avant garde journalism? i beg to differ. sarcastic wit and whimsical injection of media morality does not equate to true journalism. this salon.com article that has been circulating the internet community like a horrible plague is nothing more than an outsider’s view on the caged chimpanzees. not to say that we net-bums and cam-people are primates, but this environment which we choose to live in online cannot be completely comprehended by ones who are there to examine instead of to experience.

the term from the article “prostitution” is correct in an abstract sense, as a lot of these cam-girls make a living out of their sites. they are there to dispense every aspect of their life on the internet to perfect strangers and pretend to be that somebody who they could not be in real life.

now, for the amazon.com wishlists… i’ve never understood that part, mainly because i haven’t gotten around to making one. granted, i’d love to receive gifts, only if they are thoughtful and from someone whom i’ve known online for a while. however, getting presents from anonymous perverts online who have no clue about the person i am at all just seems odd — for lack of a better word. perhaps this is because i don’t devote my whole life to my site and to my webcam and only a minute part. perhaps i just don’t care about the web community and online social status as much as the next person who shows their knickers and knockers on the cam. showing tasteful images of skin and cleavage can pass as artistic in the rare circumstances, but don’t try to fool the rest of us. we aren’t so terribly simple-minded.

articles like these get cam-girls’ panties in a twist (as if they weren’t already) because they don’t like to be judged and sized-up, when that is precisely what goes on when visitors hit up their websites. these cam-girls become annoyingly defensive to journalists who respond negatively to their sites and webcams but accept in a condescending manner the exaggerated compliments of faceless regulars. all the while, i am sure, they are enjoying the attention and drastic increase in their website traffic… and god knows how many hits they’re getting from zines like salon.com and quick mentions on cable television. bad publicity is still publicity, no matter how you slice it. and attention is what these cam-girls ultimately crave.

i believe the only words of the article that could be deemed somewhat insightful were quoted from a miss bridget guildner:

…I think that the reason why we don’t see many 25-year-olds running cam girl sites is that with experience comes the realization that being used is unpleasant, even if you are using the person back.