You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.

Folks, it's a hug no one, what us see you there?

Last.

Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish we're.

True and truths that sound like lies.

I'm the ghost of Danish Swartz and I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan.

Welcome to the show.

Now, Dana.

I think there's been a bit of confusion about our podcast, oh is there?

And I think that this episode might open the door to even more confusion, Oh no, about what exactly is a hoax versus a scam, versus a con versus a grift versus just a very effectively marketed uh series.

Let's say, like a.

Pup elicity stunt exactly.

I kind of feel like it's like overlapping then diagram circles.

Yes, and I and I just want to say, for the record, the way that you can tell something is a hoax is if we want to.

Cover it on the podcast, if we find it interesting enough to want to talk about, if one of us decides that it's worth talking about.

Ultimately, that is the deciding criterion, Yeah, is that we just want to talk about it on the podcast, so don't ever think it.

I will also say, for me, in my mind, there has to be a public facing aspect to it.

Yeah, I mean there are like we like.

We kind of have an internal logic, yes, like there are actual criteria like yeah, you have to dupe the public and it has to have an element of whimsy and like this then the other.

But like, really what this podcast is about.

It's about things that we want to talk about on the podcast.

Rabbit Holes that we find interesting.

Yeah, and one of those today is the saga of Lonely Girl fifteen.

Interesting And I actually I'm vaguely aware of this.

I do fully think this is a hoax.

My relationship to Lonely Girl fifteen was.

I had zero understanding or interaction with this, And then when I sort of heard the news stories about it that this thing kind of was a hoax, was a scam I guess not a scam really, but was a hoax, I felt the fundamental discomfort of realizing that there was a thing happening that I had no involvement in, Like when I find out that something is like big on TikTok and I haven't interacted with it at all, or when They're like, oh, this musical artist is the you know, sells millions of no one's selling records, gets millions of streams, and I've never heard of them that like anxiety.

This is one of the first moments when I realized, like, oh, this is just a like YouTube things, is something I'm not involved in.

So my understanding of it is that there was a sort of direct to camera vlogger who went by Lonely Girl fifteen, who was purporting to sort of be giving slice of life updates and it turns out she was an actress and it wasn't real.

Maybe maybe not Yeah, maybe maybe.

That's that something is kind of all I know like, but I didn't like the feeling that this Lonely Girl fifteen was like a phenomenon, and I was like, how have I not even heard of this?

Yeah, yeah, well now you're gonna hear it.

I know you're gonna get all caught up.

I can't get Finally, you're gonna be all caught up.

So Lonely Girl fifteen, I'll just take you through it, and then I'll take you through like what it means.

Yeah, are we on YouTube?

We are on YouTube?

We're actually we're right at the start of YouTube.

YouTube launched Valentine's Day two thousand and five, okay, and Lonely Girl fifteen Akabree.

She uh posts a few videos prior to this, but her first like like like face reveal like direct to camera address from her bedroom is uploaded on June sixteenth, two thousand and six, so very early in YouTube's existence.

Yeah, a year after YouTube comes comes on, a year.

And change after YouTube comes online, and she introduces herself as Bree.

She says she's sixteen, she lives in a small town, and she's homeschooled.

If I had to describe Brie in three words, I would say she's smart, she's pretty, and she's sheltered.

Okay, I mean sounds like someone sounds like a girl that the public is gonna love.

She likes she's like a young sixteen.

Yeah, she still plays with stuffed animals, but she's very smart.

She likes science a lot.

She explains scientific concepts in some of her videos, which I found like pretty engaging.

And she her videos are like one to three minutes long, and she uploads pretty often, like every two to three days.

Oh very short.

Are they just supposed to be?

Like?

This is my life or is she sending a mess like what are her videos?

I've never heard, but yeah, her videos are like she's bored.

So she's like, today I'm gonna explain to you this funny concept, or today I'm going to show you my different stuffed animals.

So it's like slice of life, but her life is very limited, okay.

And she has basically one friend, this guy Daniel, who's eighteen, and he goes to a regular public school and he very obviously has a crush on her, but they're both pretending that they that this isn't happening, and most of the videos are just of them hanging out and he sort of like just hangs out and reads magazines on her bed and was like, oh, Brie, I don't want to be in your videos.

That's cute.

Do you find it?

Did you find the videos engaging.

By the standards of like today, No, but sure they go down easy.

They go down easy.

It's like two thousand and six, so we haven't been like by like the TikTok algorithm of needing, like constant zooms and cuts.

And here's what I'll say, CAPI I would much rather be a little bit bored than a little bit annoyed, so like I would rather be under engaged than over engaged.

Like too many YouTubers, content makers whatever are like yelling at you and like too many cuts and too many clicks and too much going on, and that really turns me off.

This is the opposite where I'm like, okay, they're kind of boring, but I'd rather that than the opposite.

So I was fine watching this for a little bit like that.

It it.

It didn't bother me.

It's like hang out YouTube.

It's really hang out YouTube, and bree is like quite engaging.

I mean, there is something to be said for entertainment, like podcasts, like a lot of I would say a lot of for me, like cooking YouTube where I just kind of want to throw it on in the background.

Daniel also has his own YouTube channel, okay, and sometimes there will be sort of like back and forth between their channels where Brie will mention something and then Daniel will make his own video being like, oh I just saw Breeze video, like I'm so annoyed, and then Brie will be like, Daniel, why did you post that?

And then they'll film themselves like hashing it out.

Okay, cute crossover episode.

Yes, crossover episodes.

And as the summer goes on a few of her videos like take Off, she gets like a fan base, and they notice two things.

Number one is that Bree belongs to some sort of religion that is strict that she doesn't want to open up about because previously when she's opened up about it, she says that she's like been bullied and people haven't been understanding.

I guess she's homeschooled, so you're like, all right, part of a religion, right.

Or she has a picture of Alistair Crawley, who's like a big figure in like mid century occultism, yes, on her wall, and she talks about that, like she went to a summer camp for her religion, and she her family has moved around a lot.

