Popular Myths Spread By Trolls

Nora Volkova · Post by **Nora Volkova** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:48 pm

The Mods at Anchor Cove -- which is, remember, however popular it was in its day, still a private, unofficial fansite of lonelygirl15 -- were in solid consensus on their opinion that the use of a such an explicit, personal, and still recent crimescene photo for a game clue was inexcusably tasteless. "Barely visible in the video" does not mitigate against using the photo, because *very clearly* the video's creators intended a close reading of the video and intended for the photo to be recognized for what it was. It was not accidental. They also felt that positioning a clue which referred to the brutal murder of children *on a playground* also broke the barriers of acceptable behavior -- especially taken under the consideration that ciw had clearly already been gamejacked once and was wide open for any random individual from the internet to exploit the game for whatever purposes they wanted.

As far as I am aware, all of the moderators still hold to this opinion, and it was well within the rights of the moderators of a private fansite to declare what was and was not on-topic for that board based on their collective judgment. Considering the propensity for some of the more headstrong fans of this forum to *openly defy* the *openly stated* wishes of the board's owners, I doubt that Anchor Cove will be regretting its decision any time soon. Anchor Cove does not perceive itself as being in competition with the Phorum for postcount, especially as the two sites share several Moderators and one of the Phorum's Site Admins. If AC remains an intimate and friendly site, lo, even until the death of lg15 fandom, nobody there will regret that condition.

Now. That said -- these are my personal thoughts:

Clearly, in hindsight, Anchor Cove appears to have been too strident, even tactless in how their decision was announced. Although the decision was mostly sourced in their collective distaste for the actions of the ciw team in making the second video, the announcement regrettably overemphasized safety issues and created far too paternalistic a tone. At least some of the confusion and tensions within the ciw fan community can sensibly and correctly be laid at AC's misstep in this regard.

ravensgrace · Post by **ravensgrace** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:51 pm

dVant wrote:That's not necessarily true. Manson was a cult leader. Bree is being indoctrinated into a cult (sorry, ravensgrace, but an occult religion is a cult). The Tate/LaBianca crime scene photos could suggest that cassieiswatching will assume the storyline will progress to a sacrifice (homicide) of Bree and develop the game accordingly.

LOL, there is no need to apologize to me. Someones opinion about Jesus or the occult/cults, has no bearing on my opinion of them. People may hate me for my religion, but I don't have to hate them for theirs, or lack thereof.

Infinite <3 is the Universal Truth.

A rose by any other name...

jammer · Post by **jammer** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:57 pm

covedweller wrote:CiW is NOT officially tied to LG15 and not considered LG15 canon. The same thing Jammer accuses "trolls" of doing here is something all of us are doing when we talk about CiW on the LG15 boards. We're spreading MISINFORMATION about the Cassie character in the LG15 universe based on FAN FICTION that we think is pretty good, so we WANT to believe it is part of the LG15 universe.

An interesting perspective, but one I feel ignores some facts.

The YouTube "cassieiswatching" has some significant points on her resume, to put it mildly, that none of the later cassies have:

1. The New York Times television critic, who obviously was speaking with the LG15 creators, mentioned the YouTube "cassieiswatching" TWICE before CiW appeared on YouTube. The Times stated that CiW had "attenuated ties" to "the original" and would represent a second LG15 story. The Times also predicted that the swimming hole would feature in the upcoming Cassie video.

2. As predicted by the Times, CiW did debut with a video shot at the swimming hole (as well as another previously unknown location, the path with the cactus, that STILL has not been found by outsiders). The presence of the swimming hole in the video was enough to establish ties to the official LG15 creators.

3. But if that wasn't enough, Cassie followed up with a video shot at La Cienega Park, another previously undisclosed location that appeared in an LG15 video. Even Los Angeles residents who had driven by that park regularly said they did not recognize it from the LG15 video.

Technically, there is a miniscule chance that a complete outsider found the swimming hole, found the still-unidentified cactus path, and found the park from a murky video shot at night. But just because there is a miniscule chance of this does not erase the far more logical conclusion that YouTube CiW has a connection to LG15.

It breaks down like this:

YouTube Cassie: Extremely high level of credibility.

All other cassies: Nothing even approaching this level of credibility.

That's why most of us focus on YouTube CiW. It's not just that the quality of the project is better. It's because there are independent reasons to give credibility to YouTube CiW, and no good reason at all to credit any of the others.

