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In the summer of 2006, a teenage girl began posting video diaries to a then-new site called YouTube under the handle lonelygirl15. Within weeks she was a phenomenon—even though no one knew the truth of who she really was. The frenzied quest to change that, to solve the mystery of lonelygirl15, would ultimately land her on the front page of newspapers and the covers of magazines. Twenty years on, lonelygirl15 is both an artifact of an earlier online era and an origin point for the internet as we know it: a place full of video diaries, parasocial relationships, influencers, hyper-engaged fandoms, and the knowledge that you can’t always believe your eyes.
In this episode, you’ll hear from some of the people who investigated lonelygirl15 way back in 2006: culture critic Virginia Heffernan, who writes the Substack Magic + Loss and co-hosts the podcast Omnishambles; entertainment journalist Richard Rushfield of The Ankler; producer Jenni Powell; and one-time cybersleuth Chris Patterson. We also speak with the people involved in making lonelygirl15: Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Jessica Rose Phillipps, and Amanda Goodfried.
This episode was written by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s Supervising Producer. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director.
Thank you to Greg Goodfried, Matt Foremski, and Tom Foremski. Special thanks to Ryan Broderick and Grant Irving of the podcast Panic World, who introduced Willa to the lonelygirl15 story on a recent episode of their show and suggested it might make a good topic for Decoder Ring.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.
Sources for This Episode
Cresci, Elena. “Lonelygirl15: how one mysterious vlogger changed the internet,” The Guardian, June 16, 2006.
Davis, Joshua. “The Secret World of Lonelygirl,” WIRED, Dec. 2006.
Falconer, Ellen. “An oral history of lonelygirl15,” RNZ, June 16, 2016.
Flemming, Brian. “Arguments for a real LG15 fall short,” Brian Flemming's Weblog, Aug. 25, 2006.
Foremski, Matt and Tom Foremski. “SVW Exclusive: The identity of LonelyGirl15,” Silicon Valley Watcher, Sep. 11, 2006.
Foremski, Tom. “How the secret identity of LonelyGirl15 was found,” Silicon Valley Watcher, Sep. 12, 2006.
Foremski, Tom. “The Hunt for LonelyGirl15: Life in a blogger household…,” Silicon Valley Watcher, Sep. 12, 2006.
Glaister, Dan. “Cult blog a fake, admit 'lonelygirl' creators,” The Guardian, Sep. 9, 2006.
Heffernan, Virginia and Tom Zeller Jr. “The Lonelygirl That Really Wasn’t,” New York Times, Sep. 13, 2006.
Heffernan, Virginia. “A Pause for Some Words From Bree,” New York Times, Aug. 23, 2006.
Heffernan, Virginia. “Sweet, Weird, Fraud or Other,” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2006.
“lonelygirl15 and when lies could be fun,” Panic World, Feb. 4, 2026.
“Lonely Girl And All Her Friends,” On the Media, Sep. 1, 2006.
Nudd, Tim. “Lonelygirl15 still a mystery, for now,” ADWEEK, Sep. 1, 2006.
Rushfield, Richard and Claire Hoffman. “Lonelygirl15 Video Blog Is Brainchild of 3 Filmmakers,” Los Angeles Times, Sep. 13, 2006.
Rushfield, Richard and Claire Hoffman. “Mystery Fuels Huge Popularity of Web’s Lonelygirl15,” Los Angeles Times, Sep. 8, 2006.
Wendt, Milo A. “LonelyGirl15: It's Not So Lonely In The Bay Area,” milowent, Aug. 30, 2006.
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