Web Video / lonelygirl15

"Hi guys. Um, so this is my first video blog..."

— Bree, opening lines of "First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails"

On the 16th of June 2006, a YouTube user with the screenname lonelygirl15 uploaded a video entitled "First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails". In this video, she introduced herself as Bree, a sixteen-year-old self-confessed dork. More video blogs followed, many also featuring her best friend, Daniel, perhaps better known as Danielbeast.

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It wasn't long before viewers began to suspect that the blogs were not genuine, and it was eventually discovered that lonelygirl15 was actually an online TV series created by Miles Beckett, Mesh Flinders, Greg Goodfried and Amanda Goodfried.

The early episodes are all set in and around Bree and Daniel's houses, and mainly deal with relationships between characters. Over time, it is revealed that Bree is a member of a religious cult, the Hymn of One, and that they want her to take part in a strange ceremony. Everything changed after episode 65, "Life's Not Fair", when the series took a decidedly dark turn.

Along with various friends, such as rich orphan Jonas and sarcastic "emo" sexpot Sarah, Bree and Daniel go on the run from the Order of Dederah, an evil secret society, and discover the sinister truth behind the ceremony.

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While the series tends to stay within the grounds of what is technically possible, the plot is often very implausible, to say the least. Fortunately, the people behind the show seem to be aware of this, and the show is certainly not above the occasional Lampshade Hanging and self-parody. The show also describes itself as "interactive", with fans sometimes being named or even making cameos in the series. However, it is probably best known for being one of the earliest Vlog Series, and establishing a legacy of introducing the novel concept of company-based production value on YouTube videos.

The show may be watched at its official website, although this episode listing omits some early episodes (including the first episode) and includes videos from the old OPAPHID Alternate Reality Game, behind the scenes videos, and some fan videos. A complete list of episodes, with the original numbering, may be found here. A character sheet has been created.

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The show is sequelled by LG15: the resistance, a Spin-Off featuring Jonas and Sarah.

On June 16th of 2016, ten years after it originally launched, a revival of the lonelygirl15 series was announced. So far, a teaser has been uploaded that shows Bree seemingly in the employ of the Order of Denderah. This later turned out to be the first episode of LG15: Anchor Cove, which was put on indefinite hiatus after just six videos.

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This show provides examples of:

Tropes A - I

• Abandoned Hospital: The Season 2 finale "Bloodlines" seems to be set in one, with the Order temporarily reoccupying it.
• Abandoned Warehouse: The Season 1 finale is partially set in one of these, where the TAAG evades a Watcher.
• Adults Are Useless: Every character older than their early 20s that is not evil, neglectful, or obstructive is killed off.
• All Girls Like Ponies: Sarah says "ponies are awesome!" in "Getting Her Back".
• Alternate Reality Game:
  • The OpAphid ARG was created by Glenn Rubenstein and predated the start of the series proper. It followed the conflict between the Operation APHID branch of the Order and a pair of operatives fighting the Order called Tachyon and Brother. The plot is hard to decipher, but it seems that OpAphid is trying to get Bree to do the Ceremony by any means necessary, and Tachyon is trying to track down either Bree, presumably to stop her from being forced to do the Ceremony, or OpAphid's leader, to stop her in more direct fashion. The game featured several mind-bendingly obtuse puzzles.
  • The show proper has some ARG-like elements, with the viewers being called upon to decipher codes and mysteries that the TAAG encounter during their adventures.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • There really is a religion founded by Aleister Crowley.
  • The Temple of Dendera and Zodiac of Dendera are also real things.
• Ambiguous Gender: Bree doesn't really specify whether whether P. Monkey is a boy or a girl.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Order of Denderah has been around for a long time.
• Anti-Climax: "The Ascension", the series finale of the show, was built up to fantastically, involving a Total Eclipse of the Plot connected to an Order prophecy involving Jonas, the presence of the Big Bad, Jonas being the key to bringing down the Order... and it all fell flat; the eclipse was mentioned once in the finale, the prophecy was mentioned twice (and never explained), Sarah called Jonas "the one" but never explained what that meant, Lord Carruthers remains The Unfought, the big confrontation with Sarah and Taylor's dad was extremely short and he gets away alive and well, and in the end Jennie and Taylor take Spencer to the hospital, Daniel and Jonas just go home, and Sarah is left alone on the beach, and that's the end, leaving the audience with an unsatisfying conclusion to the series.
• Anyone Can Die: So much so that Bree, the main character, dies.
• Are We There Yet?: Said by Bree in "Swimming!".
• The Artifact: P. Monkey and the other stuffed animals don't really fit with the tone once Bree and Daniel have been on the run for a while.
• Artifact Name: Taylor's handle "soccerstar" and Sarah's handle "SkyIsEmpty" both reference features of their characters (soccer playing and straw nihilism respectively) that were dropped after Season 1.
• Artifact Title: Particularly after Bree's death, seeing as "Lonelygirl" refers to her.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • There is no genetic mutation that allows someone to age for an indefinite length of time, and if there were it would have little to do with ribozymes.
  • Averted by Spencer in "The Bree Solution". Taylor tells Spencer that she thinks Bree might be trait-negative due to violating her purity bond by sleeping with Jonas, which Spencer immediately shoots down by pointing out that sexual activity in and of itself has no effect on your DNA.
• Ascended Meme:
  • "Jennie is a plantcake!" was referenced by Jennie herself in "Q&A with Jennie", where she assured the audience she was not a "plantcake".
  • Teen Angst Adventure Group (TAAG) as the collective name for the protagonists was referenced in the "Prom" episodes.
• Avenging the Villain: Bill Porter's Shadow stalks and threatens the TAAG after his Elder is killed in the Season 2 finale.
• Back for the Finale: After nearly a year long absence, Spencer returns for the Grand Finale.
• Back from the Dead: As part of the show's revival, Bree is revealed to be this.
• Badass Boast: At the end of "How Dumb Am I?"

