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Candy from strangers

Molly Shortcake

12:37 / 14.08.01

From salon.com. Teenage girls with webcam sites, get all sorts of expensive gifts from people they don't know.

I've had opportunites to take advantage of people, but my moral code dosen't allow it. The question the article poses, is anyone being taken advantage of? If so, who? What do you think?

[ 14-08-2001: Message edited by: Ice Honkey ]

14:29 / 14.08.01

I wholly congratulate these girls for finding a way to get lots of free stuff from online saddos without revealing any personal information.

It's a brilliant scam.

Molly Shortcake

02:22 / 15.08.01

But Rizla, I didn't have to pay a damn thing.

I imagine a creative and motivated hacker, or someone with connections, wouldn't have too difficult a time here...

[ 15-08-2001: Message edited by: Ice Honkey ]

03:23 / 15.08.01

Lonely old men are buying gifts for 16 year old webcam chicks because they think it will get them a piece of online pussy. Personally, I think it's pathetic. I don't think anyone is taking advantage of anyone. I just think that people are just being pathetic.

The Return Of Rothkoid

07:34 / 15.08.01

I think the whole "a wishlist infers quid-pro-quo" argument espoused by one of the girls interviewed is a bit ropey, too. Surely it's only like that if you say "buy me stuff and I'll show you my tits!", isn't it? I think it's when the behaviour of the gir; (or guy, or whoever) becomes dictated by the prospect of wishlist booty that this whole thing becomes a little strange. I suppose, depending on the mentality of the person buying the products, too, there could be a danger that they'd think they were owed something by the cam girl, no matter what she thinks.

On their own, though, I don't think wishlists are a problem. Lots of sites have them as a way for readers to show their appreciation if they feel like it, nothing more. Hell, I've even been bought stuff off my wishlist, and I've not had to reveal my fearsome (and fulsome) man-breasts to get it.

Though maybe I'd get more if I did...

18:36 / 15.08.01

i just don't 'get' the whole wish list thing. as a child i was brought up never to ask anyone for a gift of any kind so it really annoys me when i visit a personal site (webcam or other) that has a wish list on it. it all seems to lack grace or tact...i dunno, i suppose it's just my upbringing that makes the idea so unsavory to me...

take a dip in my muddled mind:
i had an arty-webcam site back in 97 and it really kind of freaked me out when people started crawling out of the ether asking to send me gifts. i just thought it was unnatural to want to send something to someone that you didn't even *know*. there were only two times that i actually accepted gifts from people that visited my site...a book on Basquiat which i traded a canvas print for, and two glasses that had been designed for me. i never sent the glass blower anything in return and to this day i regret it. after that i stopped accepting gifts...a month later my b-day came round and people sent me cards. the whole "birthday cards from total strangers" thing scared me so much that i closed up the p.o. box (and the site not long after that). i really didn't like the idea that i might be encouraging these people to make contact with me...maybe i'm paranoid or antisocial but the whole thing was surreal and false and i didn't want to be part of it. at the time friends thought i was insane not to capitalize on the 'free stuff' but i just could not justify accepting presents from people that knew nothing about me except how i looked.
does this make me antisocial or just plain dumb?

The Return Of Rothkoid

18:52 / 15.08.01

I'm not sure that having a wishlist on your site is equivalent to shouting "buy me shit!" at the top of one's lungs, though. Mine's inconspicuous, I don't point it out in my posts, and it's more for my benefit (ie: instead of having a lose-able list of book/cd recommendations from people, I'll keep them in one place, online, where it can never go through the washing machine) than for anything else. I don't expect people to buy me stuff, which is what makes presents all the more appealing.

The giftgiving's not always false, and doesn't always have an agenda attached; but I can see how it might appear that way to people other than cam-breaking blokes like m'self.

19:06 / 15.08.01

I think the gift exchange thing is a fine way to take advantage of the position the web girls are in. Not that I'd do it myself or find the whole voyeuristic concept appealing. But if you're exchanging "services" with others, you might as well find as much benefit to it as possible. They obviously feel fine with the basic premise of what they're doing so anything above and beyond it probably doesn't reflect on them any differently.
BTW if anyone want's to donate anything to me, as long as its not creepy, feel free...sounds like a good plan. Really jonesing for a Sega Saturn...

20:46 / 15.08.01

Feel free to called me a moralistic, luddite a-hole, but -

doesn't anyone find the whole Amazon wish list thing a bit... well fucking morally corrupt?