She mentions like different countries that they've lived in, interesting and that she at one point lived on a commune and that she had to drop out of public school and like it sort of sounds like Christian fundamentalism, but also she's really into science, so it kind of doesn't square with that.

And Alistair Crowley that's like not Christian fundamentally.

No, and like it sounds like scientology, but it also doesn't sound like scientology, So this is like like cracking what group she's part of becomes sort of an interesting, almost like game for her viewers.

And the other thing that people start to notice is that this seems very fake.

Really they know they could tell yeah.

It seems fake because uh, why would you film yourself fighting with your friend and then posted on the internet.

Like that seems fake?

Yeah, And and now of course we're like, no, you're just making content, But back then it yeah, yeah.

Like people sort of debate, They're like, well, Okay, she's homeschool, maybe she doesn't know social cues.

Yeah, and like you know, things can be fake and real at the same time, Like you know, Laguna Beach, Like yeah, they were doing they were having scripted fights at prom, but that was their real prom.

And so maybe it's like she and Daniel are purposefully fighting in a video because they think it'll be a funny video.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean that they're not really friends.

Yeah, Like that doesn't mean that her name isn't really Bree and his name isn't really Daniel.

Like, so figuring out what, like, even if part of it is fake, what part of it is fake?

Like these are the two sort of I would guess mysteries that people are trying to suss.

Out, not to bring everything back to Taylor Swift, but I will say I think something that has contributed to Taylor Swift's longevity and fan base is that people listen to her songs and try to parse out how much is autobiographical and and also want to parse out, you know, details of her life that aren't otherwise made clear.

And so I think that inadvertently Lonely Girl fifteen has tapped into something that does create a very engaged fan base, which is people trying to get at a deeper truth beyond the surface and also parse out what level of reality they can glean from something that obviously is performed.

Yes, so these are the things that the viewers are like discussing on message boards and discussing in the comment section, and that is becoming I guess now we'd call it parasocial, but like becoming the interactive part of this.

But let's set that aside for a sec and I'm just going to tell you what you would have seen happen in Breeze life if you were just a viewer passively watching her videos and Daniel's videos in two thousand and six, Okay, in September, Bree reveals that she has been selected for a ceremony.

Okay, she has to go on and pretty extreme diet and learn a new language in preparation.

She doesn't know when the ceremony is or what it entails.

And because of this, Daniel thinks it's very shady and she should back out, and they get in a big fight and then they make up.

They sneak out of the house to go to a party and Bree does the thing where she like makes the bed with her pillows under the.

But to make a video about it.

Yeah, so she like one of the ongoing things is that like her parents don't know how the internet works or like what a webcam is, so all of this they're never going to see.

But she like does the thing where she makes the bed with the pillows underneath the blanket to like make it look like she's sleeping.

Yeah, Dana, we never did.

We never sleep out.

I was such a good girl, obviously.

But did you ever have a weird friend or like, was there like a kid at your school who was part of like the weird religion?

There wasn't No, not really.

I mean I guess I'm like aware of the trope of the weird kid.

Yeah, and that's I guess.

Is that what you're saying she was or is that what Daniel was?

No, that's what she was.

Just watching this, That's what I was thinking of.

Like, as I was watching all these videos, I was like, oh, I kind of remember a couple people I knew growing up where I was like, are you sure you can't come out tonight, like trying to figure out if they had strict parents or like weird parents.

Yeah, you know what, what is your vibe?

Of course?

Yeah, there were definitely kids like that at my school.

I was the one.

I mean I had a strict mom, but I was self strict.

Yeah, I was just a nerd.

So but I will say good.

I mean Brie is sneaking out.

Yeah, Brie sneaking out and she sort of comes to the con It's like a good like coming of age moment where she's like, I can still be part of my religion but also go to parties like these are not She's like, Daniel's friends are cool and I had fun at this party.

I wasn't fundamentalist, and you know what happened when a boyfriend texted me my motorol eraser and asked me to snake out one night.

I was like, are you kidding me?

I'm in bed.

No.

In mid September, Brion Daniel Care on the WEBPM No, they just talk about it.

They're like, we kiss last night.

But Brie is still preparing for the ceremony, and in some of the videos she has a piece of.

Gauze taped to her arm, worrisome.

And she says that her dad is giving her injections and she won't say what the injections are, like he won't tell her.

And she's still learning the language, and she shows some of the letters of the language, and people in the comments figure out that it's Inochian.

What is Inkian?

Inochian is again like it's like a real fake language.

Yeah, which is it's never been like spoken by any People's it's an invented language.

Well, yes, it's invented or it's like a received language.

I think it's from the Middle Ages.

It was the these people who they say, they say they got it from God to talk to angels.

Sure, so it's it exists.

It was not, you know, Bree didn't make it up.

But it's not like a language that any culture on Earth speaks, Okay, And.

I also see I understand why people would be really engaged in these videos because not only are you like, all this cute couple is they're kissing for the bird, they have crushes on each other, but you're like, what is going to happen with Brie in this weird language, Like what is her religion?

What is this ceremony?

Right?

I want to know what's gonna happen.

And there's a lot of details that I'm skipping over where there's like, you know, references to weird temples and this, that and the other.

Brie gets a quote unquote helper named Lucy, who you like see in the background sometimes, who's always bringing like a dark suit and sunglasses, who's like helping her prepare for the ceremony.

Again, I know this is a hose.

I'm like, what are these injections?

Daniel starts like following Brie around in like kind of a creepy way, and Breeze like back off, and Daniel won't Brion Daniel stop speaking.

Daniel follows Brie to like a hilltop in the middle of the night and like sees this like creepy ceremony with all these people in robes.

But then it turns out that that was like a fake ceremony, like meant to throw him off the scent.

And Daniel breaks into Lucy's apartment and like finds all these weird maps, and he finds pictures on Lucy's computer of Daniel watching the fake ceremony, so like they're watching him while he's watching them.

It's very creepy.

There's plot happening.

There's a lot.