I agree that CiW is fan fiction, in a way. The "fan fiction" in this ARG is the videos and posts we create in response to the PM of the game. But we can have confidence that we're playing the "real" game only when we focus on the CiW who has demonstrated a connection to the Creators. That CiW is the YouTube one.

To reject all the others simply makes sense.

juliangrimm · Post by **juliangrimm** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:04 pm

Nora Volkova wrote:The Mods at Anchor Cove -- which is, remember, however popular it was in its day, still a private, unofficial fansite of lonelygirl15 -- were in solid consensus on their opinion that the use of a such an explicit, personal, and still recent crimescene photo for a game clue was inexcusably tasteless.

Recent is The school shootings from teh past few weeks. Recent is not something that happened in the 60's that 90% of the people on this bards were not alive for.

"Barely visible in the video" does not mitigate against using the photo, because *very clearly* the video's creators intended a close reading of the video and intended for the photo to be recognized for what it was. It was not accidental.

To me this sealed that CiW would be darker and more mature rather than the Dawsons Creek with a supernatural twist that LG15 had. Thus more appealing...at least until the whining.

They also felt that positioning a clue which referred to the brutal murder of children *on a school playground* also broke the barriers of acceptable behavior -- especially taken under the consideration that ciw had clearly already been gamejacked once and was wide open for any random individual from the internet to exploit the game for whatever purposes they wanted.

I have Band-Aids for their bleeding hearts.

As far as I am aware, all of the moderators still hold to this opinion, and it was well within the rights of the moderators of a private fansite to declare what was and was not on-topic for that board based on their collective judgment.

I'm just not gonna go there since they may cry at my comments.

Considering the propensity for some of the more headstrong fans of this forum to *openly defy* the *openly stated* wishes of the board's owners, I doubt that Anchor Cove will be regretting its decision any time soon.

I wouldn't call it open defiance, it's more like a zero tolorance for stupidity and BS.

Anchor Cove does not perceive itself as being in competition with the Phorum for postcount, especially as the two sites share several Moderators and one of the Phorum's Site Admins. If AC remains an intimate and friendly site, lo, even until the death of lg15 fandom, nobody there will regret that condition.

Again, no comment other than I wish them a speedy death.

Now. That said -- these are my personal thoughts:

Clearly, in hindsight, Anchor Cove appears to have been too strident, even tactless in how their decision was announced.

Agreed.

Although the decision was mostly sourced in their collective distaste for the actions of the ciw team in making the second video, the announcement regrettably overemphasized safety issues and created far too paternalistic a tone.

Say it together: NANNY-STATE

At least some of the confusion and tensions within the ciw fan community can sensibly and correctly be laid at AC's misstep in this regard.

If you count 80% as some.

juliangrimm · Post by **juliangrimm** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:12 pm

To reject all the others simply makes sense.

In your opinion.

dlruss0216 · Post by **dlruss0216** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:41 pm

dVant wrote:I think people should be able to discuss it, preferably with a disclaimer.

I agree, and I'm confused...whatever happened to freedom of speech? It's not like someone is posting pictures of a murder that they created from cropping pictures to represent a murder that has YET to happen? Now that would be threatening. We're talking about something that already happened and that everyone is well aware of. There is no threat here, at least in my opinion, and the only threat is one that people read into it. If it threatens you, then don't look at the pic and don't talk about it.

Bottom line is, our society (at least in the U.S.) is based on freedom of speech and each person having a right to speak their mind WITHOUT censorship. Sure, you can disagree, that's what makes us stronger. But do it with respect, respect others opinions and agree to disagree, just as everyone should respect anothers race, sexual orientation, etc.

All past instances of censorship that I have seen have been attributed to environments and societies that I for one would not want to be a part of. If I have to listen to other opinions that I extremely disagree with, then I'll do so, because what's more important to me is that they're able to speak their mind freely without ridicule.

Nora Volkova · Post by **Nora Volkova** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:44 pm

juliangrimm wrote:
Nora Volkova wrote:As far as I am aware, all of the moderators still hold to this opinion, and it was well within the rights of the moderators of a private fansite to declare what was and was not on-topic for that board based on their collective judgment.
I'm just not gonna go there since they may cry at my comments.

