The term “camgirl” is used to describe girls and women who use audiovisual digital media to broadcast their lives on the Internet, usually in exchange for monetary compensation. While some early camgirls incorporated nudity and erotica in their broadcasts, the original intention for most was to build an engaged community by putting their personal lives on display. Today, camming is more often associated with sex work and financial gain, but it also encompasses more hybrid forms of performance. This encyclopedia entry first explores the roots of the camgirl as it evolved into an online practice that intersects pornography, community building and self-exposure.
The first camgirls tended to be techno-savvy early livecasting pioneers who put their everyday lives on display, using the medium as a tool for personal growth. They were often self-described misfits who wrote detailed blog posts about their day-to-day lives, car troubles and unrequited love. One such teen camgirl, Ana Voog, launched what is widely regarded as the world’s first 24/7 art/life cam in 1997. She was far different from the tv-ready camgirls that are known now, but she still gained massive media attention, making appearances on tv shows and magazine covers.
Today, many of the women who engage in this work are self-employed performers who offer a variety of sexual services on their websites. The newest and most successful ones are highly skilled at using the latest technology to create compelling experiences for their customers. In a typical session, the customer pays for a subscription that allows them to connect to the performer’s studio and view her webcam. They then interact with the model and can request specific acts of sex. The performers make money from their subscribers and also receive tips from other viewers who are not participating in the actual show.
While most of the camgirls who perform on the sites are women, some men also engage in this activity. For example, a French documentary first aired in 2016 centered around an anonymous thirty-something engineer living alone in a bedsit who signs up to a camming site and purchases tokens with real currency to ask the women to perform a certain number of acts.
A recent video from artist Sessa Omoregie merges Boticcelli’s Venus with webcam selfies, posing questions about the changing definition of femininity and the relationship between women and social media. The piece also raises concerns about the cycle of commercialization within capitalism and how critiques of exploitation are sometimes appropriated as advertising to sell merch. Whether they are performing a sex act or simply sharing their daily lives, camgirls’ position as women online has always been complicated by the intersections of pornography, feminism and commercialization. In this way, their practices are a useful reminder that online feminism is not just about taking pictures of yourself naked but rather how you define and defend your digital identity.