into in any given year that I am genuinely charmed by, I basically grant carte blanche to be whoever they want to be with me. If they turn out to be a fraud (whatever that really means; honestly, maybe it's just my arrogance, but you can usually tell when someone is either deliberately fabricating their life, or quite frankly devoid of true personality to begin with; usually it's a little bit of both), I usually just pity them and move on.

That said, I'd be a little heartbroken if the few I've really come to like turned out to be other than they've made themselves out to be.

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by SakSquash

I wouldn't care at all. Anyone who would care needs to get a life.

I think it's perfectly possible to have a life
(family, friends, a job and things/activities that interest you) and still feel upset by the fact that someone on the internet deliberately fooled you. (By this I mean someone that you've had personal contact with, like on a forum.) I think the reaction doesn't derive so much from how your life looks like, more from your own personality.
That said, I think most people on the internet are being aware that everything/everyone isn't what it looks like.

[rlpw]

Originally Posted by Jelena

I think most people on the internet are being aware that everything/everyone isn't what it looks like.

I'm actually believing I'm Trep with hair

Oh and straight

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by rlpw

I'm actually believing I'm Trep with hair

Oh and straight

Well there are similarities in the way you tease Rob!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Jelena

...I think most people on the internet are being aware that everything/everyone isn't what it looks like.

No kidding. It's especially true for online dating sites.

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

It's especially true for online dating sites.

You're thinking of Mr Gamer, huh?

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Jelena

You're thinking of Mr Gamer, huh?

O god, wotta damn freak he turned out to be.

Spoiler:

But damn, was he good in bed!!