  Bree: I really was clueless before. But that dumb girl died the day that you killed her father.

• Bad "Bad Acting": What results from several of the TAAG's attempts at deception:
  • The consolation Sarah provides to the security guard in "Mission Possible" is extremely wooden and flat, especially compared to the guard's Inelegant Blubbering.
  • Sarah and Jonas do an incredibly unconvincing job of pretending to be a couple in "The Ladies Room".
  • Pretty much all the acting in Daniel's film class project, as seen in "My School Project".
  • Everyone except Jennie during their practice pitches in "Casting Couch", either stumbling over their lines or putting on ridiculous voices.
• Beach Episode: "At the Beach", where the TAAG goes to the beach to goof around and hang out. Subverted in an earlier episode, "The Perfect Beach", which has an innocuous sounding description and starts cheerfully enough, only to pull a shock twist ending.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Aleister Crowley founded the Ancient Conspiracy.

• Big Bad:
  • William Porter was in charge of the Order for the first two seasons, making him this almost by default. Of course, this wasn't revealed until...
  • Lord Carruthers took over the Order in Season 3, following William Porter's death in the previous season's finale.
• The Big Board: In the bunkers set up by the old Resistance, there's always a whiteboard with some information and plans regarding the Order on it. Jonas also uses a downplayed version in a couple episodes, writing out some relevant information on a whiteboard in "Tangled Web" and "Pi".
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The Season 2 finale "Bloodlines": Emma and Gina are both saved from the Order and William Porter is dead, but only as a result of Dr. Hart's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • The Grand Finale: Lord Carruthers and Sarah's dad and damn near everyone else in the Order ends up being a Karma Houdini, Spencer gets shot, the Ceremony girl dies, and the TAAG splits up seemingly for good, but Jonas and Sarah stop the Ceremony and the Ascension, Spencer is going to survive his wound, and it's the only season finale where no main characters die.
• Black Comedy: In "It's Not Kidnapping", Jonas and Daniel tie up Julia, intending to help her (they are not kidnapping). Cut to outside, where she can be seen screaming for help as Daniel proceeds to melodramatically explain how she doesn't like them.
• Black Helicopter: Used by the Order.

• Blatant Burglar: Sarah calls out Daniel for this as he prepares to break into a bad guy's apartment in "Am I A Criminal?" (although he's a downplayed example, only wearing a black hoodie with the hood up)

  Sarah: If you're gonna break into someone's house in the middle of the day, you probably don't want to dress like a cat burglar.

• Blatant Lies:
  • Every time someone says they aren't filming. With the In-Universe Camera that the video of them saying that is being filmed on.
  • An extreme (and hilarious) example of the above comes from the revival episode "Paranoid much?", where Daniel lies about turning the camera off three times in a row, and Spencer catches him every time until he actually turns the camera off.
  • Shortly after Daniel gets a new girlfriend, Sarah, who's feeling jealous about it, spanks Daniel on the ass in front of everybody including said girlfriend... and then claims she did it to test the spatula she used to make sure it was durable.
• Blessed with Suck: Trait positive girls may have some kind of live-giving gift, but that makes them targets of the Order.
• Blood Magic: Infusions of Trait Positive blood can extend the human lifespan considerably, which is why girls who have it are so highly-sought after by the Order. The "magic" part is really turned up when Season 3 reveals that, supposedly, all trait-positives are descended from the Egyptian fertility goddess Hathor.
• Brainy Brunette: Bree. She reads books about science and history for fun, knows a good amount about astronomy, and Daniel mentions early on that Bree was one of the smartest kids in her class.
• Brandishment Bluff: Played for Laughs in "Crazy Emo Chick" when Sarah reveals that she held Daniel up using a tube of lipstick, much to his annoyance:

  Bree: And what do you think of that? Daniel?

  (Daniel glares at the camera)

• Breaking the Bonds: "What The Hell?!??!": Jonas appears to have broken free from some ropes of his own accord, but this turns out to be a subversion since it is revealed shortly afterwards that Daniel loosened the ropes for him.
• Breather Episode: "Backyard Bikini Patrol" is an obvious example, a fanservicey character-based episode following numerous Wham Episodes.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Emma comes back out of hiding in the middle of season 3 after leaving earlier in the same season.
  • Spencer's return for the finale.
• Call-Back: A lot of them, mostly with episode titles referencing past episode titles.
  • "Proving Bree Wrong" and "Science Proved Nothing" are clear references to the "Proving Science Wrong" videos from early in Season 1.
  • "Sluttiness Prevails", the second episode of Season 2, is one to "First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails", the first episode of the series.
  • "My Parents Suck Too" (early Season 2) to "My Parents Suck" (early Season 1).
  • Daniel pulling a Yawn and Reach on Sarah in "Rockin' the Boat", over 180 episodes after Bree demonstrated it in "My First Kiss".
• Car Fu: Utilized by Jonas in "They'll Do Anything!" when he runs over a Watcher with his truck.
• Catchphrase:
  • Bree: "Proving science wrong!" (usually with the same low, sing-song tone)
  • LaRezisto: "Fight the Order!"
  • Edward Salinas: "We will build a stronger community."
  • The Hymn of One: "The Hymn of One is fun!"
• Cerebus Syndrome: The series starts out about a dorky teenage girl vlogging from her bedroom, having boy problems and doing goofy skits with her stuffed animals and occasionally the boy in question, then her mysterious, weird religion starts receiving more focus and Bree's preparation for "the Ceremony" and the conflict between her and Daniel over it starts to form a real plot thread, and then they're forced to start living on the run because Bree's parents get kidnapped by the Order, and then Bree's dad gets murdered by members of the religion in front of them, cementing the series' darker tone.
• Character Blog: It's the entire premise.

