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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
Teen girls flash some skin on their "cam sites," and fans shower them with gifts. Who's exploiting whom?
Aug 13, 2001 | One of the favorite gifts that Charisma, 17, has gotten from a fan of her Web site was a "Fantasia" DVD trilogy. It was just what she wanted, because she'd asked for it on her Amazon.com wish list.
But that's nothing compared to the loot that a fellow "cam girl" friend has raked in off of hers: "Somebody bought her a really nice digital camera, a graphing calculator and a $100 gift certificate," Charisma says. Sheila, 18, got a new $129 webcam, while "Katneko," 19, raked in teen reading classics like "Catcher in the Rye," "Of Mice and Men," "To Kill a Mockingbird," plus a Depeche Mode CD, a scanner and a $250 gift certificate to the site Fetish Factory.
The gifts came from total strangers and online friends alike, people the girls had gotten to know through their Web sites. Katneko's younger sister, 15-year-old Brandi, was so impressed by all of the goodies arriving at their home from people the girls had never met in person that Brandi set up a personal page on her big sis's site so she could beg for her own loot. Brandi's pages bear this label: "underaged piece of ass." (Her sister quickly points out that this is a joke.) Among Brandi's heart's desires on her wish list: four Sailor Moon dolls.
Teen webcams have met the e-commerce version of the wedding registry -- the wish list. And the result of this virtual marriage is an online beg-fest that makes it easy to take candy from strangers on the Internet. Kids as young as 15 are getting into the act of asking for handouts online -- toy and books and CDs and, of course, webcams -- so their online fans can get an even better look at them.
"I don't think that it's weird that people I don't know buy things for me," writes the 17-year-old who calls herself "Perfekt" on her Web site. "They're gifts, and like all good things, acceptable. ;-)" Even so, Perfekt got so much booty from her fans that she has since taken down her wish list: "A lot of people were very generous -- too generous in my opinion -- around the holidays and the guilt was too much for me to swallow."
Cam sites range from simple photo galleries to elaborate diaries and art projects; some have live cameras and others just feature stills captured from video cameras. They're as diverse as the girls who create them -- and, in the grand tradition of their ancestor, Jennicam, they offer a strange mixture of distance and intimacy. There are cam boys too, but -- chalk it up to hetero-horndogging -- it's girls who rule in the popularity game of the cam portals, gathering fan clubs and shaking down gifts.
The wish list is the perfect tool for cam kids because it allows them to ask for exactly what they want and have it sent to their house without ever revealing a home address -- the e-commerce vendor, whether it's Abercrombie & Fitch or Amazon, doesn't reveal the "wisher's" location. So the relationship between the online pen pal or fan can remain entirely virtual, yet still produce the goods.
The Internet may not be, as it is so often caricatured, one big cesspool of pedophiles and pervs searching for unsuspecting and underage kids to prey upon. But the spectacle of teenagers displaying themselves online in exchange for material favors is something that could make anyone a little queasy. Still, in the search for online sugar daddies, young or old, it's the kids who understand what power they have -- through what they choose to reveal and what they conceal -- to titillate and suggest, with just a smile, or a bit of a tummy, or more.
