LonelyGirl15 Identified

There has been quite a controversy brewing in the viral world of YouTube recently. I won't bother to rehash the summary, since Danah Boyd did a fantastic job of outlining the events leading up to the discovery that LonelyGirl15 was the creation of a group of filmmakers, and not a lonely, young teenager making videos in her bedroom.

Today, Silicon Valley Watcher has identified LonelyGirl15 as Jessica Rose, a 19-year old New Zealand actress.

LonelyGirl15:

Jessica Rose:

I think we have a match!

Thanks to Google cache, unless you were dropped into the online world out of thin air, your past can never be completely erased. A little scary, perhaps, but it reminds us to be a little cautious of how much we share online knowing that someone, somewhere, can unearth our online past.