Top 5, Bottom 5

[jayhenry]

The best and worst of lonelyworld with a brief explanation. I'll start with the worst, so we can end on a happy note.

100) I Lied To Daniel -- the video that revealed that we'd spent the last month building to... nothing. The plot has never recovered.

99) Motel Pool -- introduced the bombs that the Order controls the LAPD, the Watchers are stalking Bree and Daniel, and Bree responds by talking about Owen in the Olympics, her descent into stuffed animal insanity intensifies.

98) Horrid Flatmates -- Gemma at her most pointless. Bree is missing on the streets of LA and Gemma responds with a whiny story about her roommate not emptying the dishwasher.

97) My Names Is Jonas -- OMG, shut up. No wifebeater can compensate for this inane monologue.

96) Bree The Cookie Monster -- The beginning of the clues for no reason. What possible reason did Bree have for secretly giving us the date of a (fake) ceremony? The absurdity, and loss of the original premise of the show, begins. Has this been an isolated stupid blip, this would be a good vid, but because nonsense "clues" have become standard, this video takes the plunge for inaugurating the trend.

But, on the other hand:

5) My First Kiss -- all the awkwardness of a reluctant teen romance with Bree demonstrating on Thor the way Daniel went in for the kill.

4) Daniel The Neanderthal -- "Shhh! Cavemen didn't have the tool of language" and "Here at Proving Science Wrong we're all about asking the tough questions." 'Nuff said.

3) My Lazy Eye... and P. Monkey Gets Funky! -- The scripted confessional-style vlog at its finest. A smooth metaphor, the silly but fun puppet use, and those killer brown eyes.

2) My Parents... Let Us Go Hiking!!! -- cool music and slick editing introduces us to YouTube's greatest love affair without a word of dialogue.

1) Proving Science Wrong! -- the original PSW did so much with so little. Clever editing. Bree as the ultimate science nerd girl. Teasing Daniel as he plays with the camera (remember when Daniel was the film genius behind the show?). No cults within a mile of this.

[hyemew]

This is an amazing list with great captions. I think for some of the awful ones we should judge them by their individual content, what they led to. For example, at the time I rather liked Bree the Cookie Monster. In retrospect the whole 10-12-06 leading to the Ceremony which ended up sucking so they pretended it wasn't the real Ceremony of course REALLY sucked, but we can't necesarilly fault the video itself for that.
Same with Motel Pool. It's not terrible on its own, I mean bad but not terrible. I think My Name is Jonas belongs at number 100, with probably all his other ones from 99 down, and then most of Gemmas and then we can begin with the Bree/Daniel videos, but I guess that wouldn't make for a very interesting list.
Whatever the case, your captions for the 5 worst were hilarious.

Ughh I'm watching the top 5 and getting so nostalgic. I wouldn't put the original PSW in the top slot, I mean it was kind of slow and boring with all the staring... of course that's on purpose, but this was obviously not the best PSW. But WHY CAN'T THEY GO BACK TO THIS?! IT WAS SO MUCH MORE AMAZING. Ughh I can't watch this anymore or I might start crying at how great it USED to be.
Anyway I think putting this in first place is another example of lauding/hating something for its after-effects. The PSW are the best episodes for certain, but the first one is not the best of them by a longshot. We shouldn't give it first place as a way of paying tribute to all the PSWs.
The let us go hiking was the first one I ever saw, and one of the best. It's beautiful. Not second place but definitely top 5. Lazy Eye, a clear classic, so eep and profound, it is definitely one of my top 2. Daniel the Neanderthal... that I dare say is my favorite ever. Their use of odd props (the fish!), the amazing as-you-point-out quote about language which was delivered just so perfectly, this video is flawless! I think it was the first one more or less that I watched after seeing the hiking episode and wondering what this was all about. Due to it being so perfect, it made me thinking right from the beginning it was a project being done by college kids, but I loved it! Amazing!
My First Kiss, that was a great one, though not in my top 5. By the time it came along, the golden age had already passed, I'd stick some others from earlier on before it, but it did get my most enthusiastic reaction when Bree said the name "Thor" (which of course was suggested by dr and so I suggested it to the Creators. The fact they used it drove me crazy, I think I actually skipped class I was so excited.)

