The Creators Speak On Matters Yousef

[milowent]

lonelygirl15.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2837
(its posted in at least 3 places at the phorum, including in the forum announcements section with the title "Yousef is NOT being fired." There has to be a BIT more to this story, methinks.)

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 4:01 pm

Dear Fans,

Tensions have been high in the Lonelygirl15 world. We would like to clarify a few things that have recently come up. First off, Yousef Abu-Taleb is NOT being fired from the show. The character of Daniel is still very much a part of Lonelygirl15. Secondly, we have NOT "gone corporate." To the contrary, we are almost completely out of money. We are still financing Lonelygirl15 out of personal savings and maxed out credit cards. The little money that we do have goes to pay for the actors and the few items needed to film the videos (P. Monkey eats a lot of bananas). Why are we still doing this? For you. We care as much about this show and this new medium as you do, and we are doing our best to keep it going. You might see some banner ads and Google AdSense popping up. We're gonna make some T-Shirts. We'll also be producing some DVD's. All we want to do is create a FANTASTIC show to entertain you.

Thank you for watching!

Miles, Mesh, Greg, Amanda, Vanessa, Jessica, Yousef, Jackie, Kevin

[mku77]

What the hell is going on??
Apologies to Greg et al if its true, But what the hell"""""Iwas pissed off at the time,
EDITS POST AT THE PHORUM

[lesbrent]

I'd say there is A LOT more to the story.

Confusing....

[trash180]

Wha?
Oh...all will be revealed in the dvd's commentary track...

[lesbrent]

trash180 said:

Wha?
Oh...all will be revealed in the dvd's commentary track...

"Oh yes ....do you remember the time when I got mad at Yousef and told him to start looking elsewhere for a job and the fans got all bent out of shape about it..."

[mku77]

24 Hours is a long time in LA, Repcon ing at its very best,

"So we fell out ,then fell in and then fell out and then fell in....."
"But honey now I want a divorce"
"No I want the divorce"
"Ahh But I ASKED First"
"No you didnt"
"Yes I DID"
"Look lets forget we had this arguement,even tho the whole Neighbourhood heard us"
"OK Then,I love you"
"I love you too"


Jay,Me To
God I feel so alive,That was fun, so much fun being back on the old Phorum ...now its beer time !

[lesbrent]

Now on the Phorum, we have the "I believed the creators all along" folks .....

*sigh*. adrenaline let-down time

I hope we do get some explanation for yousef's blog though. (And I would believe him over anyone else because he has just been such a great person)

[milowent]

jayhenry said:

I gotta say, getting all fired up and changing my avatar and posting at the phorum was the most fun I've had with LG15 in weeks.

Yeah, it was amazing to see all these save yousef avatars all over the place. A bit of a turn of events to see some of the new generation of phorum die-hards (some of these guys have 2000+ posts, no joke--short or not, that a freakin' lot of lg15 text) defending the Creators against an old guard of first generation phorumites.

lesbrent said:

Now on the Phorum, we have the "I believed the creators all along" folks .....

*sigh*. adrenaline let-down time

I hope we do get some explanation for yousef's blog though. (And I would believe him over anyone else because he has just been such a great person)

i'm sure there is an explanation. it may be wiser for yousef and the creators to just smooth things over and move on than air it all publicly, though.

[mku77]

Excuse me for saying this but the people on the Phorum would say that,wouldnt they,
Its a load of old bollocks,,
TRANSLATION
www.poisonedminds.com/Flash/English/English.html

[Joss]

Well... I don't think Yousef would fake this.. So.. Either both LG15.com and Yousef's myspace have been vandalised.. Or there was a inmediate change of mind from the creators since the fan's reactions.

Both things could be.. And I don't know what or who to believe anymore.. Surprinsingly enough while all this has been going on no video has been produced.. Not even a Gemmer's vid.

So.. Folks.. We got a mistery here.. But there is a mistery to this mistery.. Since we can't be sure of anything.. Could be this a marketing strategy to sell DVD's and T-Shirts?

Why this kind of things only happen to LG15?

[noasinger]

Mistakes get made, lessons get learned, everyone moves on.

That's the happy ending.