And then finally Bree tells her parents that she doesn't want to do the ceremony good for Brae, and they're like, Okay, you don't have to.

Why don't you go spend the night at Daniel's.

And then when Daniel drives Bree back to her house, she sees her parents being like led out of the house by deacons from her religion and like being put in a car and driven away.

And she goes into her house and she finds a note that her parents left her in like a secret spot that only she would think to look in, and they're basically like, here's some money, run away, stay with you, Andiel don't trust anybody, and so she and Daniel like hit the road.

Oh, and you finally find out the reason that they never go to the police is that there's like police in her religion, which by the way, is called the Order of course.

Yeah, and like she's like seen like judges from their town at like meetings of the religion.

So she's like, I don't trust anybody.

So she and Daniel take off.

They're like living in the car, living out of motels.

Still making little videos, still making little videos.

And this is the other thing, is like they're still teenagers, so like they're still like just like being cute and talking about science.

Another channel pops up by this woman named Jemma, who like also used to be part of the Order.

She's like maybe a year or two older than Brie, and she and Brie like cross paths way back, like when Brie was living with her family in England, and Gemma is like giving them advice on her YouTube channel and she just like reveals some more information about the Order and is also like talking about the issues that she's having with her flatmate in London.

I'm just like I'm flabbergasted.

This is so not what I thought that these videos were about.

I thought these videos were like a girl being like, oh, math class and I have a boy with the you know boy I have a crush on, and like talking about friends, just like high school vlogs.

I did not know that there was like a science fiction subplot to them.

Yeah, it takes a turn.

Yeah, I'm looking into how that turn was taken.

Yeah, we're gonna get.

To all of it.

So Gemma, Gemma's sort of making her side videos.

Gemma's making her side videos, and she also does like commentary on Brie and Daniel's videos, and she's like, do you guys not notice in the background of your videos there's people in black suits, Like you're being followed.

Yeah, and they're like, oh shit, Like you're right.

So like there's like things in the background of their videos that they hadn't even noticed.

So there's these people called the Watchers who have been following them.

M Night Shyamalan produced The Watchers.

Maybe a reference that idstands his daughter.

His daughter directed a movie, the.

One who played the pop star in Trap, the other other one.

Okay, all of these YouTubers do have the same editing style, but also they're all fans of each other.

Why wouldn't they edit their videos the same way?

And they're all YouTube's a year old.

There's kind of only one editing style and they're all the same age.

Maybe it's still real.

I will honestly say that doesn't convince me, because all editing style is imitations of things that people see.

Like Emma Chamberlain had her own editing style and then everyone just copied it her and just copied that.

When you go on TikTok and just scroll, like everyone's videos have the same cadence like that.

That doesn't raise my flags.

Absolutely.

That's an idiom, right, raise raise my raise my hackles.

Yeah, but that's not what that means.

Yeah, Like raise my hackles means like get me annoyed.

Yeah.

The videos start to have like a little tag on the end that's like explore the Brainaverse and like go to LG dot com and they're the people involved in this are like, Okay, we're going to be on the forum at such and such a time so that like anyone who knows about the order can like talk to us on these like online forums and stuff and like give us information to help us solve like these clues in these puzzles and stuff, and then this guy Jonas starts posting videos and he's like, hey, like, I've just been really inspired by Brien Daniel.

And also my he's like twenty or nineteen or something.

He's like, my parents died in this like crazy sailboat accident a year ago.

So I'm kind of like a rich orphan with a big house.

Do you guys want to come move in?

High fous.

So slightly removed myself from the narrative just to give a little bit more context.

In twenty twenty five, me, Lizzie Hi, I am watching all of these videos in order in a handy dandy playlist.

Yeah, in two thousand and six, part of the experience of watching these videos would be like hunting for the new channels and figuring out which ones were going to be relevant and which ones were just fans making up their own stuff.

Yeah, because I'm sure random people were just making their own response videos.

Yes.

Because also the YouTube interface and algorithm were different that it was very easy to get your own video to be like recommended as the next video to whatever thing you were commenting on.

That also, I think kind of articulates what I found a little unsettling hearing this lonely girl thing where it was to me the awareness that monoculture doesn't exist, where I'm like, so, someone's just making this video and it's like, quote unquote, like I have to watch it real, not in that it's real or fake, but that it's legitimate in some way.

But that's the thing about democratized Internet.

Nothing is inherently more or less legitimate.

And so that's I think what I found in Settling, where I'm just like, wait, there's just like a random YouTube video that matters in the culture.

But I think that was also really fun for people is like you might not know for the first four videos if Jonas is ever going to interact with Breed.

Yeah, so do you watch his videos?

Do you invest in Jonas?

And I guess you do in this case because I said he becomes relevant.

Yeah, so yeah, I'm not going to mention anybody who doesn't become part of the thing.

He's on the playlist.

So yeah, they have a big fight.

Daniel does not trust Jonas and Breed does so finally Daniel thinks that there's a tracker in his car, so they leave his car on the side of the road.

Bri and Daniel are basically homeless.

They're on foot, They're like squatting in a warehouse, and Bree's like, screw this, I'm going to live with Jonas.

And she's like so depressed and she's just won't come out of her room, and Jonas is like begging Daniel in videos He's like and basically everyone's like Jonas is trying to sleep with Brie, but Jonas is like no, like, Daniel, please come to my house, Like, please come to my house.

You're the only one who can cheer Bree up.

And so then on Christmas morning, Bree comes out of her room and sees that Daniel arrived overnight and they have a reunion.

Daniel and Jonas don't really trust each other.

It's like a little bit of a love triangle thing, but like whatever, they're all at the house, so like at least like there's like that measure of safety.

Bree is like doing all these things.

She's like trying to call anyone who ever knew her parents, like just trying to get information, and she remembers that her dad used to like teach her codes from Nancy Drew books.

They've also been doing all this off camera shit that I didn't really understand with this girl taki On, who was like teaching them survival skills.

I don't know.

I think it was happening in the forums, which I couldn't really be bothered to look up.

I was just all about the videos, basically long complicated thing codes.

