my boyfriend, fetik3, just wrote a manifesto in response 2 the many emails and posts he receives that treat him in an unfair way.he is the man who deals with my cam 24/7..helping to maintain it times infinity and beyond. he is the man i love whom u never get 2 see much of on the cam. but here he speaks out on a bunch of issues that effect him. i thought this would make a great new analog...so here is fetik3...in his own words:

Having been on both sides of the anacam has given me a particularly unique perspective, not to mention a particularly unique experience regarding the phenomenon. I constantly see posts/receive e-mails about my interaction with Ana, and am always astounded at the conclusions that are made. In particular there was a recent thread on DanKitti's "Ana Voog BBS" which debated a request from Ana. DK had put up 2 pictures from the "Mobile Cam" of Ana2, and Ana requested that he ceased in posting these photos. The reason is quite simple: anacam costs a lot of money to operate and keep up. In order to keep it free for everyone, the money has to come from somewhere. One way to make this money was done by creating Ana2. The money from the memberships of this site could be used to help subsidize the costs of anacam, and thus keep it free. In order to convince people to join Ana2, which would achieve this end, certain incentives were added. One of the main incentives is the ability to see Ana on the Mobile Cam when she leaves the apartment. DK's posts of the pictures from the Mobile Cam undermined this feature's potential to be an incentive for one to join, since people were able to see what was happening for free. A few people posted on the BBS that they couldn't understand why Ana cared, and since Ana wasn't able to post herself (busy with the television appearance in Seattle), I explained the rationale to everyone. People began to complain on the board and privately through e-mail that I was being controlling of the cam, and wanted to know "who the hell I thought I was". Since this situation has happened more than a few times, I thought I'd give a little synopsis of all of this from my point of view/history with Ana. Then perhaps when I'm being blamed for the next big event that happens to the cam (whatever that will be) or yelled at for speaking about the cam's policies, people can at least attack me with a some facts to back up their flames.

I've known about Ana since I was a young kid playing in a punk band. A video of the Blue UP? ("Everything Is" circa 1986) was shown on cable access, and all of my bandmates thought it was the greatest thing ever… I saw a show by the band once or twice, and read a bunch of interviews with her in local fanzines. Everything she mentioned was something I could identify with (an appreciation for both Syd Barrett AND Adam Ant is a rare thing.. believe me..) and thus I became an instant fan.

Time passes and I'm off to college. I became a DJ at the University of Minnesota's radio station, and it was right at the time that "Cake and Eat It" came out. So I was suddenly reminded of this amazing woman I had obsessed about as a teen, and took a more serious look at her music. Of course, I was completely impressed… I didn't catch the Blue Up? live during this period, and eventually, with the way my brain works, my focus on her career moved on to term papers for my degree.

Mid October 1997 (2 months after Ana started "anacam").. I'm getting ready to perform with my band OUSIA (or for the owner-offended..'our' band… although since you probably don't know the other people it probably makes more sense contextually to say 'my' band) at Future Perfect IV. Chris Strouth, the curator of the event told me that "Ana Voog" was performing that evening, and I replied, "who?". He didn't even explain, he just gave me the url to www.anacam.com. I checked it out and I was floored. Both by the content of the site, and also since it was the same woman who entered my life every 5 to 6 years! I attributed the whole site to the same line of brilliance employed by KISS in the late 70's, and LAIBACH in the 80's & 90's. I thought the whole idea of the "anamart" was so great, and guessed that there was some extensive anti-fame philosophy by taking the name of an unknown individual and selling pens that contain this name. Of course, I was dead wrong. I talked to Ana in IRC extensively about the motives for her site, and found her reasons for having the cam to be completely different than the ones I suspected. This was my first realization that most of our understanding of Ana and her motives for the cam are really just projections of whats going on in our own heads. We talked for about 3 weeks before meeting at "Future Perfect IV" and I became fairly active in the BBS that was up around that time… I would post, not unlike how I do now, in favor of Ana and the cam, and would flame the hell out of selfish morons who would issue demands about how she should run the site. It's interesting to note that I never received quite the reaction that I do now. At that time, I was just another fan posting, so people didn't get quite as upset with what I was saying. Ana and I started to hang-out more frequently around the end of December, and made our relationship "official" on January 10. Once this fact was known.. Things started to change a bit. Whenever I would post, I'd get attacked by a bunch of people who felt I was being controlling, or more often than not, I was simply insulted regardless of the context of my post (lately it's been a focus on my every-changing internet alias). Tons of e-mails were sent to me by angry young men, who felt that I ruined the erotic intrigue they had with Anacam. You can imagine how bad I felt about that! ;) I understood some basic level of resentment was going to result from this… but I was surprised that because of this relationship, many people felt I was no longer qualified to be posting in the BBS (btw, the BBS I'm talking about wasn't DK's board… it was the one Ana had originally set up, and then took down). My opinions hadn't changed, and thus the points of my posts were pretty much the same as before. But as illogical as it seems, the very fact that I was getting to know Ana better, seemed to make people all the more angry… God forbid that I would post with knowledge rather than speculation. I just wrote this off to 'jealousy', and held my ground on my ideas/convictions about the cam, and refused to be "bullied" out of the ana-fan circle, simply because we were in love.

