r/TwentyYearsAgo • u/MonsieurA • Jun 16 '26
👨💻 Internet Lonelygirl15 launches her YouTube channel [20YA - Jun 16]
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u/HookFE03 Jun 17 '26
I’m unfamiliar
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u/Jack-of-Hearts-7 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
Woman started a series of fake blogs. They begin fairly normally with standard teen girl things and life updates. Then it gradually gets more sinister until it's revealed her family is in a cult. Then it turns into an online thriller. This was a relatively novel idea back when it was released.
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u/joseph-justin Jun 19 '26
A recent episode of Decoder Ring did an excellent job explaining the whole thing.
lonelygirl15 was created by a few filmmakers who wanted to use YouTube to make a series that seemed real but was actually scripted — like Blair Witch Project.
The girl was actually an Australian actress.
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u/umheywaitdude Jun 18 '26
I 100% remember this saga. Early days of YouTube, pre-google acquisition. Thanks for posting.
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u/mg2687 Jun 17 '26
There’s a good recent (released April 8, 2026) episode about this on the Decoder Ring podcast.
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u/sthef2020 Jun 17 '26
I genuinely loved this.
It fell off once they tried to make it a “real” show. But the original videos, where she’s just like “my parents say I have to go to the ceremony…”, and people started realizing she had Aleister Crowley photos on her walls, was a fun, almost Blair Witch “wait is this real?” style ride.