It was recently revealed (confirmed?) that the popular online video diaries of LonelyGirl15 were not authentic, but a publicity stunt of entertainment folks linked to Hollywood talent agency CAA. Today, the real identity of LonelyGirl15 has also been revealed, mostly through some simple amateur data-mining posted at LG15.com:
I was surfing the article on Lonelygirl15 on TMZ.com when I came across a comment that linked to a private MySpace page that was allegedly that of the actress who plays Lonelygirl15. As the profile was set to “private,” there was no real info one could glean from the page. However, when I queried Google for that particular MySpace user name, “jeessss426,” I found a Google cache from the page a few months ago when it was still public.A lot of the details of the girl’s background clicked for me: She was an actress from a small city in New Zealand who had moved to Burbank recently to act. The name on the profile was “Jessica Rose.” When next I happened to query Google image search for “Jessica Rose New Zealand” I was instantly rewarded with two cached thumbnail photos of Lonelygirl15, a.k.a. Jessica Rose, from a New Zealand talent agency that had since removed the full size versions. A later search on Yahoo on “jeessss426” also turned up a whole load of pictures from her probably forgotten ImageShack account.
[via BoingBoing]
UPDATE: The New York Times has more here.
MichaelZimmer.org 