Bree New Year's Day, steals Jonas's car and credit card and takes off, and then Jonas and Daniel have to crack the code to figure out where Bri went.

They have to crack a code.

They have to do the code to figure out where bre went, and they find her and she's talking to her dad, and her dad reveals that he's not actually her dad.

So this is they work for the Order.

What the Order does.

Her dad is not actually her dad, He works for the Order.

Yeah, and her mom's not actually her mom.

Okay.

What the Order does is they find girls at birth who test positive for this trait, this like genetic mutation, and they take those girls and put them with like Order families so that they can when they're like fifteen or sixteen, like harvest their DNA for some experiment or something.

And the but her dad's actually or her like adoptive dad is actually like kind of a good guy.

He doesn't want to harvest her Dana.

Right, because the injections that he was giving her were a serum that was trying to get rid of the trait so that she wouldn't have to go through with the ceremony.

Ah.

But then right in front of like as Jonas and Daniel are there, these like creepy people come up and there's like a scuffle and they shoot Breeze Dad and they kill him.

Oh my god, I know this is a full Ya novel.

And then Jonas and Daniel get Breed back and she's like really freaked out because she just found out that her dad's not her dad, but the man that she thought was her dad has been killed.

Something very cute does happen at this point, though, which is that Jonas and Daniel become bros.

They play a lot of foodsball together.

I do like that, Like wallbree is just like recuperating.

Yeah, while she's just dealing with the seeing the shooting of the man she believed to be her lifelong father.

Yes, I mean like understandably, she just like needs a lot of alone time, and so they just brow out but Daniel is drinking very heavily, and one night he goes into town.

He goes to the bowling alley to like try to hit on some chicks, but he just drink.

He just gets blackout drunk, and Jonas gets a phone call some girl calling on Daniel's phone being like, hey, like come get your bro.

So they go into town.

Bree comes with.

They meet up with this girl and she doesn't say her name, so I guess it's not technically breaking the immersion because anybody could be at a bowling alley.

But the girl is Catherine McPhee, what who had just placed fifth on American Idol.

Technically Katherine McPhee can be at a bowling alley.

Well, this is where I will drop the ruse that this could possibly be real.

Dana, would you believe this has been a web series the whole time?

This has been a web series.

Katherine mcpee is on it, and she's not even the lead.

And she's not even the lead.

She's making a one episode guest appearance because they also use her song in this episode.

Oh my god, but no one knew or people did now.

No, it was like two days before it was like Catherine mcpee to guest star on Lonely Girl fifteen.

Okay, but once Catherine McPhee shows up arbitrarily, I've decided that's where I'm like, this can't be real.

So, yeah, the show, and it is a show I think it's aimed at a pretty young audience.

Ended it it is fake.

So do you have any questions?

If not, I will run through very quickly the rest of the plot and then we can discuss the storytelling and then I'll tell you how it all came to be.

Well, I'm was the curious, like people watching this, did they know it was fake at the time?

Yes, and no.

So some people knew, some people guessed from the beginning.

So a large part of the intrigue around it was people from the beginning trying to figure out if it was realer fake and what was reeler fake.

Yeah, the creators came forward in September and revealed that it was fake.

How long September?

How long has it been going on at this point.

Like three months?

Okay, so that is when they leave Breeze Bedroom.

Okay, So that's where it like really takes a turn narratively.

By the time where on the run from the order.

That is exactly when that happened.

The creators come forward, right.

Because they're no longer trying to dupe anyone.

So that's when it becomes cuckoo bananas because they're like, Okay, if we don't need to trick people anymore, we can make this like just more entertaining.

Watch and Katherine McPhee can appear.

And Katherine McFee can appear.

But also there are people who I think just like miss the memo, yeah, and are still just like, you know, if you're whatever in middle school and you like watching YouTube and you don't read the news, I think there are some people who are still watching who like don't know that it's fake, even after it is exposed as fake.

Yeah.

I tried to read the comments on videos throughout and it's unclear.

It's unclear.

I don't think anyone like truly, truly, truly believed all the way to the end.

But I think there are people who were like playing along pretty far into it.

Okay, they wanted to believe, they wanted.

To believe slash Like, I think for a lot of people it kind of doesn't matter.

And then I mean, this is a lot of stuff that like I think we should talk about later, Okay, But like I think for a lot of people, the line between reel and fake is unfortunately pretty blurry.

Okay, all right, So basically I'm just gonna like speed run the rest of it because there's far too much plot great the whole season one of Lonely Girl fifteen, because there are multiple seasons and there are spinoffs and it all comprises there's over five hundred videos.

Okay, I only watched about two hundred and fifty videos, Oh my God, which is longer run time than it's like freaking Godfather trilogy.

I watched season one, yeah, which takes place over the course of like a year in Change and Free lets herself get kidnapped by the Order to try to save this girl who's going to be the next like sacrifice.

She gets brainwashed, then she gets un brainwashed.

Daniel and Jonas meet up with these girls, Sarah and Taylor, who are just like fans from Texas.

I'm not a big Sarah into our fam honestly, are kind of found them annoying.

They find out that Jonas's parents were involved with the Order.

They might have been part of the Order, but they might have also been trying to fight the order.

So then they like meet up with his aunt Alex, who maybe hooks up with Daniel, and then Alex like betrays them, but maybe she had no choice.

It's very unclear.

Clearly people didn't like Alex, like a lot of negative comments about Alex.

Then they like meet up with the son of a murdered scientist to try to make more serum.

There's a lot more love triangles.

And where, so where does this end?

It ends with a big fight at the lab and they fail and bre dies.

No, yeah, the end of season No, this is all the seasons.

No, this end of season one.

Bree dies at the end of season one.

Bree dies at the end of season one, and then I guess the other seasons are about like trying to rescue other girls and kind of Daniel becomes the lead character Bree.

But yeah, Bree eyes.

Wow, Yeah, I did not.

This is all genuinely surprising to me.

Yes, so it really it really took a turn from the original concept.

