Camwhores!

I remember when the original Connectix QuickCam came out. This was the first time that hooking up a video camera to your computer became cheap enough to do it for the lulz, rather than for business. Sure, if you had some serious coin, you could invest in a PowerMac 8500 which had some video-in ports and buy a little Apple-branded tiny real video cam (or just use a camcorder), but the QuickCam was the gateway drug: with it, any idiot with $100 could broadcast their ugly mug out over the nascent commercial Internet.

Back then, about the only thing to do with your QuickCam was to run CU-SeeMe, which I remember as being piece of shit software. However, CU-SeeMe birthed the first of a new breed of human: the Camwhore. Yes, there were rumors abound on the Usenets that if you happened to connect to the right "reflector" at the right time, you might be able to convince some female of indeterminate age to expose herself to you.

Jump a few years into the future, and thanks to MTV's True Life: I'm a Camwhore I now know that there are a select few people out there who actually can make a living (of sorts) as professional camwhores.

I used to listen to Tom Leykis on the radio a lot because he's an entertaining dude and it was better than newsradio or politics. One thing he said that stuck with me is that there is no such thing as a legitimate use for a webcam. If you go into your significant other's bedroom and there is a shiny new webcam on the desk, they are screwing around on you, or preparing to. A work colleague with whom I'm coordinating an event has (innocently) asked me to get a webcam so we can video chat instead of talk on the phone, but I keep putting her off because I know that no real good can come out of me having a webcam.

FOCUS: Webcams, or cameras of all kinds + the Internet. Who (or what) have you encountered out there in the big wide world of low-resolution person-to-person streaming video? Did you see two dudes doing it on Chatroulette? Did you meet the love of your life, or your weekend, video chatting with random people on Skype or MSN? Do you stream your whole life Truman-Show-style? Do you just like to fuck with people?

 

I'm theoretically a fan of the technology; on paper, I'd say I'd use it all the time. To talk to old friends, family members, girlfriends, etc. I have Skype, iPhone 4 FaceTime, and Gchat video. For some reason, though, I hardly ever video chat. The practice of texting/IMing or simply calling is so ingrained in my behavior, doing anything else feels weird. There's also the fact that a lot of times when I want to call someone I look like shit and don't want to shower, pick out a clean shirt, put in my contacts, and so on. If I got into the habit of video chatting with people, I'm sure I'd do it more often.

The one person I consistently video chatted with, using Gmail, was an ex-girlfriend I dated long-distance for a few months before we lived in the same city. It was pretty damn useful, in that scenario. Especially when she got topless.

My current job is a remote freelance editor position, working from home in Denver for a company based in California. Before my first day, they made me download Skype. I thought I'd be video chatting with my bosses all day long and dressed accordingly. Thankfully, they only use Skype for its chat features, as if it were AIM, so I'm currently typing this with a two-week beard and wearing pajamas.

 

I think Skype is a cool technology, though I don't use it personally, since the only thing I really like about talking on the phone is that I can do it looking like unshaven shit and slugging back tequila.

As early as 2005, I stumbled on a certain subgenre of YouTube videos that involved nothing more than a person addressing a webcam and talking about something, often referring to their legions of viewers and their own online notoriety. It was particularly obnoxious when I'd search for, say, a video of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology and get, instead, a video of some Heartland nobody talking about Tom Cruise.

So aside from the real camwhores who are known for at least hinting at naked action, there's an underworld of microcelebrities who are known just for staring at webcams and venting their worthless opinions. And this world has its own controversial, weirdly fascinating superstars, some of whom try to parlay their web fame into marginal income:



Leykis is a bit absolutist on a lot of sexual matters, but I'd be wary of anyone who was considered a celebrity in some imaginary world I didn't know about. Either way, Warhol was no fool.

 

I was shitvoted last year for not mentionning "the case of F's dirty bedroom", but now that the subject is webcams ...

