The Daily Texan
Febuary, 1998
Living on the Web Internet cameras offer viewers an intimate look at others' lives
Ariadne, 24, spends about two hours in front of Internet cam every night. The thought that she will sooner or later be naked keeps them watching. Every two minutes on the World Wide Web, a new picture appears from the privacy of her bedroom. One could easily go to any of thousands of pornographic Web sites, yet there is something about a simple sequence of pictures of a young woman working at her computer that draws millions of visitors to her Web site every week. This fascination with life's images is about more than deviant curiosity. "I really want my personality to come through the cam, as well as my boobs." -- Ariadne The growing trend in cams is to photograph oneself, and the more intimate, honest and thorough these visual journals are, the more popular the site. Showing one's private side hasn't hampered this latest trend in high-tech lifestyles.
Trend setters A 21-year-old Washington woman named Jennifer Ringley is credited as the first person to open her life to the glare of the World Wide Web. Her site can be viewed at http://www.jennicam.org. Ringley bought the camera so she could update pictures of herself on her Web page. A friend jokingly suggested she use the cam to make her dorm room into a fish bowl, opening her life for all to see, and the idea intrigued her enough that she did it. Ringley said her Web site is about real life. Since sex and nudity are a part of life, these facets will sometimes appear on her Web page. Yet Ringley's site is not only sex and nudity, but a visual diary of the parts of her life that unfold before the cameras. Even the tedium of everyday life hasn't stopped thousands of people from viewing her pictures. She sells enough Web site memberships at $15 per year to cover the costs of a $2,000 monthly Internet bill.
After Ringley opened a technological window into her life, Minneapolis singer Ana Voog publicly elevated her life to performance art on her site, http://www.anacam.com, by placing four cameras in strategic spots around her apartment. Every two minutes since last August a picture of the diminutive 5-foot-2, 90-pound performer has zipped across the World Wide Web to an estimated 700,000 daily visitors at her Web site. Ana balances her audience's voyeurism and a showman's knack for elevating a simple act like doing dishes into a spellbinding rhythm played out in two-minute intervals. Ana's showmanship has led to newspaper articles, television and radio interviews and a global cult following -- the sort of attention she needs to promote the April release of her CD on Radioactive/RCA. Her music Web site, http://anavoog.com/, includes a RealAudio music video in which she introduces herself, cat Nova, dog Pooka, her .38-caliber special and 9 mm semi-automatic.
The Naked Truth Ariadne, who wished not to use her last name, describers herself on her Web page, http://www. voyeurtv.com/ari/aricam1.htm, as a "24 -year-old Asian/Hawaiian/Scottish girl, who was born and raised in the beautiful state of Hawaii." Ariadne spends about two hours each evening in front of her Web cam while chatting with her fans on the Internet Relay Chat. She expresses her physical beauty in a quasi-strip tease for her audience, yet she said she maintains a contact with her audience that distinguishes her from pornographic sites on the Web. "I want the viewers to feel included in the cam, like I know they are there watching and that I appreciate it," she said. "They give me feedback and I go with it. I try to make it interactive. I really want my personality to come through the cam, as well as my boobs."
Mason West Daily Texan Staff
Web Cams Continued from Living on the Web
Daniel Finger, a history junior who has an Internet camera in his Prather dorm room, said he hopes the pictures will help make his Web site more entertaining. Ariadne explained that she does it for fun. "I am very bored here," she said. "I live in a small, uptight town in central Pennsylvania, not much to do. I don't get much interaction with new and different people in the town I live in, so I thought the cam was a good way to be social and be seen. For me it's like going out to a bar or club and meeting people, but naked." Ariadne has been married for two years -- the cam was her husband's idea. "We had memberships to a few cams before I did mine," she said, "and he kept saying that I should do it because I was pretty. He is really cool." Ariadne spent 1992 studying English literature at the University, and said she enjoyed Austin. "It was way cool," she said with a smile. "But I missed Hawaii too much and had to go home." She changed her major back to biology after returning to Hawaii. "I found out I am more scientifically bent," she said. "I now live in Pennsylvania with my husband where I study biology at a university." Although anyone can watch Ariadne, she now charges money to see her most frequently updated Web pictures. "It was either go member or stop the cam and get a job," she said. "I thought it was better to go member because people seemed to like watching me and I like the cam. School is expensive." Ariadne said although she frequently goes to strip clubs, she has never been a stripper. "I don't get prudish reactions, just perverted ones, usually," she said about audience feedback. "That is also a reason I went member. The guest chat gets really out of control and I hate being treated like a Barbie doll for others' pleasure whether I like it or not. I thought that members might be more laid back, appreciative and cooler to me. So far they have been." Ariadne said she doesn't mind requests from members. "That is what they pay for and they deserve it," Ariadne said, "but from guests, it can get lame when they want me to do something I don't want to. They think that because they can see me it is their right to tell me what to do and I don't like that. I am surprised by the way people expect something of me for nothing and then get abusive when I say no."
