It's All Reality to Me

For my final project, I decided to further explore ARGs (more specifically lonelygirl15) and the “actors” within them, to help shape and support my theories about the switch that turns our worlds on and off. I used an MTV article about lonelygirl15 to help.

Whether created or pre-existing, a world is reality.

ARGs are thought of and created. To the creators, players, and puppets, it is a reality to them for some time. The creators put real time and effort into the lift-off of the game. Players invest time and energy into solving the puzzles. The puppets, or actors, are really being filmed and really doing their job. In one way, or another, it is reality to everyone. The story itself may be made up, but it is itself a part of reality. Are lies not a part of our daily life—our real life? New Media has basically forced me to take another look at what I consider reality, what I consider truth.

"The appeal of the show, partly, is that we've created a world," Flinders said. "Within that world there is 100 percent reality. For people to step out of that world and interact in the real world, it's just not appropriate.”

Lonelygirl15 creator were hoping to create a world in which players could step in and out of, but is that really what will happen? The real world goes on whether you’re in it or not.

We are the shapers of our own reality.

What we create, play, portray, our choices, our actions, create our reality. What is so real to us is what we do. Not what has happened before us, but what we actually engage in. Not that those occurrences in the past aren’t real, they just aren’t reality to us. But those occurrences, which happened in the past, were reality to someone back then.

What we don’t consider our reality can quickly become our reality.

Doing theater in high school for four years, I remember my teacher saying how you truly perfect your role once you finally feel as if you are the character. I was so anxious to get that feeling, and eventually, I did. I was Marcia in The Outsiders. A small, disappointing role for me and I was willing to put little effort into it. I was pushed, because I had the pushiest of all pushy teachers; Lucifer, we called her. One day, I’d prove to her I was Marcia. I did. I stepped onto that stage, with hair pulled back, sodapop in hand, and I spoke my mind. No delivery of lines, just natural flow. I lived and breathed Marcia. That was my reality: sitting in the old drive-in, shooing away the greasy boys, escaping the immature drunkenness of my boyfriend.

ARG actors and actresses (sometimes) achieve to feel this way, or at least make their audience feel like they’re a part of the reality of their ARG world.

"She's quirky, she's fun — she's naive and sweet," Rose beamed about her character. "She is somebody who everybody can relate to in some way. She's the Everygirl. She's just somebody you would love to meet and be friends with."

Players are supposed to connect the character to themselves or someone else they know in their reality. This is where the border overlap and reality is reality, no matter what world you’re in.

Reality should be redefined. It is what happened, what is happening, and what will happen. Reality can be whatever you make, say, or hope for.