I think:

Amazon (who are kind of responsible for this whole wish-list brouhaha) are trying to pervert people's altruistic (and sexual) imperatives to make money. Couldn't people be donating this unneeded disposable income to worthy causes, instead of sending little tokens to people they are never going to meet?

2) Isn't there something elementarily fucked in this kind of social intercourse anyway (he says posting on an internet message board?). Buying things for a far-away female to garner a reaction? Would these men do this for women they find attractive in (godIhatethisterm) meatspace? Would they fuck.

Capitalism gone mad

Ellis

20:50 / 15.08.01

Ages ago i met a girl online and one nite we were talking about books, ones I liked, ones she liked, she told me about her favorite book and I said that it sounded really cool.

Two days later I got a copy of it through the post. I smiled for days.

Thats it really.

Those "little tokens" make people happy, whats the harm in that?

00:39 / 16.08.01

quote:Ellis wrote:
Ages ago i met a girl online and one nite we were talking about books, ones I liked, ones she liked, she told me about her favorite book and I said that it sounded really cool.
Two days later I got a copy of it through the post. I smiled for days. <smile.gif>
Thats it really.
Those "little tokens" make people happy, whats the harm in that?

I Agree completly. That being said, Ellis, I like money.

00:47 / 16.08.01

quote:Originally posted by Dee Vapr:
doesn't anyone find the whole Amazon wish list thing a bit... well fucking morally corrupt?

Well it made sure my parents gave me books that I actually wanted to read from Christmas last year, so I'm all for it.

The Return Of Rothkoid

08:10 / 16.08.01

Exactly. As a tool, I don't think there's anything wrong with the wishlist; it does what it says on the tin. I live in a different country from my family and a whole stack of my friends, so it makes it a lot easier to be given something that I'd actually want, with no exchange dramas.

Like anything, I guess it's how it's used that matters. Trumpeting it loudly and making it a necessity makes you pretty boorish, and using it as a tool to get some virtual underage booty makes you pretty sad, frankly.

No star here laces

08:10 / 16.08.01

I really like the idea of a wishlist bookswap though. Lets do a barbebookswap. Everybody can post up links to our wish lists and everybody buys one book for someone else. Maybe the books could be surprises instead of wishlist things, dunno.

'kay?

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:08 / 16.08.01

Sounds like a good idea.

Back to the article, this is LinuxKitty's response to the Salon article. Choice words. Here's the intro:
quote:Myself and a few other camgirls were interviewed by Salon.com's senior writer Katharine Mieszkowski, and put out on that story. So, I'm in the news. I think the story was extremely biased. I think I could have done a better job at answering the interviewers questions, and perhaps turning it around. I did this with most questions, but unfortunatly, she just partially quoted me on things I answered, or took excerpts from the site and made it seem like I was talking to her. The media does that sort of thing, which I understand, and expected. But one thing had me angered beyond belief, something that shouldn't have been brought up in that story at all. The subject? My little sister. The reason for my anger? Making my little sister out to be a fucking whore.

Though you should read the rest, if only for the phrase "hellacious fuck".

09:16 / 17.08.01

Wishlists are highly immoral. I should know, people keep buying me stuff from mine. And I haven't had to show anyone my breasts.

quote: I'm not sure that having a wishlist on your site is equivalent to shouting "buy me shit!"

Except of course that's EXACTLY what I've done on plasticbag.org - I've even used those precise words.

I think you can justify them in all kinds of ways. You can view them as a way of showing what you are interested in, you can view them as something that you keep for reference to keep track of things that you are interested in buying (and like all home pages, I pretty much keep all the things that I use regularly one click away from pb.org), you can view them as a way of giving people a means to express their gratitude for stuff you have done for them, and on a completely voluntary basis. It's less offensive than demanding money for work, even if it is work you enjoy...

As for quid pro quo - it's completely the other way around. It may tempt people to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do, but generally the person with the credit card is only able to say 'thank you' for something, not demand something in return.

Ganesh

09:20 / 17.08.01

We can but imagine your fine man-breasts, Tom...

09:23 / 17.08.01

Jeez. You don't have to PAY me for me to strip in front of the cam... Just watch it long enough and I'll forget it's on. That happens ALL THE TIME...

Ganesh

09:25 / 17.08.01

"Forget it's on" my arse, you wicked little strumpet...

Ellis

20:34 / 24.08.01

The one thing i hate about wishlists is that you can only buy a person something that is on the wishlist, u cant send them something else, so it is never that much of a suprise.

(wait, so how was I sent that book then??)