Lonelygirl15 appears to be an innocent, home-schooled 16-year-old, pouring her heart out for her video camera in the privacy of her bedroom. But since May, her brief posts on the video-sharing site YouTube and the social networking hub MySpace have launched a Web mystery eagerly followed by her million-plus viewers: Who is this sheltered ingenue who calls herself "Bree," and is she in some sort of danger — or, worse, the tool of some giant marketing machine?

I'd totally missed out on this little cultural phenomenon. Then again, I miss out on most cul-phenoms, being a bit out of the loop. I found this interesting, and hey, if it is a marketing ploy, it's a darned good one.

Sadly, if it is, it will be successful probably, then *everyone* will feel they have to do it, and then it will become an annoyance instead of a brief percolation in the bubbling pot of creativity.

~Heathyr

She's a cute girl, but if it is a marketing ploy, I have a feeling they are going to piss off a lot of homeschoolers. They are playing up the sterotype isolated homeschooled child angle a bit too much - so much, I'd say it is fake. "The only friend I met the whole time was a dog." WTF?