\n<\/p>\n
YouTube\u2019s first viral scandal took place in what we believed was a 16-year-old girl\u2019s bedroom.<\/p>\n
In 2006, homeschooled teenager Bree Avery vlogged about her life under the username Lonelygirl15<\/a>, chronicling her supposedly boring life. But as the videos got more and more outlandish \u2014 her parents turned out to be part of a blood-harvesting cult? \u2014 fans uncovered the truth that the whole vlog was fake<\/a>; the Los Angeles-based creators of the channel were experimenting with a new form of storytelling, almost like a \u201cBlair Witch Project\u201d for the early aughts. Even after it was revealed that Bree was a paid actor named Jessica Lee Rose, fans still obsessed over her vlogs, which (in the beginning) are all told to us from the privacy of her bedroom.<\/p>\n Though it was actually a carefully constructed set, the background of Bree\u2019s videos \u2014 a pink quilted bedspread with a plush monkey, a small wooden bookcase topped with candlesticks, some moody posters pasted to the walls \u2014 are emblematic of this formative YouTube era.<\/p>\n Almost twenty years later, we watch microvlogs on TikTok, which are recorded on smartphones that we keep attached to our bodies like we\u2019re cyborgs. But in this era, creators\u2019 childhood bedrooms have been replaced with generic car interiors. It doesn\u2019t really matter the make or model of the car, so long as it is a car.<\/p>\n \u201cI just thought it was weird \u2014 so weird! \u2014 to see so many TikToks in cars: make-up reviews, little jokey skits, singing, eating Indian food, whatever,\u201d Nathan Ma, a cultural critic and lecturer, told TechCrunch. Ma noted the transition from bedroom vlogs to parked car TikToks in a post on X after watching a food vlogger eat Indian food in his car.<\/p>\n