• Christmas Episode: "Christmas Surprise" not only takes place on Christmas, but is the first time Bree's celebrated Christmas. It's also when Daniel rejoins Bree.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: All the characters from the original OpAphid ARG.
  • OpAphid herself has her symbol used and possibly some voice overlay in "Miss Me?", and then is never heard from again.
  • Brother is mentioned in "The Human Ransom" and never again.
  • Tachyon receives no further mention after Bree returns from her camp.
• Claymation: Used by Taylor in "My Sister = Slut" and "My Mom's A Freak!".
• Commuting on a Bus:
  • Bree starts doing this after she gets rejoins the Hymn Of One, appearing only during Hymn Of One ads, the brief period when the TAAG rescues her, and the season 1 finale.
  • Taylor starts doing this after "Sister to Sister" until the tail end of season 3.
• Companion Cube: Bree frequently talks to P. Monkey and the other stuffed animals as if they were real people. The others tend to either play along or get really pissed that she's not taking thing seriously.
• Covers Always Lie: The thumbnail of "The Unthinkable Happened" is actually the same as the thumbnail from "My Difficult Decision" (68 episodes earlier). Lampshaded by Daniel in the video description, where he says he did it to get people to watch.

• Crossover: With KateModern in season 3, when Jonas travels to London to meet Steve, who claims to know something about Lord Carruthers.
• Cult: The Hymn of One, which works as a front for the Order.
• Curse Cut Short: Several times, perhaps the most memorable being from "Men Are From Mars":

  Bree: What bothers you the most about Jonas?

  Daniel: (beat) Everything, he's a piece of sh— (cuts away)

• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Sarah's threat to breathe on the nonplussed Jonas.
• Cut Short: The revival series LG15: Anchor Cove was put on indefinite hiatus after just six episodes.
• A Date with Rosie Palms: Sarah alludes to herself going on them in "Let's Play Doctor" (her "D-batteries and makes a lot of noise" line) and "Everybody Does It ;)" ([slaps a washing machine] "Done the fun here too. Um, and not with anyone else.") and jokes that Jennie is about to go on one in "Bathroom Talk".

  Sarah: Yeah, I'll give you some privacy. (looks puzzled) In the bathroom, with a video camera. (smiles and nods) Kinky! What's the matter, Jonas not up to the task?

• Deadpan Snarker: Sarah.

  Sarah: Okay, people. This is Jack's truck. (camera shows an ordinary pickup truck) Sexy, isn't it?

• Doing In the Scientist: The revelation at the end of the third season that trait positivity derives from the line of the Goddess Hathor.
• Don't Think, Feel: Parodied in "Mission Alpha":

  Spencer: All right, this one is about centering your qi. Now, we're gonna do it like this! Ready? [stands balanced on one leg]

  Jonas: I got it. I got it. It's like The Karate Kid. [adopts a one-legged karate pose]

  Spencer: No, no! No, no, no, no, no! Not The Karate Kid!

• Double Entendre: Sarah is a very rich source of these, most noticeably in some of her video titles, like "Entertaining Myself" and "Playing With Wood". The best example is her pitch in "Casting Couch":

  Sarah: (wearing a low-cut dress with a campaign button pinned between her breasts) Oh! Hey there. I was wondering if you would be interested in hearing about a man named Edward Salinas. He's the man with a plan, and it's a big one. Oh, it surely is. He wants to build a stronger community. The strongest, firmest, hardest community. (corpses)

• Downer Ending: Season 1 ends with Bree dying, Jonas and Daniel emotionally crushed, and the TAAG splitting up.

• Drowning My Sorrows:
  • Jonas during "Beer Bath" gets completely smashed and beats himself up after Emma gets kidnapped.
  • Daniel briefly falls Off the Wagon during Season 3 after Sarah temporarily leaves the group.
• Dumb Blonde:
  • Inverted by Taylor, who borders on being a Teen Genius with a talent for hacking and is likely the smartest member of the TAAG until Spencer shows up.
  • Sarah is a Subversion of sorts. While at first she's overshadowed by Taylor's exceptional abilities (and the ending of "All Wet"...), she later repeatedly shows herself to be competent, manipulative, and prone to being a Deadpan Snarker. She also frequently plays up the "dumb blonde" stereotype to her advantage.
• Early Installment Weirdness: Throughout the first season, members of the Order constantly insist that the decision to do the Ceremony must be of Bree's free will. Come Season 2, and one of the first things the Order does is try to kidnap a trait-positive girl, one in a Hymn Of One home no less, to force her to do the Ceremony, and there is no further mention by anyone of the Ceremony requiring any free will.
• Eccentric Mentor: Spencer during the first three "Mission" videos. He makes Jonas, Daniel, and Taylor go through seemingly ridiculous exercises (kangaroo hopping, contorting around ropes blindfolded, and playing classic video games respectively) while mostly maintaining his geeky demeanor, but these all turn out to actually teach them important skills for their upcoming mission.