And the first thing I want to say, like before we get into how it was made, is something you know, shoot me down common to Roddy.

I think on a storytelling level, I was really impressed.

I'm also genuinely impressed by YouTube is New that they figured out this kind of immersive, slow burned story telling that got people engaged in the puzzles and the secrets and the backgrounds of videos.

Yes, if you're like a sort of jaded jen alpha Netflix binge watcher and you were to watch these videos now, I think you would find them kind of corny.

But like, the character development is really well paced.

The friendships feel earned.

Oh there's a lot of foreshadowing and clues and mysteries that I did not pick up on, like I as an adult.

Yeah, Like a number of times Bree just slips in that she used to know this girl named Cassie, and it's in different contexts over different videos, so much that I didn't even clock that she kept using the same name.

And then finally I was like, Oh, she's setting up that, like this girl named Cassie is gonna be important.

Ah, there's like framed photos in the backgrounds of things that become important like six episodes later.

Storytelling, sometimes the puzzles and stuff will be that Like if you watch what looks just like a nonsense video made by the cult, it's like the first word of every sentence then makes a different sentence that is the clue.

And I'm like, that's like as good of a puzzle as you know you're gonna get in a two minute video.

Yeah, that's like a solid that's like a solid ass puzzle.

It's also solvable.

It's like a fun little easter ride.

You can you can do it.

And I really liked that it developed out of that.

It wasn't clickbait, that it wasn't like omg uh I was in a cult and then it like takes forever to get to the point.

Instead, it was like slow paced, slow burns.

Yeah, you get interested in this girl and her relationship with Daniel, and then the story takes off.

That's actually what I find most interesting that people organically were just interested in Brie as a person and like, hey, I'm homeschool, this is my life, and then the craziness seeps in slowly.

Yeah.

I think like I just made a list like Pretty Little Liars, kylex Y Dollhouse.

There were these ya books called Replica that I read a little bit of of, like Dark Angel alias Roswell.

It's all teenagers trying to figure out how to operate in an adult world.

At one point they have to like sneak into a hospital and like, how do you do that?

Then they get kicked out because like one of the the kid who's dressed up as a doctor, like steals a donut from the nurses station, and I'm saying, how they catch him?

I'm like, there's little you know.

This could have been a CW show.

It also sounds to me like a very creative Obviously it's visual, but I'm like, this is that sort of interesting structure.

I'm like, I want to read a novel that's kind of structured like that.

That's like a hidden burn novel.

It unfolds just like you could have this be diary entries from different people's diaries.

Yeah, instead of different people talking to the camera.

Interesting.

I'm inspired.

I want to write a new YA novel.

You should anyone who hasn't read Dana's three YA novels.

It's like a.

Duology and then you also have a Yeah, but the duology is the one I would recommends as an adult.

They're excellent.

Thank you, thank you very much, Lizzie.

So this is how Lomero fifteen came to be.

Yes, are there any like, are these filmmakers?

I mean, we'll get to it, but I want to know who made this and who wrote it.

I yes, we're gonna We're gonna find out.

So I mean named Miles Beckett was See, this is one of those things where like people who work in medicine are gonna be screaming in their cars correcting me about when you get the title of doctor.

He is a doctor, but he's not a doctor.

He has an MD, but he's still in his surgery rotation.

Like I don't I don't know when you get to call yourself a doctor, because I know, at some point you graduate from medical school, but you're not a doctor and then you have to go work at a hospital and then you do something something.

So he's a junior doctor.

Yeah, I guess I don't know this guy, Miles Beckett.

He has an MD and he's in a plastic surgery program at some hospital, but he is not yet a plastic surgeon.

Wow, and he had time to do this?

Well he drops out, Okay, Okay, he drops out, and he moves to Los Angeles and I think he sees like lazy Sunday on somebody's MySpace.

Yeah, and he sees YouTube and he's like, this YouTube thing is really interesting, and he starts seeing like early YouTubers just in their bedrooms talking to the camera.

At a birthday party, he meets like a friend of a friend of a friend, this guy Mesh Flinders, who is a screenwriter who was homeschooled and lived on a commune and had written I guess a screenplayer too.

He's got this character in his brain who's like a sheltered young girl who disappears.

And they're like, let's put these two ideas together, and they essentially write out sort of like all the story beats of like the first three months of Lonely Girl fifteen.

And they bring on one other person as a producer because they just want like legal advice.

This guy Greg Goodfried, who is I think he's like an entertainment lawyer.

He's a lawyer of some kind.

And Miles and Greg put together fifty thousand dollars, so pretty low budget, low budget through a very well known fundraising system here in LA called going into credit card debt.

So they just put all on credit cards.

They don't have any like backers sure, and they put auditions notices up on.

Craigslist classic, just old school.

This is seat of their pants.

It is two thousand and five ye two six, young nineteen year old actress named Jessica Lee Rose submits herself on Craigslist.

She has been on two auditions at this point, and she was homeschool look at that, so that helps.

And she's from New Zealand so basically nobody knows her.

Wow, but you can do an American.

Her American accent is flawless for her.

I would not know.

They told the actors that they were auditioning for an indie movie, which isn't quite a lie because the intention was to make some episodes and then sort of like use that almost as a proof of concept to get an indie movie made.

The ploting of it sounds like a movie, yeah, it sounds like it becomes sort of like a sci fi horror movie.

They also changed the plot.

But in any case, once they then they cast Jessica, the like they fall in love with her immediately.

Yeah.

But once they cast her then they're like, oh, so this is for online, and she's like, okay, cool, this is porn.

I do not want to do it, and they have to really talk her down.

They're like, no, no, it's legit.

She's like, what do you mean you want to film me in a bedroom and put it online.

They took down her MySpace because they really want to sell the idea that this is real and they get just get a bunch of stuff from Target and make over Mesh's bedroom to be breeze bedroom.

Great.

So this is truly very low budget.

That's his house, no budget.

They are very intentional about using like growth hacks to go viral.

They're like replying to every comment and it works.

They gain a lot of subscribers and followers very quickly.

