The Homeschoolers Aggregate

HSA: The Immersive Fiction Game

---

Website:The Homeschoolers Aggregate
We play by the rules. And yet information wants to be free.

Homeschoolers Aggregate Online website

Homeschoolers Aggregate Online is a fan creation that began in October 2006 with some short, text based “advertisements” for an online program for home schooled students. The videos shared the strict rules that participants need to follow in order to remain in the program. Many viewers questioned the relationship of these videos and the HSA website to the Lonelygirl15 production. Lonelygirl fans and HSA viewers soon realized that the videos and site were an independent production that ran parallel to Bree’s story. Some viewers speculated that Bree was a former participant of the program due to HSA's strict policies. Others speculated that it was a cult, trying to lure students to enroll. As it turned out, HSA was a game that followed the idea of immersive fiction more that a traditional ARG. The HSA offered no dead-drops or computer codes to break. To participate in HSA, students register by the deadline and complete written tasks that often help them find the password to the class notebook, a password-protected message forum. Since HSA discourages students from interacting or socializing, this class notebook/message forum is the place where students leave the answers to their “assignments.” Assignments range from replying to philosophical theories, to making personal connections to these ideas, to discussing issues relevant to Bree's situation, to responding to specific pieces of art, and even creating and sharing one’s own art work.

Students find the assignments posted on the website. Videos either reinforce a lesson’s focus, provide insight to an area of examination or offer clues to the participants to figure out the assignment’s password. At HSA, when students solve the password and are ready to post their answer in the school message forum, they are said to “Bring It” to the class notebook. Interested students are free to post links to their own in-character blogs on the HSA website.

The head of school is a woman known as Rose Marie Crandall Crowley Kelly, who is married to Phillip Crowley (no relation to Aleister). She is a very strict, yet supportive instructor who encourages her students to do their best. She expects students to follow her rules without question, and those who have questioned her have had their IP addresses banned from the site. Assignments receive responses from Ms. Kelly and student work is exhibited on the website.

Throughout each term, a back story emerges involving Ms. Kelly’s exploits and those who seem interested in harming her for reasons that remain unclear. The website offers clues, blogs for additional characters such as guest instructors or former students, and links to related material. At the end of the term, students are treated to a graduation ceremony video and a certificate of completion. HSA has a small group of followers who seem to enjoy the intellectual stimulation of this game.

This is the first time that HSA’s creator has ever been involved in such a pursuit. Participants have been forgiving and patient as her stories unfold and her skills improve.

For an explanation of this game for potential participants, see How to Play: HSA<ref>How to Play: HSA</ref> from the HSAO website.

HSA: On the Lonelygirl15 Forum

---

The Homeschoolers Aggregate appears to be a secular forum for gifted homeschoolers to receive informal assignments in and to discuss Literary Theory, Poetry, Art, and Moral and Ethical Philosophy. Whether the Aggregate is an accredited institution, and whether it supports other subjects outside the liberal arts, is unknown.

Internet fans of Bree stumbled across the HSAOnline introductory and training videos hosted on YouTube. The source of the lonelyfans' speculation that Bree was a student of the Homeschoolers Aggregate is unknown, but several participants of the Tribute to Lonelygirl15 Phorum flocked to register for a new session to be administered by HSAOnline's strict but supportive educator, Ms. Kelly, who continually exhorts the students to "Study up!"

Ms. Kelly and the HSAOnline administrators seem very solicitous regarding the online privacy of their student families. During its primary stages, HSAOnline appeared to be recovering from some sort of major hack of its computer systems as well as from a suspicious fire, based on some oblique comments from Ms. Kelly.

Many of the new HSAOnline students, like many of the fans of the lonelygirl15-inspired internet game cassieiswatching, which was in its heyday when HSA arrived on the scene, use Bukanator's forum as a secondary clubhouse to discuss the mysterious Aggregate.

Characters Often used to symbolize Ms. Kelly's relationship to fire, "Burn" is a piece by artist Kara Walker Teachers and Administrators Ms. Kelly's YouTube Channel