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I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
Sep. 14th, 2006 10:11 pmWhen I read about the whole lonelygirl15's video blog on YouTube is a fake scandal, I thought... meh. So some filmmakers had made a work of fiction, and passed it off as real. Big deal.
The Max Barry went and wrote something all insightful about the difference between fiction and marketing:
lonelygirl15 didn’t succeed because it told a compelling story. It succeeded because people thought it was real. Without the deception, there’s nothing special. The filmmakers knew this; they went to a lot of trouble to keep up the pretense, to the extent of posting personal replies, as Bree, to people who wrote in. They built fake relationships with fans.
...
This is what makes it marketing, not storytelling. Storytelling doesn’t abuse its audience. Without the bit at the start that says, “This is made up,” it’s not storytelling; it’s just lying.
The Max Barry went and wrote something all insightful about the difference between fiction and marketing:
lonelygirl15 didn’t succeed because it told a compelling story. It succeeded because people thought it was real. Without the deception, there’s nothing special. The filmmakers knew this; they went to a lot of trouble to keep up the pretense, to the extent of posting personal replies, as Bree, to people who wrote in. They built fake relationships with fans.
...
This is what makes it marketing, not storytelling. Storytelling doesn’t abuse its audience. Without the bit at the start that says, “This is made up,” it’s not storytelling; it’s just lying.