The time : Between 2000-2005

I work in the computer industry. Sometimes, friends get rid of "stash", in this case, a friend of a friend had a bunch of network cards to get rid off, and I was all too happy to collect them as I was in the process of fabricating frankenputers to use as linux servers. the guy comes on over at work and leaves the stuff, but i was scheduled to go out and hang out with S., a gorgeous girl, after work. The general plan was that we were to go to a street known for it's bars and hang out.

I really didn't feel like explaining why I was carrying computer parts to a bar after work, so I went to the mailroom and made myself a small, compact professional-looking package ( with foam peanuts, packing tape, the whole works). Hell, the box even had an old waybill in one of those transparent pouches. Satisfied with the resulting package, i went out.

Over the course of the night ( we went to several places) S kept asking about the package, what's in the package, blabalbla. Because, once again, i didn't feel like explaining the whys or whats, i took the instant decision to make up something.

S : So really, what's in the box?
Me : Oh all right. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but it's the secret webcams.
S : The what?
Me : The secret webcams. Me and F ( my roomate ) are thinking about starting some porn website. Basically F would have to fuck some girl every week, and we think it would pay for the apartment and stuff.
S laughs, thinking it's a joke.

-*-
Fast Forward a few days later when S was supposed to come to the apartment and go hang out with F , the roomate. I came back from that night and basically put the box on top of my computer and it was forgotten... until maybe 30 minutes before S gets there. I share the secret webcams story with F, who thought the whole thing was hilarious. We commonly decide to push the joke to the next level, with me opening the box savage style, and scattering foam packing peanuts everywhere, and strategically leaving the box open ( and empty) on top of my computer screen.

S comes in, gives me a hug, gives F a hug and everything is all dandy... until she spots the box. Her voice gets a little concerned, and she asks :
S : So F, what's this thing about a website?
F : Oh yeah, it's gonna be called "F's dirty bedroom" , and the way we figured this thing out, we only need 40 subscribers to pay for the whole apartment and get us a bit of candy. The whole thing is amazing, we've already got D ( another common friend of us all, a web designer) working on the design, and he's saying it's looking good.

F was nailing it, with perfect delivery, intonation, with entrepreneur-style zealotry. S mentions "getting ready to go out" and goes to the bathroom.

I immediatly pick up the phone and dial D. We both talk to him real quick, explain the situation really quickly as " a joke" and we tell him that if S calls, to mention that "he's working on this thing for us, it's looking real good, and we're all gonna make a shitbunch of money off this thing" and we'll explain the whole joke later.

Apparently D's phone rang immediatly after we called, from S using her cell phone from our bathroom.
S : So i hear you're working on some kind of website for F ?
D : The bedroom thing? Everything is all connected, the whole thing is setup. I think this is my best work yet, and we're all gonna get rich off this thing, i know it !

That was it.
After this day, S was terrified of ever going back to the apartment. While at first I thought the whole thing was downright hilarious, after a few months i realised that while the joke and situation was funny, her being terrified of coming over was just stupid. So I relent and explain to her it was all a big bad joke and a misunderstanding. She would not believe me, thinking it to be some kind of "ploy" to get her in the apartment, perhaps get her tipsy, and who knows? Even after F was gone and that we had been "claiming" that the webcams thing wasn't true for months she would not return.

Thus ends the case of F's dirty bedroom . The fear of the webcam was strong back then, strong enough to terrify!

 

I'm banging a MILF right now, who used to be a camgirl when she was 19. She's got the parental issues, fucks like a rockstar and has a rocking body. She made really good money doing it as well, often leaving with six or seven hundred bucks for two or three hours of laying around masturbating. She's never been recognized, even when she was working, and has never had an issue since she quit all those years ago*. It works out quite well for me because she has a penchant for anal, loves sucking dick and loves too fuck.

Focus: I don't own, nor ever want to own a webcam. They reek of crazy to me. I see them in customers homes all the time, some of the obviously used because they're not covered in dust and those customers usually have some high level creep factor going on. If I want to videotape something, I'll grab a camera or my phone; it'll give better video quality anyway.

*I know I've opened a can of worms but I'm not bringing her on here to answer questions, we had that thread already.

