Jacob is a twenty-five year old Internet geek who spends most of his time trolling threads and constantly looking for updates on when the next Lonely Girl 15 video is to be posted. Over the past few months Jacob feels he has built a relationship with Lonely Girl 15. Despite the fact that he too is an avid troller, he makes sure to report every trolling post. In addition to his vocal replies to her every action in her videos he leaves long heartfelt messages after each episode is over and is sure that Lonely Girl 15, though she has never replied to any of his post, has read them. Jacob even misconstrues some of Lonely Girl 15’s videos as video replies to his commentary. When Lonely Girl 15 post a video titled, “Proving Science Wrong,” many comment wondering if that is her boyfriend. Jacob replies to one comment in particular assuring the public that the he is not her boyfriend. The next video post made by Lonely Girl 15 is in regards to these comments posted by other viewers. Jacob believes that his video comment prompted her to create this video and understands this to mean that she has been reading her comments. Even though she has yet to reply to his post specifically this incident makes Joseph fall in love with her even more. He goes on with this for a few months. Jacob is heavily disappointed when he checks into her Youtube channel and sees that there is no repost. When she has added a new video Jacob drops everything he was doing, which in this instance is put his game of World of Warcraft on hold, to devout his full attention to his self-assumed girlfriend. Jacob grows more and more delusion. He tells his friends of their “relationship.” Most of his friends poke fun of his delusion. One of his friends, Skylar, post an article about how Lonely Girl 15 might be a fake while another friend Matthew, admits that he is in love with Lonely Girl 15 too. Jacob completely ignores the post made by Skylar and comments to Matthew “stay away from my girl.” Jacob becomes jealous and tries to stalk out which comment post could possibly be his friend Matthew. He replies to a number of comments telling other Youtube users to back off of his “girlfriend,” hoping to scare off every adoring commenter. . He even defends her against angry commenters who reply to her video post with comments such as, “Wtf is this?”
One day when Jacob checks into Lonely Girl 15’s page he comes across her latest addition to her VLOG. After watching the video Jacob begins to write an intimate comment replying to the video. Midway through the comment, however, Jacob notices a link posted in the comment area. Excited to see that Lonely Girl 15’s popularity has spread outside of the Youtube community and into the Los Angeles Times Jacob anxiously clicks on the link that held “lonely girl” in the url. Once Jacob reads the title of the article, “LonelyGirl15 Blog Is Brainchild of 3 Filmmakers,” Jacob moves the mouse towards the “x” button to exit out of the page but not before noticing that this was an article posted by a highly esteemed new source, which is the Los Angeles Times. He continues to read the article that divulges the truth of the popular web series. Nothing about his love is true and instead of laughing it off as a normal Youtube user would do he replies in a fit of rage. After all, he has invested most of his waking being over the past few months invested in a “relationship” with this girl. Feeling alone, and betrayed by the “truth” of the virtual landscape Jacob falls to his knees burying his head into his hands. He gets up and begins to write an angry post on the video he just watched. Halfway through however, he stops, closes the computer shakes his head and starts towards the door of his room. As he reaches for the door knob his hand begins to tremble. As hard as he tries to leave his room his uncertainty keeps him back. Over the past few months he has grown distant from his friends who didn’t believe in he and Lonely Girl 15’s relationship. Due to fear of the outside world he turns back to the only medium through which he understands how to make a connection even if it isn’t real. Play ends.
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