A series of videos showing a 16-year-old girl opining about life, relationships, planets, cookies and religion from the orderly confines of her bedroom somewhere in smalltown America has become the pop culture hit of the summer.
The short video blog postings by lonelygirl15 on the YouTube website have attracted millions of viewers since they started appearing in May. But the postings' polished nature and the intriguing inconsistencies in the stories led many to suspect that lonelygirl15 was fake.
"Bree", the "girl" in the videos, appears older than 16. One in particular, in which she goes swimming with her friend Daniel, resembles a pop video more than a blog.
Some bloggers suggested she was part of a viral marketing campaign for a film or computer game, the successor to that used to promote the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project.
Yesterday her "creators" came clean, admitting the site was fake. In a posting on lonelygirl15.com labelled "A message from the creators", the unnamed makers of the videos adopted a more conventional entertainment industry tone. "Thank you for enjoying our show so far. We are amazed by the overwhelmingly positive response to our videos; it has exceeded our wildest expectations."
They went on to address some of the speculation about the videos: were they promoting a film or a reality TV show? Was some corporate behemoth behind the venture? And who the heck is lonelygirl15 anyway? According to the creators, the enterprise is far larger than any of that.
"With your help we believe we are witnessing the birth of a new art form," they wrote. On the question of lonelygirl15's identity, the creators attempted to invest her with everyman qualities.
"Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us."
But there were signs that the admission that the site is a fake and the pretensions of the "creators" could backfire. In attempting to harness the interactive power of an online community there is a danger that consumers may decide they do not like being fooled.
The first posted response to the statement came from Alissa Brooke, a blogger who has hosted a forum on the lonelygirl15 phenomenon. She simply wrote: "Well, that's no fun any more."
The identity of the creators of lonelygirl15 remains a mystery. In their statement they claim to be film makers, not computer programmers, adding: "We want you to know that we aren't a big corporation. We are just like you."
But internet sleuths have established that emails sent by lonelygirl15 came from the powerful Creative Artists Agency in Hollywood, and that lonelygirl15 was registered as a trademark by a California lawyer two weeks ago.