Camgirls LIVE

I thought the book was very interesting. It was the first subject so far that I had a harder time grasping. I was thinking about it more in terms of women on YouTube who have channels and even make a living from make-up, hair, or perfume channels (those are just types I know or subscribe to). I also thought about it in terms of the more sexual types of webcam channels. I think I was too young to fully understand the predecessor to that sort of celebrity and community online either way in 1998, when it was at its peak. The first time I learned about webcams was from the Disney Channel show Jett Jackson, who played an actor who played a spy on TV and had "futuristic" technology, but he used it more like skype to talk to his parents.

I agree with another classmate who said that Senft made very clear distinctions between those camgirls who looked to be voyeurs and those who were interested in showcasing their lives and identities in a way that was very raw.

I found the ideas about identity really interesting because we hadn't really touched on what makes people online respond to some things that are posted and not others. I thought the lookism concept was true in terms of the fact that visual stimulation does get a larger reaction and that people feel like they need to offer their opinions. Because of this, I couldn't decide if being a camgirl or a "micro-celebrity" was liberating or burdensome. I guess that depends on the individual, and from the text, I got the impression it could easily go either way. The whole idea just seems very alienating. There is the idea that you are the star of your own show and fame has its own double-edged sword of being alienating and liberating at the same time.
I was very surprised that one woman said that she felt "macho" and "aroused" the day she set up all her cameras and that the author said she felt nauseas  before her webcam debut. I suppose I have felt this way before when (don't laugh) I would take a lot of pictures and pick which one looked the best to make my Myspace profile. I guess I was excited about the responses I might get. Things start to run through your mind that make you anxious and excited. I can only imagine that a live stream of video, or constant still images like earlier in the camgirl timeline, would be an even more intense way of doing that.

My question for the author: Through your own experience being a camgirl, did you find that your online identity was more liberating or more restrictive to how you or other people feel match up your "real" identity?

For my digital analysis I am doing a video zine and was originally just going to make it as visual as possible without, but I'm kind of curious enough to consider taking it in the direction of a camgirl site. Hmmm. We'll see.