[milowent]

great thread, i'll have to think this one over . . . so many choices. . . .

EDIT:

my personal top 5 of the moment, these things are always so subjective:

5. On The Run Of all the post-bree's bedroom videos, I liked this one the best, and I felt bad if I completely excluded the last 2 months from this list, since I'm still watching the show. At 4:11, it still kept my attention. While perhaps a questionable choice with all the good videos, I will say that, for me, it surpasses the two videos not in my top 5 that jayhenry put in his.

4. Proving Science Wrong... with Lonelybeast and Danielgirl15 I always thought this spoof was funny. The first time Daniel gets to do something interesting. And recent youtube commenters still have it right: ZycoZee (4 days ago): Damn Shes Hot.

3. My Parents ... Let Us Go Hiking. One of the 1st videos I remember watching, I prefer it to swimming because Daniel's love for Bree seems a bit more innocent. It still garners youtube comments: walkeg (3 weeks ago): i still wish this was real... that would have made it truly beautiful. I actually pictured Daniel editing this way back when.

2. My First Kiss The last time actual teenage problems were Bree's problems.

1. My Lazy Eye (and P. Monkey gets Funky!) Nostalgia helps makes this a top choice. The religion plot is subtly advanced, but its also the perfect teen vlog, really. Poor Pluto tried to replicate this magic, just not as perfectly.

Random Honorable mentions: Poor Pluto, Proving Longitude Wrong, Swimming, Jonas? . .. .

[morninglory]

I cannot sift through all of them to give a top 5 and a worst 5 because i'm tooo impatient...all I know is that my favorite was definitely the swimming one. That music was perfect, and I'm big on music. I think that's one of the stronger points of LG15, as a whole. The editing wasn't bad either.

[curiousgeorge]

Gotta Head to work, so I will come back later and edit.

Favorite:
A Peace Offering (and P. Monkey Boogies)
Just loved every minute of this one. Geeky historical references, Ginkgo branches, excellent editing, silly Bree and P. Monk antics, sweet outreach to DB, and my favorite song from the series. Simply outstanding!

Worst
I Lied To Daniel
And that particular line in general. It was just so out of character and well, you know, the beginning of all that is just so wrong with the series now.

[hyemew]

My favorite part of A Peace Offering (and P. Monkey Boogies) was the title... the way we toyed with it for so long after before the Order crap by making up possible episode names. Ex. "Dad hunts Daniel down and murders him in a fit of brutal rage before leaving his head on my computer for me to see when I wake up in the morning... and P. Monkey Boogies!")

[jayhenry]

hyemew said:

Anyway I think putting this in first place is another example of lauding/hating something for its after-effects. The PSW are the best episodes for certain, but the first one is not the best of them by a longshot. We shouldn't give it first place as a way of paying tribute to all the PSWs.

Yeah, I hear ya. But I intended my list as more of a "greatest episodes." And just like when you make a list of "greatest presidents" you have to consider the video in its historical context -- at least that was my approach.

But also, I really like this first one. It's so dorky. The editing at the beginning is both 1) clever and 2) something a teen could come up with.

As Milo said, these things are so subjective (and I didn't intend for my list to speak for anyone but myself).

You need to do yours, Hye. From your comments:
4) Hiking?
3) ?
2) My Lazy Eye
1) Daniel The Neanderthal

[wilycoyote100]

Morninglory: That music was perfect, and I'm big on music.

TTWROOMM: (New blog designation....) I've long felt that the value of the music in the series has been underappreciated. Sometimes (IMHO) it carried the vlog.