[wednesday]

At least they sound like real, normal human beings in this message. I'd rather hear 'we're fu&*ing going broke here people', then the marketing handbook crap they've been feeding us lately. I'm all for them making money off of art, but there's no reason why they should treat their audience like children. Even if some of them are. In any case, no matter what caused all of the weirdness (it was kind of fun, wasn't it) maybe those folks will realize that we would support them if they would be upfront with us...or at least human.

I'd pay to see Daniel in a guest spot on NoHo/WeHo...but I guess that would send money in the NoHo/WeHo direction, so I guess that wouldn't help the creators out at all.

[milowent]

Seeing the fan backlash last night and today was truly amazing. Why do we care so much? But we do.

I just went by the LGpedia to see that TWJaniak has earned his non-existent paycheck ("Do you accept Breedollars?" "How about a nice t-shirt?") today dealing with much mischief, most of which seemed to come from one anonymous person:

- a "Fired People" category got created. (Grant was in it, as was 'cassie is watching', i'm sure Yousef was too.)

the ciw entry had, for a short time:
"It is also possible that the people who created cassieiswatching were fired just like [[Yousef]] and [[Bukanator]]. The Creators have fired both people on bad terms."

- the "notable fans" entry included this:
"Many notable fans protested the [[Firing of Yousef]], but it is not clear if [[The Creators]] will listen to their fans. They probably don't care."

- the "Daniel" entry included:
"Daniel's character will probably be killed or disappear because of the [[Firing of Yousef]]. almost all fans want danielbeast to stay on the show."

- Numerous flame articles were created, all now are deleted (existence but not text is tracked by the "recent changes" page of the lgpedia):
- "Anti-Arab Discrimination"
- "CORPORATE Lonelygirl sucks"
- "Recruitment Email"
- "Keep Yousef"
- "Annoying Email"
- "Advertising"
- "Firing People"
- "Firing Yousef"

As of right now, the Talk:Miles Beckett includes:
"Did Miles Beckett fire Yousef? I think so. If we find out, it should be added to his page. This was a very mean decision. Yousef is much more popular than Miles."

And Talk:Mesh Flinders includes:
"i think the show will be bad if you write that Danielbeast will be killed because you want to fire yosuef. why is everyone you fire mad at you? why do you not treat people nice?"

Talk:Yousef Abu Taleb includes:
"Meghorn Saaaaaayz: <no>I lOve dEm</nowiki>

I'm sooooooooooo mad about Yousef. I just had to come post on the wikipedia and make sure they tell the truth about how he is being fired and i think it's bullshit. i hope that everybody reads this and decides to keep yousef, he is my favorite part of the show..... I like comic books too and that's why i like daniel at first but also he's so interesting. It's so mean to fire him. i read about his myspace and i could tell how sad he is and i know what that's like. This really shouldn't happen and i just feel so mad and powerless about everything happening...... "

a bit amusing for me to read, though not for the lgpedarians to correct.

[hyemew]

jayhenry said:

I gotta say, getting all fired up and changing my avatar and posting at the phorum was the most fun I've had with LG15 in weeks.

Agreed! I am so terribly confused.
Now I'm thinking perhaps he's being written out, not completely, but mostly. Rereading it he says I'm not really going to be a part of the LG thing anymore, not WON'T be. It almost means the same thing but not quite.

[Terryfic]

Yeah, having some fun and venting on the phorum was fun. But I don’t think this statement really changes things that much, this was not an isolated issue. I think it was just what tipped the scales and resulted in all hell breaking loose.

The creators from very early on showed little interest in treating their fanbase well. How the old phorum was run, the lack of really talking with most of their fans – they barely even use to comment in character on their own videos, the lies (either about whether the show was a fiction, or about interaction), the spam, the constant expectation that fans should do their work (e.g. design t-shirts) for them – for just the special feeling you get inside when you earn more profit for someone else, hell just the fact that it took them so long just to make a comment on this issue.

I have heard stories that the creators treat people they hire poorly as well. Considering how I have seen them treat their fans I do not find this hard to believe.

I do not like the creators. I think they have a terrible marketing plan. I think they treat their fans very poorly. I think they have repeatedly acted without class and have often appeared unprofessional.

Despite all that, I still think LG has at times and could still be an interesting show. I have nothing against them earning money while making art, but it appears more and more like they are more interested in turning LG into a product they can sell rather than art that happens to earn money. I am seeing more and more in the way of commoditization of LG; the more the series becomes focused on money the less likely it is to remain an interesting piece of work.