Fake vs. Real - For the Naive and Easily-Hoodwinked

After a difficult week building up to 9/11 and everything surrounding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global War on Terror, it’s a sharp contrast to read about the light deception that has bamboozled the general YouTube population of viewers.

“Lonelygirl15 is a FAKE.”

These words have rung out beyond the vast webscape of isolated computer geeks, techno newbies, and porn-seekers, into the valleys of Hollywood and the potential market of web drama. The summer soap of a would-be 15 year old and her buddy Danielbeast, suffering from a teen’s syndrome of unrequited love, drew hundreds of thousands of viewers weekly, waiting for the next installment of underage self-disclosure, in the form of a video blog.

I admit it. I was suckered in for a couple of weeks. I first discovered it with my wife while browsing the many “Most Viewed” videos regularly uploaded to the free video site, while trying to upload my own video/demo reel. It’s our new model of home entertainment and multi-tasking, that I’m sure is pretty common these days; TV on, sometimes music too, and laptop for alternate viewing pleasure. So my wife said it was time I put my own video out there, which I did, with the hopes of high view count, and potential employers beating down my door to host their TV show. Little did I know that the Tube waves were monopolized by one popular lonely girl.

But I uploaded it anyway, despite my no frills approach, with little hype, except for an email blast of my entire address book. I wanted all the buzz of Lonelygirl and thought of possibly casting a pretty young starlet to play myself. My wife disagreed. She actually said we should create our own fake parody of the young pair and their pseudo-confessionals. Oh, how prophetic she was.

Being that Jessica Rose is the actress that plays Lonelygirl15, this first-wave materialization of a soap opera blog has killed the model for “is it real or fake?” the way The Blair Witch Project killed it 7 years ago. And it’s dead before it even hit the mainstream population. It’s been done, the hype will always be questioned, so what form of hype will be next? Sure there’ll always be young, naïve entertainees out there waiting to be duped, in the next incarnation of fake vs. real version 29, but all my belief in the internet is gone. If you can’t believe in blogs, what can you believe in? Maybe I’ll turn to our politicians.

Crossing the line between reality and fiction seems to be the ongoing theme these days in all forms of media, a la James Frey’s much-Oprah-ed (it is now a verb, folks, right here, first), fictionalized memoir, A Million Little Pieces, creating so much buzz-turned-controversy. Are we all a little too naïve to even go out in the world anymore? If we’re not safe in our own homes surfing the internet, reading a book, or watching a movie, where can we be safe?

Although, according to the vast amounts of comments regarding the Lonelygirl out-ing, many of the viewers doubted the authenticity from the beginning. But what about me and my trusting nature. Those producers have executed on me confidence-theivery. I want to wash it all away. Wash the dirty, grimy trickery from my computer screen and look at safe and predictable, virus-laden porn like the old days of internet yore. But then I have to face whether or not those girls flaunt breasts of fake or real. Agh! I’ve been lonelygirled and I feel out of control. The only way to bring the control back, to gain a little perspective from it all, is to, wait it’s coming to me, yes… turn off the computer…turn off the TV… get out of my pajamas and go for a walk out in the ever-fabled world. Maybe a little fresh air, a gentle stroll and, quite possibly, get a life of my own. Ah, yes, that feels better. I'm not living in my mother's basement and I actually have a woman. Life is real again.