• Enemy Civil War: In season 2, we learn that a rogue Elder has been trying to steal trait-positives from the Order since Season 1. And that this rogue Elder is behind LaRezisto.
• Entendre Failure:
  • From "Lying Bastards":
    Jonas: Listen, Mamasitas, lock up your daughters, OK, 'cause the Beast here is south of the border, and, uh, not for nothing dude, you put the "ho" in "Mexico". (Daniel laughs)
    Bree: ...there's no "ho" in "Mexico".
    (the background music stops and Daniel and Jonas turn to look at Bree)
    Bree: (laughing) There's no "ho" in "Mexico"!
  • From "Let's Play Doctor", although this one was almost certainly deliberate by Jonas:
    Jonas: So tell me, ah, what are you doing later?
    Sarah: (pulling the camera closer) It involves D-batteries, and makes a lot of noise.
    (camera pans around to Jonas)
    Jonas: Uh—a boombox?

• Evil Brit:
  • Gemma is revealed to be this by Tachyon, when she discovers Gemma is trying to lure Bree into a trap laid by the Order.
  • Lord Carruthers, a British lord in charge of the Order, which murders people to gain immortality.

• Expospeak Gag: Spencer in "Mission Alpha":

  Jonas: Hey Spence, can I ask you something, buddy? Have you ever rock climbed before? Or you know like, um, exercised or anything?

  Spencer: I actually can't because I have a condition called nociception, which can be exacerbated by a build-up of lactic acid. Especially when it's situated in my teres minor and lower trapezius.^Translation Working out makes his back sore.

• Face Doodling: Jonas and Bree do this to Daniel between "Truth Or Dare" and "Hungover", making him look like a cartoon character while he's passed out drunk.
• The Faceless: Drew Avery is only seen from either the waist down or from behind.

• Final Speech:
  • Bree leaves one posthumously at the end of the Season 1 finale.
  • Dr. Hart delivers one in the final part of the Season 2 finale.

• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: In the early days of the lonelygirl15 series, "Bree" would respond to the users' comments at YouTube.
• Gender-Restricted Ability: You have to be a girl to be trait-positive.
• Genre Shift: Takes a sharp turn away from straight realism and comedy towards increased action, conspiracy and drama.
• Girls Love Stuffed Animals:
  • Bree is the most prominent example, keeping several stuffed animals in her room. Three of these (P. Monkey, Thor, and Owen) survive the move to being on the run, and Bree manages to make time to play with them even in those circumstances.
  • Sarah is seen playing with stuffed animals a couple of times: "Entertaining Myself" when she plays with P. Monkey, and "Spicing Things Up", where she messes with Daniel using a stuffed squirrel.
  • Emma also took a brief liking to P. Monkey shortly after she was introduced.
• The Ghost:
  • Tachyon never appears or is heard on camera, although she almost is in "The Human Ransom".
  • Sarah and Taylor's mom is never seen or heard on-camera, although she is discussed by her daughters.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Taylor and Sarah have elements of this, although they mix and match characteristics from the types; Sarah is attractive, intelligent, emo, and a Deadpan Snarker, while Taylor is more bookish and computer savvy but also sportier.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Daniel's "English flag" - actually Union flag - underwear.
• Grand Finale: "The Ascension" was hyped up as this, but the result fell flat due to being much shorter than the Season 1 finale and failing to resolve any of the main plotlines, being apparently a Poorly Disguised Pilot for LG15: the resistance.
• Gratuitous Spanish: While the gang are in Mexico. What Jonas says during "Spanglish" isn't even Spanish, just Spanish-sounding gibberish.
• Grief Song: "With Fear", sung by Emma following the death of Gina Hart in the previous episode.

• Have a Gay Old Time: "He thinks she should try a fish taco...".

• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Season 1: Bree willingly agrees to undergo the Ceremony in order to get the Order to stop chasing her friends and putting them in danger.
  • Season 2: Dr. Hart comes up with a plan to save both Gina and Emma from the Order and kill William Porter in the bargain, but it costs him his own life when the guards come after him.
  • Season 3: In the last Prom episode, Gina shoves Jonas out of the way of a sniper's line-of-sight, and ends up taking the bullet herself.

• Historical Villain Upgrade: In real life, Aleister Crowley was an eccentric occultist. In lonelygirl15, he's the founder of an Ancient Conspiracy dedicated to brainwashing people and murdering teenage girls with a special mutation in a bid to live forever.
• Hollywood Hacking: ZigZagged with Taylor's hacking. In "No Trespassing", she implies she exploited security vulnerabilities on an outdated website. "Let's Play Doctor" provides no details whatsoever on how she hacked the hospital's database, and "Mission Possible" plays this trope completely straight, with Taylor hacking into the security system after tapping her keyboard for a couple seconds.

