Camgirls and Counter-Publics.

Because of some personal issues, this is extremely late and I'm not going to be including a question as a result. However, I found this text fascinating and very informative, pursuant of my personal interests in this class. I focused primarily on the discussion of the pornographic implications to cam sites, as well as the gap bridged between public spaces and counter-publics, through camming. My digital analysis is focusing on the communication between digitally expressed girl culture and its representations to the general public (keyword), especially adults who jump the most extreme conclusions regarding young people and the Internet.

This is epitomized by the beginning of the chapter, "The Public, the Private, and the Pornographic," when Theresa Senft, our author, talks about her experience as a contributor on The Diane Rehm Show. I must preface my analysis of this chapter by stating that I am a diehard NPR fan and The Diane Rehm Show is on during my midmorning commute to UCF, but I refuse to listen to it because she is quite possibly the most boring news contributor on their payroll, in addition to possessing what can only be described as the opposite of a voice for radio, so the way Senft wrote about the interview made me incredibly self-satisfied in my own longheld opinions. Diane Rehm, who is turning seventy-five this year, just to paint a picture, mediates the conversation by turning to Senft as a negative example of Internet-age disconnection and media-related transgression, which is a complete misrepresentation of the way Senft herself views her forays into broadcasting her life on the Internet. While this discussion is interesting in that it illuminates that even in the eyes of Internet commentators, cam culture is associated with perverse voyeurism, rather than a being viewed as a wholly legitimate way to explore performative identity, it was also very valuable to me because it segues into Seft's explanation of the origin and importance of publics and counter-publics, concepts as related to feminist theory that I have always failed to grasp to my own satisfaction.

Within this discourse, Senft argues, camming is a panacea for women being locked out of public discourse, as her sexuality is not essentially the only thing locks her into it, but rather, the engagement itself, which may just be broadcasting the minutiae of daily life. Establishing separate spaces (counter-publics) through the opportunities afforded by the Internet is very misunderstood, though one of the most potentially valuable aspects of its democratizing nature, and this text in general, especially its conclusion, which includes a letter that writes the whole endeavor off as self-indulgent, is a perfect example of that.

In this vein, there is a very precarious relationship between the use of sexuality in cam culture and true sexual agency. Senft seems to suggest that the conduits through which women are allowed to use their sexuality is constructed voyeurism, and since it is behavior that does not represent behavior they're taking part in for the sake of itself, but rather, for a profit, it is not inherently an example of positive identity construction, as it can often lead to some degree of psychic damage. Her next point is that digital drag, just as the traditional implication of the word implies, mocks the paradigm, much in the way Homi Bhaba's concept of mimicry turns colonial race relations on their head (I've been doing a lot of work in critical race studies lately, so pardon the digression). In taking on a new persona, the subject is either taking part in "identity tourism," or simply acting out a different kind of identity, accruing experience as though in a different body. This theme resounds throughout Internet communities and is not particular to cam culture, yet if placed within the paradigm of sincere life blogging or sexual voyeurism, one possible issue is the possibility of appearing disingenuous in the performance. I suppose that depends entirely on what your audience knows or feels entitled to know about your "real" identity, and what their expectations are therein.

I also appreciated Senft's point about commodity fetishism, that the commodified body cannot be understood on its own terms, but rather, subjectively, and only with respect to the situation in which it is placed. She points this out with respect to underage "cam whores" and the way their sexual expression is pegged by adults (more on that in my Digital Analysis), but I think the point can be used with respect to most culturally influenced products made in the Internet age: blogs, cam sites, whatever. Similar points were made with her comments on what would happen if a person were to run into someone they had just watched for five hours on their cam site, as this in between place regarding "intimate strangerhood" is transgressive against the place-based nature of the transaction, and make no mistake, it is a transaction, even if no money or sex is involved. In that case, however, the person behind the camera is trafficking in exposure, and is receiving an audience for, as mentioned above, acting out the every day. The thought I came away from this with is that regardless of how long someone watches you, and how unaware you become of it, in simply forgetting you're being watched, can the actions observed ever be completely natural? Probably not. More than that, though, the point Senft makes at the close of the chapter, one that I've heard time and again from my friends who blog, is that the picture the "public," which doesn't even qualify as a pure public because it's only the audience that finds the space through a series of networked connections, receives from what the blogger puts out is extremely two dimensional, not at all nuanced, but flat and easily commodified, and it takes quite a bit of effort to make the subject take on human form.