They paid for Yusuf Abu Talib, who plays Daniel, and for Jessica to quit their jobs.

They were both like waiters so that they wouldn't be like spotted out in public because people are immediately trying to like hack them.

People are really I mean, it's like, you know, we talk about people being very online.

This is two thousand and six.

So if you are interested in the goings on on YouTube, you are you are a computer person.

You are a very online person.

You are very online.

Now everyone is online, but back then, if you were online, you were extremely You're og online.

Yeah, so it is not a stretch to say that these people need zero prompting to be like, I think I'm gonna try to hack Lonely Girl fifteen today.

I think that would be a fun afternoon.

Yeah, so everyone's trying to hack them immediately.

Everyone's trying to figure it out immediately.

There are online forums just like debating it and sharing theories.

They immediately figure out that like all of breeze furniture is like from Target, which like again, like you know, if you're homeschooled, maybe you do buy all your stuff from Target.

But again it is suspicious if it was all like purchased from recent Target, right.

Ye.

A funny side note is that one of the people who's very active in the online forums and one of the last people to accept that bree might be fake, is the YA author John Green.

Really yeah he was online at this time.

Oh yeah, he's like he is very online because he's very online now.

Yeah, he's just og online.

He's always been online.

Wow, he likes started VidCon.

Yeah yeah, wow, John Green cameo.

Indeed, the plan was to I think just sort of make the in her bedroom videos gain enough popularity, stop and then produce a movie that was going to be like on DVD that was like a Blair Witch style documentary of fans of Breeze looking for Brie.

Interesting, so that wouldn't even have bre in it, and that like maybe it would even like go to Sundance or something.

I mean, that's an interesting idea.

It is very creatively interesting.

But they realized that they were getting views, like way more than you would get distributing an indie movie.

Yes, they're like, let's keep the YouTube channel going because people are watching the YouTube channel.

Yeah, and like it's still true.

I mean, you know, it's one of those funny things where like you know, I've posted tiktoks or whatever, they get like ten million views, and it's like I could never get ten million people to watch.

You know, that's more than any I think episode of Succession has ever.

You know, like you can't get ten million people to watch an episode of television.

Those two things aren't comparable because thirty seconds and an episode of television are not the same thing.

But if your sole purpose is attention, yes, stay on YouTube, don't make a movie.

Yeah yeah.

Cheaper also cheaper, easier, quicker, no gatekeepers.

They already have the channel.

The entire point of YouTube was to make a website that non computer people could use to upload videos, and they are proof that.

Well, the entire point of YouTube was people so they could see Jenna Jackson's boob after the super Bowl, indeed.

But other than that, it's also this.

Yes, they realize that they need to like sort of expand the character of Breeze, so Greg's wife, because on email.

Okay, and you mean like if people are emailing in, she'll respond.

Yes, she'll respond as Brie.

And you know, they set up the forums and they are doing all of this to keep the world immersive.

People have described this as an arg which is an alternate reality game.

Okay, because there's like puzzles and games in it.

Yeah, an ergy honestly can be anything as simple as like an app that's also a scavenger hunt.

Yeah, like slender Man's kind of an ERG.

There's a lot of creepypasta ergs.

I'm gonna give a hot take.

I think that's a very internety way of putting it.

I think Lonely Girl fifteen is ultimately a web series.

Yeah, I completely agree.

I organically became an argy because the fans wanted it so bad and the creators gave them that material and gave them the puzzles and then would do like in universe shout outs to the people who solved the puzzles.

But ultimately, like.

It's a web series with fan engagement.

Yes, like it's not really playable.

Yeah, but I do think it's really smart, Like I do think it has ergy elements, and I do think it is really smart for someone to say, what if we didn't ergy?

But instead of it being about like a creepy demon, it's about a hawk girl.

Like, oh, the thing that people want to watch, which is a attractive young woman.

Yeah, sleuths are converging, So this is how they get caught.

And it's it's funny because there's no there isn't really like one way they get caught.

It's a lot of like different corners.

Like when you catch them in one little lie, that's a clue that triggers people to think of another way to catch them in another little lie.

Yeah, and they knew all along that they'd get caught eventually.

They kind of wanted to just see how many views they could get before it happened.

And that was really their play.

Yeah.

And I will also say once again people think they are so much smarter than they are, because there are there were so many people being like, you can tell they're using a professional lighting setup.

I work in Hollywood, and you can tell they're using Kleague lights.

And it's like they were using a very powerful desk lamp that was on top of a bookcase.

Yeah, they actually weren't.

They were.

They were using natural light, which is the most powerful light.

You know what I mean.

Like everyone thinks they're so freaking smart on the internet, Taylor Sweat for v you know.

Anyways, but here are here is the people who were smarter.

Yes, here is the people who were smart enough.

Three fans who just met in a chat room.

Fun, that's so cute.

That's I love that.

Three fans who met in a chat room decided to do like a little sting.

So they set up a fake MySpace profile from a fan named like Steve, and I guess my space had like zero security at the time.

So they embedded in this MySpace profile like an IP track, and they sent an email to quote unquote Brie.

Yeah, and they were like, pri I love you be my best friend.

Because people are other people who are reaching out debris thinking that she's real are like I'm lonely too, Like I'm homeschooled too, and I don't have any friends like cause again, Brie at this point has not left her bedroom.

Yeah, so a lot of people are reaching out just looking for connection.

Yeah, it's the internet.

People are wanting to friend her on MySpace.

And it's so again, the storytelling is really smart to make her a really relatable, really sympathetic protagonist who at one point Daniel says in an early video like, I think she just spends so much time on the internet because she's lonely.

And it's like, yeah, you know who else was watching YouTube in two thousand and six.

Lonely Paoble was.

Her handle, Lonely Girl fifteen.

Yeah, so I think, yeah, she.

Was so anyway, So this so Steve quote unquote emails Brie and is like, hey, like, do you want to be friends on MySpace?

Here's my MySpace and they track the IP address that clicks on it right before bre quote unquote Bree responds, yeah, and it pings at CIA, which is talent agency in Hollywood.