Highly doubtful.

dlruss0216 · Post by **dlruss0216** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:48 pm

Dunneh wrote:Believe or do not, but no one can tell you what to think or what not to think, what to believe or what not to believe. No ones theory is any more or less valid than anyone elses, nothing about what anyone else says is 'fact' because it can all be interpreted differently.

Hear, hear (or is it here, here?)!!

I <3 you Dunneh. Will you marry me?!!

juliangrimm · Post by **juliangrimm** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:53 pm

Nora Volkova wrote:
juliangrimm wrote:
Nora Volkova wrote:As far as I am aware, all of the moderators still hold to this opinion, and it was well within the rights of the moderators of a private fansite to declare what was and was not on-topic for that board based on their collective judgment.
I'm just not gonna go there since they may cry at my comments.

Highly doubtful.

I dunno one picture sent the tears flowing...

covedweller · Post by **covedweller** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 5:31 pm

jammer wrote:That's why most of us focus on YouTube CiW. It's not just that the quality of the project is better. It's because there are independent reasons to give credibility to YouTube CiW, and no good reason at all to credit any of the others.

The logic of your post then explains also why so many people speculate the first two callbacks were also in game, despite CiW's denial, because the quality of the editing and content was considered professional and impressive by many.

Including even the coincidental nature of the content in the Loveline call...

Yes, it does take a little luck and hard work, but whoever does CiW and whoever did the phone calls clearly put in the time. It also doesn't hurt that one/both parties are quite talented. Hence, the quality has us inclined to believe it's real...

As for the NYTimes, the more I think about it, the more it is possible that someone was able to get CiW as part of the story b/c the reporter would have been in touch with the fan-based community at the time and/or there could be some other connection. Also, it was only the online editing of the NYTimes in a blog, which does not have the same level of fact checking.

In regards to the locations, well, look at it this way. If you were a filmmaker who always wanted to do something higher profile and you saw the Swimming video, and realized that you might know where it was, you might jump on the opportunity to take advantage of the LG15 interest and put something together.

Based on the response to that, you would haul ass to figure out the park location of the second vid... and it kind of makes sense why that is so thrown together looking.

Your arguments in favor still point to the fact that LG15's creators have DENIED any involvement in this fan fiction.

So really, what you're saying is like some half-assed troll trying to talk about how MS Cassie must be involved even though CiW has DENIED that is a part of CiW.

If we allow speculation vs. fact then it's GAME ON.

If we are going to be hardcore about CiW canon, then we must also recognize that CiW is NOT LG15 canon. FAN FICTION. the CiW videos themsleves...not our posts or videos, but the Cassieiswatching videos = lonelygirl15 FAN FICTION.

brandoblues · Post by **brandoblues** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 6:00 pm

we need some fun puzzles at least to keep us busy.

by now i have found tons of puzzles that need to be sovled all over the boards.

on that relates to the youtube fascination is that etchings drop.

granted it has nothing to do with lg/ciw besides the point of the youtube connection, but hey its a puzzle. sad thing is no one wants to try to figure it out.

in the meantime it wouldnt hurt if we used other parts of this forum to crack cases in would it? cassie isnt showing up till in the morning and i wanna finish that dang etching's picture at least.

good thing about it, is its like an educational tool, dont look for the answer, try to find as many things about it you can yourself.

bleh im rambling, anyone know anything about heart icons and maybe company logos or something?

juliangrimm · Post by **juliangrimm** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 6:47 pm

I'm at a loss to the troll references in the title when other trolling behaviour like open insults to the new people and open insults to those that leave other theories open are thrown around by many here...

Sfonzarelli · Post by **Sfonzarelli** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 7:55 pm

dVant wrote: an occult religion is a cult)

Charlotte Eve · Post by **Charlotte Eve** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 7:59 pm

haha good response;

sweeping comments like that will only bring responses like "All religions are cults then" so brush up first.

jammer · Post by **jammer** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 8:15 pm

Man, covedweller, you sure do spend a lot of time here (and write a LOT of words) for someone who thinks CiW is "the saddest form of fiction."

If you're right that CiW in not from the creators (and I think think you're wrong about that), then why are you so interested in it?

I mean, I think CiW is great. That's why I'm here, and why I spend time trying to make the CiW world a little easier to navigate.

Why are you here?

I don't mean to imply anything by this question. I honestly don't understand why someone would come here, get so worked up and write hundreds of words merely to denigrate CiW as "fan fiction" and "the saddest form of fiction." What's the point?

Lonelygirl15

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