[hyemew]

Hiking might be 3 for me. I have a bunch of papers going on so I can't decide now, but yeah. I'm watching Hiking again now... the nostalgia for something which only happened a few months ago is intense. It was the first I saw, so before I knew anything about it or had a reason to think it was fake (of course that reason arrived around the second video I watched hehheh)... I remember watching it and thinking it was so cool, there's something about the beginning just seeing them sitting in the room, and then the fooling around in the beautiful scenery... you just wished that it was real. I'm attaching too much meaning to a simple vlog I'm sure, but am I? They just seemed like two of the neatest kids in the world when I watch that one, and still do if I can forget about all the mess that happened later.
There have always been certain people who, for whatever reason, something about them was inherently cool to me. No, it's not the typical "cool" people, you know, ones who think and know that they are, but ones like them that just have awesome life experiences or just seem to exude some quality that is so... I don't know comforting? I don't even know how to describe it so it's useless to, but the two characters in Hiking, without knowing anything else about them, just exude it. That is what drew me to them immediately. Getting to know them from their other vlogs like the PSW only confirmed what I picked up from the Hiking episode, and that is why I loved LG15 so much. I just wish there was a way to recapture it.

I think I still watch because I secretly wish that one day all the mess that has built up over the past few months would just wash away and suddenly Bree would appear back in her room, talking about her homework and Antarctica again. I think the Creators are missing out on how endearing not really doing much of anything truly was, instead cluttering Bree's world up with this extreme 'life on the streets' drama. But guess what, it wasn't that which got my Lazy Eye up to 1 million views, now was it?

[morninglory]

TTWROOMM: (New blog designation....) I've long felt that the value of the music in the series has been underappreciated. Sometimes (IMHO) it carried the vlog.

I agree. I don't think people realize that sometimes when they react well to a video, it's often to the one where the music matches the mood the best. Ie: On the Run.

[wixy15]

I think it is very telling that everyone has perfer's the video's before they came out. What does this tell us? I have my own views, and as probably know I no longer watch, as I felt the video's became less and less enjoyable after they came out. As I have said before, they forgot their original audience in pursuit of the mainstream.

[hyemew]

For me, it's not that episodes were better because they were mysterious (though it didn't hurt). I mean if I was under the impression throughout that they were just regular kids filming their life, then I definitely would have thought it was awesome and it would have lost a degree of coolness after they were revealed... however from the beginning I knew it had to be kids doing a project and never watched it with the impression it was definitely just two kids.
While it was more fun not knowing who those likely actors (and the others) behind the series were and getting to imagine was fun, for me personally the reveal played only a small part in it going downhill. If they were still making videos like they did before the reveal I would still like it almost as much. The reveal leading to the end of the investigation cannot be overlooked either though, a lot of the fun of the series did lessen from that. Though as I said I loved those early videos before there was an investigation and even though I thought they were likely actors. It's more the subject matter as of late that has caused me to lose interest than anything else. I still watch though.

[wixy15]

Hye, you have misunderstood, or I have articulated poorly, why I finished watching LG. I wasn't heavily involved with any of the sleathing, nor was I a major player in analysing the secret meanings and hidden clues in the videos, however I did add my thoughts here and there and enjoyed reading others thoughts and trying to piece the whole thing together.

There was 2 parts to it, a) proving it was fake and b) working out what was actually happening. i.e. What religion did she practice? What was happening with her parents? What was the ceremony?

I continued to watch after they came out as I thought they would continue in the same manner, however I was dissapointed that they seemed to start again. We lost the Bree that made us love her, there were clues annd threads of the plot that were not followed up, and I felt that they started to worry about making everyone happy all of the time.

They have now furthered the fan interaction, fine, but what was wrong with the way it was before? It was subtle, but it was still present.

And on my favourite video, it has to be the swimming one simply because Bree came out with the best, most innocent, and enduring question ever. 'Where even are we?'

[hyemew]

I wasn't really describing you or any individual fan in my analysis, I was relaying my own feelings and why I think the majority of old fans were turned off to it. The Bree pre-reveal is much different to the post-reveal one. I don't know if that has anything to do with the reveal, probably not, but they definitely took LG in a far different and far less interesting direction, clogging it up with all this cult-chasing nonsense.
I totally agree that a major problem might be " that they started to worry about making everyone happy all of the time."
I noticed that after the reveal and the main page phorum became flodded with new fans and Cassholes, they tried to tailor LG to fit what they thought most fans wanted. In fact, they didn't change it to what "most fans" wanted but what they preceived to be "most fans" based on the vocal minority at the message board. Now I could be wrong, and they might have had that in mind to happen all along and always had something like that in mind, but personally I don't think so.