Now what's interesting is they take this to mean that, like bre is clearly some marketing stunt for like an upcoming horror movie because she's being represented by CIA.

Well I thought it was that guy's wife.

Yeah, it's she works at CIA.

So she's just checking email at work.

She works at CIA.

That's the funny.

Honestly, that's the best.

Yeah, she's not wrapped by CIA.

She just works there.

Yeah, she she's like I mean I and I.

That's not to say that they don't have Hollywood connections.

It's unclear to me if like the Only Girl fifteen project was ever in any official capacity represented by CIA.

But Amanda Goodfried, who portrayed bree Over Email, just she had she worked at CIA, so she was just checking.

She was checking Breeze email at work, and that's why it pined there.

That's amazing.

But in any case, that is enough evidence to say, well, whoever is being bree Over email is not a homeschooled girl.

It's somebody else, someone in Hollywood, someone.

In Hollywood, California.

So they send that tip to a guy at the LA Times.

So that is sort of like flag number one.

The trademark for Lonely Girl fifteen was filed by a lawyer before the first video was ever uploaded.

Also, not a thing Brie would know how to.

Do, not a thing that a teenage girl does.

Someone finds the old Cachet version of Jessica's MySpace page.

Yep.

So not only have they figured out that Breeze not a real person, they figured out who she actually.

Is, Jessica from New Zealand.

So in September, the creators come forward because they've been caught and they're like, well, we can't let them write that we're doing promo for a horror movie that doesn't exist.

They come forward and they're like, hey, we did this.

We're just experimenting with a new art form.

Yeah, there is no master plan.

We are not being funded by Sony or whatever.

Like.

People had all these wild theories about what it actually was.

And it was the simplest explanation, which is just two guys who are unemployed want to be filmmakers messing around.

Literally, it was like dudes in their twenties in La had an idea who among us mato web series, which now is the most commonplace thing on earth, But this is the first time it ever happened.

It's like the first two guys who got together were like, we could just do this, we could just put it on the internet.

They were the first ones to get together, these filmmakers in La being like, nothing's gonna stop us.

We could just make our video.

Do you have two hundred bucks?

We could buy our camera, Target run, we have to go to Best Buy.

I'm proud of them.

Yeah, they just did it, and just god, you know what.

Let them be an inspiration every creative out there who's like, gosh, make your art and put it out in the world.

Point being Yeah, Awkham's Razor.

It's just too It's just a couple friends.

I'm gonna say something crazy.

I'm pro lonely girl fifteen.

Now, Like literally I wrote at the end of my outline, I was like, good, good hopes, no notes.

Good hoax, innovative storytelling.

Got attention for their storytelling and filmmaking.

Yeah.

So they get some blowback from people who are disappointed.

Yeah whatever, But.

Upside is way bigger than the downside.

Because again this is September two thousand and six.

YouTube still really new.

They get attention, triples their views, they get attention from the mainstream news.

Yeah, they're like on ABC, NBC, blah blah blah.

Yeah.

The fact that it was a hoax brought more attention to it than otherwise.

Because now they can do interviews and stuff.

Now Bree can do interviews because like before she wouldn't.

She can't.

Like she had gotten offers to go on Tyra Banks, but she's like, I can go on Tyra Banks and stay in character the whole time.

But now she can, as Jessica, do interviews.

Yeah, the channel blows up.

They can finally do more interesting things with the plot.

They can leave, so this is what this is when they gave the bedroom and they can also take sponsors.

So they do some very awkward product placement with Icebreakers Sours, which is apparently the first sponsored video ever on YouTube.

Wow, this is very Truman show.

I met very Truman show where they just get in the car and it's like, do you want an Icebreaker Sours?

Oh my god, it's so sour.

They get a contract with nut Regina that apparently like pays for the whole next season.

They make money off of this.

Wow, they're actually being influential for good where they're like making creative content.

I kind of like it.

It does not diminish the enjoyment factor.

I don't think plenty of people still really like it and are engaging with it as if it's real, not in a delusional way, but in like like a lot of the comments are like you can't tell if it's real, and it kind of doesn't matter.

Like a lot of comments in the later videos are like, oh, Daniel's being so annoying here, why can't people just listen to each other where It's like that could be about the character or the real person and it doesn't really matter.

I will also say when people love any form of media, any art, even if they know it's fiction, like enough that people are like writing fan fiction or doing cosplay, like they engage with those characters like they're real.

Like people have said, you know, in like a series.

Let's say a book has gone on for like several series.

They're like, so and so would never do that, yeah, And it's like, well, actually they would because the author wrote them doing that.

Like you know, Star Wars people are like, oh, Luke Skywalker would never do that, and it's like, well, he's not a real person.

I mean, he's really the meme but.

Is reel to Freddie Prince Junior, I can't even.

A lot of the comments also are very funny in that they are like, you know, the classic thing of like make up an imaginary person to get mad at.

Yeah, a lot of.

The comments on these post reveal videos are people being like, I can't believe anybody ever thought this was real, where it's like, I don't who is yelling at you?

You know, why do you care?

Who is talking?

Who?

Who are you mad at?

And then other people being like I know it's fake, just let me enjoy it, and it's like, who's not letting you enjoy it?

Who are you mad at?

Who are you talking to?

But you know what the first one the guys who are like I can't believe anyone thought this was real.

That's them getting to do people's favorite thing on the internet, which is get to feel smarter than an imaginary person.

It's very strange.

I will also point out that like even when people no they know that it's fake, it doesn't matter.

People sent death threats to the boy who played the other brother on the Summer I Turn Pretty, which is like never was real because they didn't like because they thought that she should have been with the first bread.

Like I think people also were like that to the boy played Jeoffrey in Thrones.

It's like he's an actor.

It's just a little boy.

Not a little boy, he's an adult man.

But but like, he's just a person, Geoffrey's not.

All those people that he raped and murdered are unraped and alive.

And alive, crucially alive.

Did any of these people go on to have other careers?