Hitting Home The Web page of Hampton Finger, http://subspacerift.dorm.utexas.edu, a junior in history, has received an average of 10,000 hits per month since it began Sept. 30. Finger said he invites the world to watch dorm life on his couch in Prather Hall, "because I can." "The longer answer," he added, "is to show that I can do something interesting and entertain people. In fact, I set up a webcam at my office where I work over the summer and over the Christmas holiday, so this is technically my second webcam. "We had an extra camera lying around the office over the summer, so I borrowed it and just asked to take it for the semester," Finger said. "What can I do with a cam? Stick it on the net and show pictures of my golden crush velvet couch. I've been looking at an angle to get people to look at my Web page. I wanted to have something to draw in people." Finger said he is too busy to surf the Web, but he has seen Ariadne. "A friend down the hall watches her every night," he said. "Some people think of the cams as a good way to study human nature. I guess that's what that woman's doing." Finger said his cam is somewhat censored. "We cover it for safety, I guess," he said. "My room is very dusty, and every so often I itch my nose, and I really don't want someone watching my page to say that I pick my nose. As far as compromising positions, I really don't have one. If I have to change clothes I cover the cam." Finger said that most reactions to his sites fall into two broad categories: people who want to set up a site of their own asking for help and people asking him to take his clothes off.
Camera Shy Tamumba, as she calls herself, isn't ready for the deluge of viewers she will get if she decides to make her recently opened site public. For now she is sharing it with a few friends "to have fun," she said, and "so people can see me if they want to. So that I can learn to be more comfortable around cameras. "So many times, I've seen pictures of myself and have literally wanted to burn them," Tamumba said. "The camera has never been kind to me. Having one at my disposal, though, without the cost of developing film will allow me to learn how to look better in pics. Also, I like the instant gratification. If it's great, I can share it immediately. If it's not, into the recycle bin it goes 'poof!,' without taking film to a pimply-faced Eckerd's employee. "I'm not doing this to be popular," she added. "I have different reasons than most cam girls." Tamumba said she watches LabMan, http://www.america.net/~geiger/labcam.htm, and Ana. "I'm not really an exhibitionist, but an attention-seeker of sorts," she explained. "I have a way of changing my attitude so that I become noticeable, for example, when I'm out at clubs dancing. It's kind of a game I play with myself: How many eyes can I catch? I don't care whether they love me or hate me, just that I'm noticeable and memorable."
Feature Attraction A 20-year-old San Francisco woman named Meredith, who also wished not to giver her last name, http://concretecam.simplenet.com/, first used her camera with software called CU-SeeMe, http://cu-seeme.cornell.edu/, for the Internet equivalent of videoconferencing, like having a party line with video. "I videoconferenced for a long time," Meredith said. "A few months ago I discovered that people actually just put these on their Web pages and it seems that doing that gives you more creative possibilities. You do something on CU-SeeMe once and no one remembers, whereas on a Web cam where you have a bigger audience, it's more memorable." Web cam users draw a distinction between shows, when they are presenting a specific program for the sake of the cam, and nonshow, when the cam is ignored as it documents their lives in a realistic form. "When I first had it up," Meredith said, "it was totally a nonshow kinda thing. I had it up around the clock. But now, since I only have it up maybe a few hours a day, I tend to really just use it as a show-like thing. The other night I played my viola, and it was super fun because my friend was doing the same on his cam with his guitar. Last night I made a puppet show." One of Meredith's online friends calls himself Drama, http://www.castboy.com/dramacam.html, and sometimes his cam page echoes Meredith's, and sometimes they appear together on the same page. Drama's Web page reviews cam pages, and Drama is especially critical of pages that charge money for full privileges. For the pages he considers the most egregious, he has invented the term "HoCam" http://www.castboy.com/hocam .html. "I met Drama on CU-SeeMe awhile back, but never really got to know him till I did my webcam," she said. "He added me to his reviews and we've become great friends ever since." Meredith, who in the cam world is known by the nickname "Concrete Waffer," has a Web site that has led to work offers. "I haven't done any design before I made this, but since I've put it up, I've gotten so many requests," she said. "I'm tackling a few of them now."
In addition to Drama, Meredith watches a sultry and artistic cam performer named Isabella, http://useeme.com/isa/. "Isabella is fabulous," Meredith said. "I met her on CU-SeeMe when I first began actually. She does marvelous stuff with her cam -- very, very sexual, but beautiful as well." Meredith said the growing trend in cams may help change American attitudes toward television if not toward sexuality. "Well, take Ana Voog for example," Meredith said. "She does shows where she pulls out tiny dolls arms from herself; as well as tiny toys, etc. I think it's a good thing, but I don't know if the cams will change American attitudes. People who think exhibitionism is disgusting will not change their attitudes by seeing a cam for a few minutes, but I think it might give them something to think about." She said people who are not open-minded will probably dismiss the cams as vulgar. "But I think if people watch them, and watch them for being more than TV in the fact that one person is directing, acting, controlling everything, that it's so inspirational," she said. "A person can put all of this together without the giant amounts of money that TV and movies require. I think this, in itself, would be a good thing for American attitudes." Reaction among students was far more conservative than the opinions of cam operators. "It seems kind of intrusive, but if you get off on that ... I think you have to be half-nuts to put yourself on video like that," said Ryan Golden, a senior in English, as he watched Ana Voog for the first time. "Why would someone want to put their life on stage?" Golden wondered, but then conceded, "It's kind of interesting. And in another capacity, it's kind of erotic, although not really a substitute for real eroticism. It certainly makes me want to see the next picture." Chris Miller, an accounting senior, said, "Very interesting. Not that I'd do it. I wouldn't want my life on the Internet. I'd probably check in every now and then. It's interesting to see what these people are doing. She's obviously promoting herself to get the record deal, attention, free publicity."
REBECCA KROLL Daily Texan Staff