 

Wait a minute, how old is this woman? Unless camgirls have been around longer than I realize I don't think she's old enough to qualify as a MILF.

Focus: I have very little interaction with cameras in my life. One of the reasons I don't have Facebook is because I have like no pictures of myself to put up - which if I understand things is the point of Facebook. Seriously, I think the only picture of me that was taken in the past ten years is the picture of me at work that they put on my name badge and my hastey self-pic I use for online dating services. Hell I wasn't even in the most recent family portrait pic - I was the one operating the camera.

 

Amish and Mennonites are two different things. That's like saying, "Hey, look at that Catholic Mormon over there!"

 

Reasons like this are why I can't take feminism seriously. I mean, this is the gender that's oppressing you? Really? These guys couldn't oppress a starving ethnic minority.

 

I'm not sure how long-distance relationships ever worked out before Skype. It was pretty much the only way I was able to get through last summer.

Now, I pretty much just Skype with my parents and my brother on a weekly basis. I was debating whether to just wait until Christmas to show them my tattoo or to show them on webcam. I wish I would've saved a screenshot of their faces - just priceless.

Mom: What is that sticking out of your shirt?
Jennitalia: A tattoo.
Mom: Oh that's cute. A fake tattoo! I thought it was a lace undershirt.
Jennitalia: It's not fake.
Mom: Yes, it is! You're such a silly baby!
Jennitalia: No, I'm being completely serious. It's real.
Mom: [blank stare, followed by slightly horrified face, followed by trying-to-be-supportive-of-your-decision face]

 

Back in high school I was IM ing this chick from Belgium on a fairly regular basis. Things progressed as they naturally do when two horny teenagers are left to their own ends and I was regularly getting tit shots, stripteases, etc via webcam after I came home from school. Shit thing is I was 17 at the time and she was 15, pretty sure that's illegal.

The best use I've ever seen of a webcam was when I was deployed to Iraq. We had this one nasty motherfucker who was always finding girls to do shit for him. So one night we get the entire platoon around the laptop when he's found one of his whores. That's the only time I've seen a woman fuck herself in the ass with vegetables. Of course once the show was over his webcam magically started to work again and this girl saw thirty shit eating grins staring back at her. Good times.

 

Congratulations idiot, you scared away a gorgeous girl by taking a juvenile prank too far and acting really creepy. Give yourself a round of applause.

Focus-

I have several friends that use webcams for long distance relationships, but the only person in my family who uses one is my 81 year-old step-grandfather.

He absolutely loves Skype and uses it to communicate with his family in Moscow, and various friends here and back in Russia. When I went to college, he kept on selling me how great a webcamera would be, and that it would be great to chat over. Obviously, I blew him off.

Unless it's for communicating with people you already know or camwhoring, I don't see the purpose of a camera on top of the monitor.

 

I use my computer shirtless, unshaved, while eating, and generally while being comfortably disgusting. The last thing anyone wants is for a camera feed of that process.

I use a webcam quite a bit at work. I work with a team spread through 4 timezones - and work very closely with some guys in Kuala Lumpur - we try and do as much over webcam as we can and we get better value out of meetings and the remote teams who don't have onsite management. Even that's a huge pain in the ass.

 

To put myself through high school, I used to schedule private masturbating sessions with a lonely Japanese business man named Kigo. I would widen the lens on my webcam so my sausage looked fat and juicy, and go to town on myself while he leered and sipped rice wine*.

Every month, I would get an unmarked package stuffed full of yen, and, if it was christmas, an orange. Imagine my surprise when he turned out to be my long lost uncle.

I am not even Japanese!!!




* Unlike wine, which is made by fermentation of naturally sweet grapes and other fruit, rice "wine" results from the fermentation of rice starch converted to sugars. This process is akin to that used to produce beer; however, beer production employs a mashing process to convert starch to sugars whereas rice wine uses the different amylolytic process.

 

Since MILF strands for Mother I'd Love To Fuck, She could've been a milf when she was a 19-year-old camgirl. I believe the type of woman you're thinking of is a "Cougar".