The Tolstoy Prinicple (and Dad Talks To Daniel) (July 29, 2006)www.youtube.com/watch?v=06_mNdOrxkcMesh's online debut! The first Creator to play Bree's dad.
Views on youtube as of Aug 29, 2006: 206,101
Current youtube views: 440,868
LGPedia says: * In Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond calls this phenomenon the "Anna Karenina Principle," not the "Tolstoy Principle." Leo Tolstoy was the author of Anna Karenina, but it is unclear why Bree doesn't use Diamond's name. Perhaps the Creators simply got mixed up.
* How Bree got the lab coat is a bit of a mystery. When we see Bree's dad enter the room at the beginning of the video, he is holding a lab coat in his hand, but he leaves without giving it to Bree. However, in the next clip, Bree is seen wearing a lab coat, which is probably her dad's.
* Bree's father does not appear to be wearing a wedding ring.
Extra note:
As the earlier comments to this video notes, when this vid appeared on revver -- the music changed!!
YouTube version: Office Suite Part I by The Matthew Show
Revver version: The Bandit by Starlight Mints
ETA: This video was also the first video to follow Virginia Heffernan's first mention of (and the beginning of her obession with) lonelygirl15 on her blog.
screens.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/a-single-camera-dramedy-just-in-time-for-the-fall-season/"Will someone in Broadband Hollywood just give lonelygirl15 — and, all right, her producer and sidekick danielbeast — their own show already?
In her videos, she perfects the emo girl-in-her-room pose, balancing playful and moody as she muses about her life and times. She has huge online fame; repressive, religious parents who probably know nothing about YouTube; and a sibling-ish love affair with her video editor. What could be more 2006? Obviously the implication from the stills that promote her videos is that she’s going to strip, but she never does, and she controls that shell game by being sweetly deaf to innuendo.
One of her critics — a guy
[milo: this is gohepcat] who thinks she’s a fake in part because she’s lighted too beautifully — says her life so far is “almost Shakespearean in the way it played out.” And that cowboy-hatted critic is appealing too! (Of course, she also has her share of protectors. Warning: plenty of cussing ahead.) So it’s time to get “lonelygirl15,” the full-on series, going. Invite the parodists and critics to round out the cast, give some play to the idea that she’s a fake, and create a perfect “My So-Called Life” for the MySpace hordes.
MTV Overdrive, I’m talking to you. (And while we’re at it, MTV, get your broadband channel to work on a Mac NOW.)
I noted this comment on VH's blog:Congrats bree… about damned time some press gave her recognition. Awesome Entertainment here!
Damien
House of Jigsaw Media
— Posted by Damien Estreich
[Milo adds: Damien Estreich later founded yourtube news, and now is a youtube employee as a community advocate.]
and here's a comment from corcaroli (a former cove contributor) to VH's same blog on Aug 3:After watching all the lonelygirl15 videos in order, I’m sure that the love story (at least) was crafted for our entertainment. The rest of the details (her age, her homeschooling, her reading of Feynman, etc.) may or may not be true.
When she and danielbeast do come clean, or when someone exposes them, I’ll be very interested to learn who they really are, and who wrote the scripts. I do hope it’s just the two of them who thought the whole thing up and pulled it off, because it’s really quite a cute story. And if it *was* just the two of them, well — that’s almost as cute as the story they made up.
— Posted by corcaroli