• Hollywood Provincialism: "Entertaining Myself": Taylor mentions she's been hanging out with a guy named Perry since Sarah's been gone. Sarah snarkily asks if he knows "he can be arrested in like 50 states for touching you, right?"^note This is very off even for an exaggeration; Taylor is 16, and could thus give consent in 31 states, though not Texas or California. Taylor replies that Perry doesn't turn 18 for two months. The age of consent in Texas - where Sarah and Taylor had lived their entire lives before meeting the TAAG - is 17, and has a close-in-age exception of 3 years, meaning there is not an issue under the circumstances.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Sarah's terrible rendition of "Star-Spangled Banner" in "Mission Gamma", especially since Alexandra Dreyfus is a classically-trained opera singer.
• Human Resources: The Order's blood-draining antics.
• Idiot Ball:
  • The ending of "All Wet", where Sarah tries to take important papers out of Daniel's hand while the two of them are standing right over water, and inevitably the papers fall down and land right in the water, getting damaged.
  • Overlapping with Jerkass Ball, we have "DANGEROUS DESERT". Jonas and Sarah are biking across the desert when Sarah has a blowout. They get into a fight, Jonas gets pissed at her, and he just rides off and leaves her stranded in the desert. Even if he did intend to come back after cooling down, he should've realized that she didn't know that and would just go back to the Hymn Of One camp they had been fleeing from.
• If I Wanted You Dead...:
  • Virgil in "Watch Your Back": "If I wanted to hurt you, I would have killed you!"
  • Subverted in "Prom: It's To Die For - Part 4": Jonas points a gun at Edward Salinas and demands that he hand over the camera:
    Jonas: I'm not kidding.
    Salinas: I think you are. If there were any bullets in that gun, we'd all be dead by now, but there aren't, are there?
    (Jonas pistol whips Salinas and runs off with the camera)
• I Have Your Wife: Pulled by the Order twice, and unsurprisingly, bites them in the ass both times:
  • They threaten Dr. Hart with the death of his closest friend if he doesn't deliver Emma into their hands instead. He complies with their wishes, then kills the man who ordered it as soon as an opportunity to save both his friend and Emma presents itself.
  • Sarah is pressed into acting as The Mole after an Order agent, her dad, threatens to kill their sister. As soon as their sister is out of immediate harm's way, they betray the Order.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • Jonas expresses this to Taylor in "Hope He's Not Mad...":
    Jonas: Okay, if I could be anything, I had to choose, I would... I'd choose to be normal. Have this normal life with a regular family that just did normal stuff.
  • Emma quotes the trope name in "Decision Time".
  • In the Grand Finale, Daniel quotes it word-for-word in "10:00 AM". In "7:00 PM", he declares he's going home and leaves the beach.

• I Never: A non-alcoholic version occurs in the episode "Backyard Bikini Patrol". The point was obviously not to get drunk (they were playing with M&M's), but to learn "something juicy" about the participants. Served as a means of delivering exposition because we found out how different the lives of trait positives were from those of normal girls.

• Immortality Immorality: The Order is built on this. They brainwash, kidnap, and murder trait positive girls so that their highest-ranking members (called "Elders") can live forever.

• In-Series Nickname: Daniel is frequently called "Danielbeast" after the name of his YouTube channel.

• Intentionally Awkward Title: Several episode titles sound like something a teenager would write for their YouTube videos. This goes as far back as Episode 1: "First Blog / Dorkiness Prevails."
• In-Universe Camera: All filming is done on cameras that the characters are quite aware of and frequently carrying around with them.
• Ironic Echo: "It's not that easy." First said by Jonas in "Handcuffed" when Lucy appears to die on him, then echoed in the video description of "In My Sights", the very last video of the series, posted by Lucy herself.
• I "Uh" You, Too: In "Back Home", Daniel, who is recording a message for Bree, says "I still l... care about you."

Tropes J - Z

• Jerkass Ball:
  • Daniel in "What Bree's Dad Said", where, after refusing to tell Bree in person in the previous episode, he posts a video talking about him and Bree's dad discussed off-screen in a previous episode and insults her religion and reveals that he misled her on his feelings about her summer camp.
  • Bree takes it from him two episodes later in "I Probably Shouldn't Post This...", where she decides to film her and Daniel arguing about Bree's religion and what Daniel said about it, then hypocritically clams up at the end of the video in response to a question we don't hear.
  • Overlapping with Idiot Ball, Jonas abandons Sarah in the desert in "DANGEROUS DESERT", a short distance away from a Hymn Of One camp, for no better than they got into a fight. He realizes this some time later and goes back for her after cooling off, but by then she's gone back to the camp.

• Jitter Cam: Justified since, In-Universe, these are kids recording their experiences with camcorders.
• Jump Cut: Frequent, fast, deliberate jump cuts are one of the defining characteristics of the series. It also influenced how vlogs are edited today.

• Laser Hallway: In "Mission Possible", Daniel has to navigate a laser grid in the Wyman Foundation using the contortion moves Spencer taught him a couple episodes earlier.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: A few times across the series:
  • "Beach Bum": Daniel is talking how living on the run sucks, then says this:
    Daniel: Unless I turn this into some sort of documentary or something, I don't know. If only the Order paid us, paid us to be on the run, that would be great.
  • "We Have A Plan":
    Spencer: I feel like Edward Bond in Dark World, you know? I've just penetrated an alternate world, a semi-factual world very similar to my own.
  • This line from "Hey Dad" when you remember how many people thought the show was real when it first started:
    Jonas: 'Cause I think it's obvious everybody knows that all you need is a camera and some snappy editing and you can get anybody to believe you.
• Lie Detector: Bree produces a very low-tech and unconvincing example using Daniel's hand during the initial on-the-run road trip.
• Living in a Furniture Store: In one episode, Daniel investigates Bree's house. It's surprisingly clean for a family who is either kidnapped or on-the-run. On a more meta level, one of first things that twigged viewers to the fact that the series was fiction was the fact that everything in Bree's room was bought from Target—and some of the furniture still have the store tags on them.
• Look Both Ways: Bill Porter's Shadow meets his death by running into the road and getting killed in a hit-and-run.
• Male Gaze:
  • Bree often wears revealing outfits, such as tank tops and short-shorts.
  • Sarah almost always wears outfits that are revealing, tight, or both, showing her legs and cleavage off. Lampshaded in "Shop of Horrors!!!" when the camera drops to her breasts briefly after Jonas says that her job on the mission is distraction.