Time passes, and we decide that we want to move in together. Ana's apartment was out of the question, due to it's size. The cam distorts perspective… Ana is REALLY tiny, and her apartment even more so. We decided to move into a new place altogether. One of the issues that came up, which Ana had been dealing with for sometime was the issue of Nova, her cat. Nova needed quite a bit of care, and Ana had been talking for a while about finding a home which could take better care of her. Once we found a new apartment it was told to us that they wouldn't allow cats (but they do allow dogs.. I don't know the reason) Thus, she knew that she would have to give up Nova. On top of which, I was severely allergic to Nova, which made it very difficult for me to go over to Ana's old apartment (for those keeping track, you'll notice that she mostly stayed over at my apartment during the late-winter through mid-summer). Not only was I allergic to Nova, but my mother has even worse allergies, which would have prevented her from coming over to visit. I have a very close family, so this would have created an uncomfortable situation. Since Ana had been contemplating the new home for Nova for sometime, and considered this with the other factors mentioned above, she decided she had to find a better home for Nova. Ana made this decision, it was not me. Yet, because Ana cited that one of the reasons she decided to do this was due to my allergies, I received another wave of angry e-mails for "FORCING" Ana to give up Nova. Believe me.. if I tried to force Ana to do ANYTHING, she'd kick me out the door before I could finish my demand.

The next wave of hostility came when we moved in together. The cam was now "different" because we were living together. People instantly attributed this "change" to the "new" boyfriend. As if I had come up with some secret ultimatum for Ana stating "You must pretend that you are busy unpacking and dealing with your record coming out…" One interesting post that occurred in DK's BBS mentioned that the cam was much better before I lived with her, and cited an example of when she watched Kafka's "The Trial" on video. It was implied that since we are now living together this type of activity wouldn't happen. The amusing aspect to this claim is that I was the one who had brought over "The Trial" to watch with Ana, and although I was off the cam, I was in the room. I'm not stating that the content of anacam is better because of me, but it is a fact that in this particular instance I was part of the reason that the situation occurred. Thus, it seemed that people were upset with the idea of us living together simply because they didn't understand how often I was with Ana before the move. Again, this isn't to say that I am the sole reason for interesting things to happen on the cam, nor am I implying that there wouldn't be any changes once we lived together. Of course there are going to be some changes: all things that affect your environment, also affect how you live/act. A new living situation would change how we both live/act to some degree. Ana, which many people seem to forget, is a human being. She is going to grow/change just like everyone else. I think the main problem that people have with her growth is due to their lack of understanding of who she really is. This problem is inherently tied in to the way the whole website works. To better understand this, one needs to realize that the cam is a medium which creates more ambiguity than it does answer questions. For example:

Picture #1: Ana is looking at me on the couch saying something

Picture #2: You see me walking away

Picture #3: You see Ana start to cry.

