Grant Steinfeld

Grant Steinfeld, a.k.a. Bukanator was an early participant in Lonelygirl15, and shot some still photography of the filming of the first episodes of Lonelygirl15. He was an associate of the Creators, in charge of designing some of LG15's online interactive content. Steinfeld, a San Francisco area photographer and software engineer, also briefly played the text-based role of Boris Bukanator, a fictitious early fan from YouTube credited with creating LonelyGirl's official fan site, lonelygirl15.com and initially moderating its phorum.

Dismissal from the project


In July 2006, Steinfeld was shut out of the project, but still had access to Bukanator's e-mail accounts. Without informing the Creators of Lonelygirl15, he went to Candace Murphy, a reporter with the Oakland Tribune newspaper and whose Web site is Inside Bay Area, and told her that Lonelygirl15 was a production. Murphy claims that Steinfeld had suggested that she could hack into the Lonelygirl15 e-mail accounts to learn the identity of the Creators, as he had been unwilling to disclose their identities himself. At the time of the meeting, Ms. Murphy concluded she had no story without further specific disclosures from Steinfeld; several weeks later she reversed this decision and published a piece about the July interview following the spate of press attention in the wake of the September reveal of the LG15 cast and crew.

Steinfeld later told a slightly different version about the July events to Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times. Steinfeld claimed that he grew tired of running the site and dropped out of the project after fans discovered that the site had been registered before the first Lonelygirl15 video was posted on YouTube.

Some of Steinfeld's photography of the shooting of the early Lonelygirl15 episodes was published in the New York Times, and was briefly available on Steinfeld's personal web site. As it is understood that all original members of the lonelygirl15 team signed Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), some have speculated as to whether Steinfeld's actions violated his NDA. However, the terms of that agreement have never been disclosed.