• The Mole: Several throughout the series:
  • Gemma never actually joins Bree or Daniel, but she helps from a distance. In "Tough Cookie" it's revealed that she works for the Order and isn't even in Britain.
  • After her Heel–Face Turn, Alex serves as one on the side of the TAAG near the end of season 1, slipping hints into the Hymn Of One's videos and helping them get one of the components needed for the serum.
  • Dr. Hart, who is one of the protagonists for a significant proportion of series 2, before eventually revealing himself to be a villain (but he switches sides during the season finale, "Bloodlines").
  • A particularly unusual example happened during the live event seen in "Too Dangerous!", in which a group of fans were invited to meet Daniel and Jonas, in person, in San Francisco, and take part in the storyline. Greg Gallows, a popular Fandom VIP of the series, was revealed to be a mole, passing information onto villain Lucy. Gallows went on to appear as an enemy mook in the following story, "Bloodlines".
  • Carl Adams in "Prom: It's To Die For", leading the Order straight to the TAAG's location and indirectly causing Gina's death.
  • Sarah was revealed in "We're Screwed!" to have been feeding the Order information for nearly a year, although she was doing it to protect her little sister Taylor from their dad, who works for the Order.
• Mood Whiplash: Used in many episodes, usually with most of it being light-hearted and comical then turning much darker at the end.
  • "Vegas, Baby!" and "In The Bedroom" both have the TAAG goofing around, having fun, and suddenly getting pursued by a Shadow at the end.
  • "Backyard Bikini Patrol" is mostly funny and light-hearted, then gets dark when they find a message from Salinas that seems directed at them.
  • "Flesh Wound" goes the opposite direction, starting with the TAAG panicked and arguing over whether to take Jonas to a hospital or not to treat his injury, then suddenly veering into almost sitcom-esque humor when Bree tells that audience they took Jonas to the vet instead and wrote him down as "Fido".
• Mr. Fanservice: Jonas appears shirtless regularly with little provocation.
• Mundane Made Awesome: In the episode "Foosball Battle", a game of table football is portrayed through epic close-ups and accompanied by the William Tell Overture.

• Ms. Fanservice: Sarah, whose entire wardrobe appears to consist of tight and/or revealing outfits.

• Mysterious Watcher: The Watchers follow Bree and observe her for the Hymn of One.
• Necessary Drawback: Shadows, the Elite Mooks of the Order of Denderah, take several drugs that raise their awareness, build muscles and remove the need for sleep, but as a side effect, few can survive past the age of 30.
• Necessary Weasel: Why aren't the TAAG easily apprehended by the Order or arrested by the police when they keep posting their location and videotaping themselves committing a very large number of crimes? Simple, because then there wouldn't be a show.^note A Nikki Bower video partially hand waved this by saying that the Order, for whatever reason, doesn't watch the TAAG's videos.

• No Fourth Wall: Part of the premise, as stated by the creators, is that there is no fourth wall. The characters are always aware that there is an audience, and often address them directly. However, the characters do not know that they are fictional, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the fourth wall exists — it's just transparent.
• No Theme Tune: There's no title sequence, likely in the name of realism. Most of the music is in-scene or regular pop music.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Sarah and Taylor had, prior to joining the TAAG, spent their entire lives in a small town in East Texas... and neither has any trace of a Texan accent.

• Oddly Small Organization: The Order, particularly in Season 1, appears to consist of Bree's watcher, her counselor Lucy, and a couple of other goons. The latter seasons downplay this, adding more faces and more distinct goons and Watchers to the cast, including Virgil. Justified since the TAAG spend most of their time in the American southwest, so it can be assumed that Lucy and some of the others are assigned to that area.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Occasionally you can hear Bree's accent slip into Jessica Rose's native New Zealander. Justified since Bree was partly raised in New Zealand and the US.
• Open Heart Dentistry: The TAAG takes Jonas to a vet in "Flesh Wound" to avoid the electronic attention that taking him to a hospital might attract from the Order.

• Pac-Man Fever: The classic Video Games in "Mission Gamma". Justified because the point of the episode is to train a character to detect patterns, which most such games have in abundance.

• Parental Betrayal: Sarah and Taylor's dad turns out to be a loyal member of the Order, to the point of being willing to kill his own daughters if the Order demands it.
• Parental Neglect:
  • Daniel's parents are so neglectful that when he comes home briefly after living on the run with Bree for over a month (during which time they thought he was camping), "they barely even [knew he] was gone". They don't even notice that he lost his car.
  • Sarah and Taylor's parents have split up before we meet the sisters. Their dad lives in a Lonely Bachelor Pad and seems to have next to no involvement in their lives, while their mom spends a lot of her time dating much younger men ("guys half her age" according to Taylor), including Jonas when he stays with Taylor briefly. We later find out that their dad is much worse than just uninvolved, however...
  • Subverted by Jonas' parents. The start of Season 2 reveals that his parents have been alive for the past six years, apparently simply choosing to never reconnect with him for a carefree life, then "A Family Affair" reveals that they got Easy Amnesia in the accident six years ago and don't even remember him.
• Path of Inspiration: The Hymn of One is a "religion" with a small but worldwide presence, created purely as a front for the Order. Using their brainwashed followers, they place trait-positive babies in Hymn of One homes, allowing the girls to become fully indoctrinated when the time comes for the Ceremony. The Ceremony is posed as a Rite of Passage, but is nothing more than a blood transfusion from the girl to an Elder that draws a fatal amount of blood in order to extend the Elder's life.
• Phlebotinum Muncher: The Elders need to receive trait positive blood transfusions on a semi-regular basis to survive.
• Pistol-Whipping:
  • A Watcher does this to Jonas in "KIDNAPPED!" right before he kidnaps Emma.
  • Jonas does this to Edward Salinas in the final part of "Prom: It's To Die For" to get the last video from the previous night.

• P.O.V. Sequel:
  • "Is He Out There?", shown from Daniel's perspective, was directly followed by "Proving Bree Wrong", the same events from Jonas' perspective.
  • "Uncle Dan" was shown from Jonas' perspective and directly followed by "Uncle Dan (D-Bone Remix)" (ommitted from the official website), told from Daniel's perspective.
  • This was also the central concept behind the four part story "Prom: It's To Die For", going through Daniel, Emma, Jennie, and Gina Hart's perspectives.
• The Power of Blood: Infusions of Trait Positive blood can extend the human lifespan considerably, possibly indefinitely as long as infusions are received regularly.

• Product Placement: Started cropping up in the middle of season 1 and lasted throughout the series.
  • The most blatant example likely being the plug for Ice-Breakers Sours Gum in "Truckstop Reunion", where Bree calls it by its full name and faces the label toward the camera.
  • Spencer's workplace being Neutrogena is also a result of this.

• Put on a Bus:
  • Alex makes her last appearance in "Proceed With Caution", where mentions that she's going to be going into hiding "for a very long time".
  • Spencer stops vlogging a few episodes into Season 2, goes back to his day job, and disappears from the show. The bus comes back for the Grand Finale, however.
  • Emma leaves to go into hiding with her parents early in season 3, then heads for an overseas school later in the season after coming back briefly.

• Relationship Revolving Door:
  • In the first 60 episodes of the series, Bree and Daniel break up and get back together three times. Justified by both of them being teenagers, though.
  • Later on, Daniel and Sarah also break up and get back together a few times. The show ends with them broken up, as Daniel can't forgive Sarah's betrayal regardless of her reasons.

• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Season 3 reveals that the original Resistance to the Order was destroyed when Lord Carruthers infiltrated it and turned some members by promising them eternal life. Once all the loyal members had been killed or driven into hiding, Carruthers had all the traitors killed.
• Scam Religion: The Hymn Of One, the front for the Order of Denderah, which claims to offer the "Eternal Song" but is just a way for the Order to get loyal, brainwashed followers to do their bidding.
• Scrapbook Story: Lots of videos are on channels other than lonelygirl15 to show perspectives other than Bree's. Characters with channels include Daniel, Gemma, and Jonas.

• Sequel Hook: The last shot of the series showed Lucy watching the TAAG disperse from the beach.

• Shout-Out: Many of them over the course of the series.
  • In "Roadtrip", Jonas say his "flux capacitor ran out of uranium at about four", a clear reference to Back to the Future (even if he should've said "plutonium").
  • In "For The Ladies", Jonas snarkily calls Daniel "Professor" and asks him how he got off the island.
  • Spencer makes references to Well of the Worlds and Dark World, both novels by Henry Kuttner.
  • In "Dude Back Off", Sarah tells Daniel that she's no Mrs. Cleaver.
  • The titles of "Losing My Religion", "Like A Virgin", and "Sweating Bullets" are references to songs by R.E.M., Madonna, and Megadeth respectively.
• Show Some Leg: This is something of a specialty of Sarah's. Lampshaded in "Shop of Horrors!!!".

  Jonas: Sarah's gonna distract the store owner with, uh, a long conversation.

  (the camera pans over to Sarah's face, then immediately down to her breasts)

• Sinister Shades: Watchers, most Shadows, and Lucy all wear sunglasses as they kill and kidnap anyone their bosses in the Order tell them to.

• Songs in the Key of Lock: The secret trapdoor in the Season 1 finale is opened by Spencer using his phone to play a series of musical notes that they were given by an informant.
• Spin-Off: EQAL seems determined to have a spinoff in as many countries as they could. KateModern for the UK, n1ckola for Poland, and ones being currently developed in Italy and Japan.
• Spoiler Title: Happened lots of times. "Bree's Dad Is Dead" is kind of a giveaway.

• Straw Nihilist: Sarah starts out as a downplayed version of this, with the very bleak and morbid quotes she puts on her bedroom door along with occasionally bringing up death randomly, and, most prominently, not believing in love. Taylor claims it's just a phase brought on by their parents splitting up, and Sarah grows out of it by the end of the season after spending enough time with Daniel.

• Stylistic Suck:
  • Daniel's film class video has Bad "Bad Acting", a plot that's nothing more than an excuse to show off ninjas, and terrible fight scenes, and In-Universe, it's So Bad, It's Good.
  • The animation of Jonas typing in "Like A Virgin" looks like it could've been done in MS Paint.
• Subject101: There is an episode titled "Interrogation 101".
• Sunglasses at Night: Lucy, who wears sunglasses, even in the dark or while fighting.
• Symbol Swearing: Used to some degree in any video title that would otherwise have a swear in it, such as "What the F*@k???" and "Stupid B!tch!".
• Technicolor Science: Occurs in "The Serum", which features beakers filled with red, orange, green, and yellow liquids.

• Tonight, Someone Dies: Done in the ads for "Bloodlines" and "Prom: It's To Die For".

• Tone Shift: After "Life's Not Fair," the series turns away from "sitting in front of a camera and talking" and shifts toward an "on-the-run" adventure story.
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: "The Ascension" took place on the day of an eclipse, implied to be part of a prophecy the Order has.
• Totally Radical: Lampshaded in "Training Hard":

  Bree: Anyway, Jonas, crazy mad props on cracking your aunt's stash. (cut) Did I really just say "crazy mad props"? God, what is wrong with me?

• Trope Maker: Usually regarded as the first "YouTube celebrity". Also the first Vlog Series.

• Unwanted Rescue:
  • Bree clearly protests and struggles against being rescued from the Order by the TAAG, and makes very clear once they've been captured they want to go back to the Hymn Of One.
  • Sarah also fights back against being rescued from the Hymn Of One a season later, although unlike Bree, she makes no attempt to try to rejoin them once the TAAG has her.
• The 'Verse: The Breeniverse, encompassing lonelygirl15, LG15: the resistance, KateModern, n1ckola, and Redearth88.

• Vow of Celibacy: Ceremony girls are required to maintain a "purity bond" during their preparation for the Ceremony, which includes not only celibacy but being intimate at all.

• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: Daniel's "English flag underwear" in "Crazy Emo Chick".
• We Have the Keys: Twice in "In The Closet":
  • First, Daniel tries to hop the gate outside the apartment building, only for Taylor to push the unlocked gate open while he's still trying to climb it.
  • Then, Jonas finds a seemingly-locked door in the apartment and prepares to kick it open... when Taylor stops him and opens it herself after some wiggling, explaining that the door sticks.
    Taylor: Not everyone padlocks their doors, guys.

• Wham Episode: Many across the series.
  • "On The Run": Bree and Daniel go back to Bree's house, and find that her parents are being taken somewhere by the Order, forcing Bree and Daniel to start living on the run.
  • "The Unthinkable Happened": The first death in the series occurs: Bree's dad gets shot dead by the Order, right in front of her.
  • "The Perfect Beach": Bree, Daniel, Jonas, and Alex all have a pleasant time at the beach, and then an Order car shows up to take Alex somewhere, and she reveals that the Order is no longer interested in Bree because they've found a new Ceremony girl.
  • "What the F*@k???": After Julie escapes (again) and runs over to Lucy and some other Order agents, Bree gets out of Jonas' car and walks over to negotiate. And then willingly gets into the car with Lucy, and rides off with the Order.
  • The Season 1 finale: Not only does Bree die, but her delayed voicemail reveals that she was faking her brainwashing the whole time and planned to do the Ceremony so that the Order would stop harassing her friends and putting them in danger.
  • "Run!": Taylor discovers that Jonas' adoptive sister Emma is the next trait positive girl the Order intends to use for the Ceremony.
  • "We're Screwed!": Reveals that Sarah is The Mole, and has been since season 2.
• Wham Line:
  • From "Run!":
    Taylor: Okay, the new girl — the new trait positive girl the Order's after, she's been under our noses all along. Jonas, I just tried calling you, you're not picking up. Daniel, if you see this, you need to go to Jonas's and get him and his sister out of there. Jonas, take Emma and run.
  • "Watch Your Back":
    Virgil: Stop fighting me, Jonas! Jonas! Stop it! If I wanted to hurt you, I would have killed you. (holds a gun to Jonas's head) Jonas, where is Emma?!
    Jonas: I don't know! I don't know.
    Virgil: Goddammit, Jonas! If you don't tell me where that LaRezisto Shadow took your sister, her fucking blood will be on your hands.
    Jonas: ...huh?
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Swimming!", Bree asks Daniel this infamous question: "Whatever happened to that girl Cassie?" Daniel says he has no idea who Bree's talking about, and after Bree says Cassie was in his class, Daniel still doesn't remember her. This odd, seemingly meaningful conversation, combined with several OpAphid videos fixating on Cassie and a couple more mentions of her by Bree (in "My Helper" and "Bree Phone Home", which reveal she was a former friend of Bree's), led to all kinds of fan theories on who Cassie was and what might've happened to her... only for the creators to eventually reveal that she was never intended to be anything more than a minor element of Bree's past.
• Wildlife Commentary Spoof: Gina does one at the start of "Mexican Mating Machine", in particular referring to Jonas as "the three-toed Jonas".
• With Catlike Tread: Of both the "terrible at stealth and gets caught" and the "terrible at stealth but doesn't get caught" varieties.
  • The latter is very noticeable in "What's Going On?", where the TAAG is not stealthy at all while following Chris, but both him and the ground-floor security are completely oblivious to their approach.
  • The former can be found in "Bree's Mom", where the TAAG is comically obvious is peeking up over the ledge, and gets noticed by security, and Gina gets kidnapped.

• Yawn and Reach:
  • Demonstrated by Bree in an early episode.
  • And over 180 episodes later, Daniel uses it for real on Sarah in "Rockin' the Boat".

• You Are Too Late: Twice.
  • In the Season 1 finale, the TAAG arrives too late to save Bree from dying in the Ceremony.
  • Played with in the Season 3 finale. Jonas and Sarah arrive in time to disrupt the Ceremony... but the girl the Order had prepared died from blood loss anyway.

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"Always know that I love you. I love you with all my heart... okay? I... I, um, I better go now. Good luck, guys. Bye."

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