Most people are going to assume we just had a fight, or they'll come up with a ton of stories as to what has happened. This is a real example of when Ana was having a migraine and I went to go get her some of her medicine. Most of the e-mails I received assumed that we had gotten in a fight. Tying this into the growth/change idea.. most people will not meet Ana Voog. So they start to make assumptions about her reactions, and create a storyline in their head as to what's really happening over here. Thus as soon as something changes (a new apartment.. a new boyfriend) which doesn't fit into that storyline, people become upset. Actually this isn't limited to the cam.. it happens to artists everywhere. Change upsets people. Everything from people yelling and complaining about how Metallica cut their hair; to people wondering how Geri "ginger spice" could possibly have the nerve to create a "serious" lifestyle for herself after the Spice Girls. And the really interesting thing about this is that the individual doing the complaining is totally capable of change, unlike the "object-artist" people are complaining about. How many people owned "Vanilla Ice's" hit single "Ice, Ice, Baby"? And then how many of these same people laugh and snicker when they hear he came out with a new album? Why is it that the artist is incapable of making a valid growth/change in their lifestyle; yet the 'consumer/viewer' can do so quite easily? Ana still gets this type of crap by people who don't realize that she was a musician long before she was a "cam girl".. and they scoff at the idea of her coming out with an album. Of course, those who know her as a musician scoff at the idea of her having a cam. Why is it hard to believe that people can be talented in many different fields?

As I've mentioned, people seem to place limits upon the growth of an artist that they would never place upon themselves. I'm guessing that if many of you found a "significant other", you'd be quite happy. How about the opportunity to leave a tiny-run down apartment where you feared for your safety? Again, these are changes I'm guessing people would be quite happy with. But as soon as Ana made these type of changes, it was "bad", and "upsetting" for most people. So a scapegoat was needed, and that's where the boyfriend comes in. At this point I was told time and time again that I had ruined the cam, that it wasn't the same as it used to be. Each piece of mail seemed to say that Ana had now "lost a true fan". What kind of fan is it that would force these types of restrictions upon another human being: DO NOT GROW, STAY POOR, KEEP CREATING FOR ME, etc etc… It's such a selfish attitude. And yes, as someone who cares about Ana deeply, I'm going to post and let this person know that they can go fuck themselves. Wouldn't you post in defense of someone you love?

All of these examples are not just insulting to me, they're insulting to Ana. It presumes that she is a weak person who can be easily manipulated into doing whatever "the man in her life" wants her to do. Absolute rubbish. Ana is one of the strongest, focused, individuals I have ever met.

It made me relate and sympathize with all of the "Yoko Ono's" of the world. Some strange phenomena that insists that the "significant other" of the famous must keep their mouth shut, and not exhibit any aspects of their individual personalities. I've been studying/performing music for most of my life. I do not think that because I'm dating Ana that my music is suddenly valid, but I firmly believe that this fact shouldn't invalidate my own creativity. Nor should it remove the right for me to post about the cam or Ana. If anyone reading this can explain to me why they have more of a right, and have more knowledge to post about Ana and the cam than I do, please let me know why! I'm not saying that *I* have more of a right than any of you either.. I'm just saying that I have just as much of a right as anyone does.

The fact is that we have been in a monogamous relationship for over 10 months now, and have spent most of this time together. As for the cam: It's 2 feet to my left side as I type this. I maintain the anacam & Ana2 websites, troubleshoot/fix all problems related to them; maintain all of the book-keeping for Ana2, and on occasion use the cam to create some "visual art". The cam is here in our home, and it is completely immersed in my life. I can't move 10 feet without tripping over a cord for one of the cams or computers. Most of my waking hours are spent working on the sites, attempting to set up all of the technical specifications Ana needs to execute her vision. As for Ana: I know her EXTREMELY well, just as she knows me. I've also "known" her for about 10 years prior to the cam, in the same way that most of you "know" her now. So for those who insist on sending me the same line of rhetoric: "I knew her long before you did…" or as one person posted in the alt.fan.ana-voog newsgroup: "She belonged to us before she belonged to you", I think you should re-evaluate what it takes to "know" someone, and eliminate this idea of an individual "belonging" to you. Once this happens, I think we'll see a dramatic decrease in the posts complaining about the banners on anacam, as well as the fact that Ana2 members receive certain benefits that anacam doesn't receive (i.e. the mobile cam). It's because of the banners and the members of Ana2 that you are still able to go to Anacam for free. But until that time comes, you'll probably see a response from me explaining our (Ana's and my) perspective on these issues, and hopefully this post will explain why I have the"right" and "knowledge" to do so.

-Fetik3