WELCOME TO THE INTERNET // 0:00 – 0:15
“Welcome to the internet! Anything that brain of yours can think of can be found. We’ve got mountains of content, some better, some worse. If none of it’s of interest to you, you’d be the first.” – Bo Burnham
After a week of poking around the internet I stumbled on to a green, beachy themed site that responded like the last time it was updated was when JenniCam was still a thing. But the women on it seemed to actually be making money. I was so sure it was some sort of scam, but also too stubborn to not at least have a second look & try to get the people who seemed to already be working on it talk to me. Being someone who was practically raised on the early stages of at-home internet I eyed the prospect of making money to be hot & naked online with what I think was the proper amount of skepticism.
I picked the top girl to approach first, which I know now was a mistake (and for good reason – don’t bother people while they’re working). She banned me faster than I could figure out what the fuck happened.
Okay. Cool, cool.
I realized part of the problem might be the language barrier. A lot (and I mean a good 75%) of the top earners on this site seemed to be from Eastern Europe. I sorted by country & did my best to find someone that shared my native language who wasn’t going to immediately take me, a faceless name in their DM’s, as competition.
I scrolled the green, white and neon yellow sea of faces until I spotted one that seemed to have the same vibe I wanted to put on display. Nerdy, tattoos, piercings & a sugary-sweet “fuck you, pay me” disposition. I still remember her name, but who knows if she’s still active or even wants her cam years associated with that particular moniker.
I’d learned my lesson by this point & decided that it was best NOT to try and talk to her while she was working. I emailed her from the site listed on her profile, but I’ve never been a patient person. I just needed one simple question answered before I filled out all the necessary forms & hopped my happy ass on cam to cosplay a sexy person. Was this real? Did you actually get paid?
I pre-wrote my question as short form & direct as I could & pasted it into her DMs. I held my breath as I saw her typing back a response. I was more than ready for it to along the lines of “fuck off, I’m working”, but instead I got a simple “Yep.”
I skirted out of her chatroom as quickly as I could as not to spook her like I had the others now that she knew my intentions & started navigating around the site for how to get started.
I had already tested my levels of attractiveness to the general public via some trash social media site and discovered to my surprise that there indeed was a market for what I had to bring to the table. I had been posting tease-y, trashy pictures for a few weeks in hopes of being “discovered” (ha!) that I now cringe over whenever my good friend stumbles onto some hard drive where they live. The response was pretty clear & I was going to put the theory of being hot enough to get paid for it to it’s final test.
Just as soon as X left for work.