That is exactly the next thing that we're going to talk about.

Jessica went on to have a role on that show Greek.

Oh yeah, Kathy, I remember Cappy.

Yeah, that's not who she plays, but she she didn't play the boy named Kathy.

And then this is a reference that will maybe resonate with two or three listeners, But for those two or three listeners, it's going to fucking resonate.

Do you remember Sean from the first season of Once Upon a Time?

I do.

She's married to him.

Wow.

Yeah, And I think they moved back to New Zealand.

Oh my god, good for them.

And they have kids, and I think they seem very happy.

And she remembers the only girl fifteen fondly good.

That makes me happy.

I'm glad she didn't feel exploited.

No, I think she was like, yep, that was cool, and she only did it for the one season and she's like, good times.

I liked being breathed.

Great, you said, who played Daniel stayed on the show?

Yep, something else that I thought was very smart in how they made the show and selling the realism of it.

And I want to This is going to sound a little backhanded, but I just I want to say it because we've talked about Breed being very cute and how they were smart to put a cute girl as the face of this.

Daniel is not that cute.

He looks like a real person.

He looks like a real person that if you were to show me these two people, I wouldn't immediately say, oh, they come straight from the la actor community.

And then when you meet Jonas, Jonas is quite hot.

But I think it really helps sell it that the first two people you meet, you're like, A, I buy that he would have a crush on her and she would maybe not reciprocate, and B I just believe that they're real people because he keeps say being like, oh, she's so pretty, She's so pretty, and like he's not ugly.

I'm not calling him ugly, but it's just like, I, you know, you can tell his teeth haven't been straightened.

Like I just I think it's really smart that.

I just think it's really smart casting and really helps sell the reality that these are bored suburbanites, that they don't look like Abercrommie models.

I love it.

I think that's great.

I think more actors should look like normal people.

I love watching a movie or a TV show and the actors have regular faces and that I mean, that's so genuinely.

I think that like sounded sarcastic as I said it.

Yeah, I like a Coen Brothers movie where like background actors have interesting faces.

Absolutely, it's why Adam Driver is so fun to watch.

He looks like a person.

He does look like a person, all right.

Mesh is still doing screenwriting and he's a social media consultant.

I mean, yes, you can look him up onto that MDB.

He doesn't have anything, but he you know, he's out there trying.

Greg and Miles worked together for a while.

They had like a digital production company and then they sold it.

Miles now he co founded Flossy.

Why does that sound familiar?

It's an AI startup for dentists.

No, that shouldn't sound familiar.

And Dana, I don't know what that means, why no, No, I don't know what an AI startup for dentists means, and I and I and I don't know what that means.

But he does.

Is this another hoax?

He has he done another hope?

I don't know.

Okay.

I looked at the website and it was purple and had some stock images of dentists AI.

It started up for dentists.

It's an AI start up for dentists, all right.

So it seems like he sort of pivoted away from the creative writing and more towards the techie side.

They Oh, yeah, yeah, they they stuck with they're doing innovation.

Okay, Greg like really stuck with being sort of a digital pioneer.

He worked at UTA for a bit and now he's head of like the Demilio's management company.

Oh so he knows how to do YouTube influenter.

He knows how to do YouTube and social media influencers.

So he's like still sort of a power player in online personalities and he's quite successful.

Good for him.

I mean, that does seem kind of like the most natural, unless it's like, oh, they still make indie sci fi movies.

Other than that, this feels like the most natural leap.

Yeah, apparently they took meetings with like all the studios when Lonely Girl fifteen was popping off.

I think they truly were just to ahead of their time.

They didn't know, like you know, Broad City just was like they just turned what that web series was into a show.

Yeah, High Maintenance just turned what that web series was into a show.

Studios.

I don't know if they failed to pitch it correctly or that studios didn't realize that you could turn a web series into a show, because this feels.

Like it would be a great TV show.

You could one hundred percent have turned Lonely Girl fifteen into a show, remake it with a better writing and a budget.

It would be a show.

Start with the girl in her bedroom.

Yeah, there's I can think of like some modern day sort of like parallels, other things we could talk about, but you know, not have to.

Well what what are the parallels?

So people are still looking for proof that whatever narrative you're selling online isn't real.

So at one end you've got like free Brittany sure, and you've got like, oh, look at the shadows, she's not really on vacation.

Blah blah, blah.

There was a movie called sick House that was released on Snapchat.

It was like a horror the Snapchat horror movie.

Yeah, real shorts is the new like everyone in Hollywood's talking about like writing for verticals, which is like the new thing.

Remember Quibi Quibi.

I think Lonely Girl fifteen is like better written than all.

Of the original quibi.

So, Dana, I don't think we would ever make a movie of this hoax because I think if you want the movie of this hoax, you should just go watch some Lonely Girl video.

I actually wish they did make like a TV show of it, though, Yeah, I think that would have been really entertaining, But I guess it already exists, and you know what, good hoax.

I'm pro this hoax.

I am also pro Lonely Girl fifteen.

Like it hurt no one, it entertained people.

Everybody, everybody who now has ever Like, genuinely, if you've ever gotten a meeting from a thing that you put on YouTube, you owe twenty cents to Lonely Girl fifteen.

Now how I got my book agent?

This is a true story parody Twitter account.

Indeed that we discussed on the ern Malley episode I'm back and listen.

Anonymous parody Twitter account got me a book agent, So thank you Lonely Girl fifteen.

Thank you Lonely Girl fifteen.

Data Besides your anonymous parody Twitter account, where can the people find you?

Uh?

Find me on Instagram and sometimes TikTok Danas Schwartz with three z's at the end, or you can email us at hoaxthpodcast at gmail dot com.

I do read those emails.

And you can also find us on Instagram and at hooks the podcast on Instagram.

It's not a hoax, that is really our Instagram.

As always, please hoax responsibly.

Bye.

Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

Our hosts are Danish Schortz and Lizzie Logan.

Our executive producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L.

K Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk.

Our theme music was composed by Lane Montgomery.

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening.