page_title: Webcam model
section_title: Camming industry
hierarchical_section_title: Webcam model / Camming industry
caption_attribution_description: English: Venus Berlin 2019
context_page_description: A webcam model is a video performer who is streamed upon the Internet with a live webcam broadcast. A webcam model often performs erotic acts online, such as stripping, masturbation, or sex acts in exchange for money, goods, or attention. They may also sell videos of their performances.
  Since many webcam models operate from their homes, they are free to choose the amount of sexual content for their broadcasts. While most display nudity and sexually provocative behavior, some choose to remain mostly clothed and merely talk about various topics while still soliciting payment as tips from their fans. Webcam models include "women, men, straight, gay, [and] trans" performers.
  Once viewed as a small niche in the world of adult entertainment, by 2016, camming became "the engine of the porn industry", according to Alec Helmy, the publisher of XBIZ, a sex-trade industry journal.
context_section_description: As of 2016, the money generated by camming sites was upwards of US$2 billion annually. The pornography business as a whole is estimated to be about $5 billion. According to the web traffic analysis service Compete.com, LiveJasmin generates more than 9 million unique viewers a month. Similar webcam model hosting sites such as Chaturbate, CAM4 and MyFreeCams.com boast 4.1 million, 3.7 million and 2 million unique monthly visitors, respectively.
  The decentralized business model of camming has upended the pornography industry in multiple ways. Camming revenue has been severely cutting into the profits of the pornographic movie business, which has also been eroded for a number of years by piracy and the distribution of free sexual content upon the Internet. Additionally, the pornographic film industry used to be male-dominated except for the performers. But since camming requires only a video camera, broadband service, and computer, there has now been a power reversal and female webcam performers are driving the industry. Todd Blatt, a former pornographic movie producer, has said, "If you're the middle guy who has been eating off this industry for 20 years, it's a big change. The girls don't need anybody."
  The new revolution that the decentralized camming industry has brought also challenged many cultural stereotypes concerning both the camgirls and their customers. Ethnography researcher Dr. Theresa Senft became a camgirl for a year while doing four years of research for her 2008 book Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks. Senft has described herself as "the first academic camgirl" while becoming a “camgirl writing about camgirls.” Anna Katzen, a camgirl who has a postgraduate degree from Harvard, stated during an interview:
  The men I meet online rarely fall into the category of anonymous asses who have abandoned all social etiquette, nor do they resemble the pasty, calculator-wristwatch-wearing forebears of chat rooms past. Many, in fact, are successful professionals in their field – whether it be law, the arts or academia. Some of my most popular performances entail me reading erotica, perhaps Anaïs Nin or the Marquis de Sade, in the buff. Oftentimes, the books are gifts from fans, who will probe me for literary analysis, if I don’t probe myself with something else first.
  Furthermore, she says that:
  I have unwittingly created a powerful 'brand' for myself: the wild intellectual, the bluestocking in garters. 'I came for the tits, but stayed for the intellectual banter,' remarked one of my visitors, and another stated, 'most guys aren’t looking for some airbrushed Barbie. They want real, intelligent girls – like you.' [emphasis in original, links added]
caption: This Venus Berlin event in 2019 shows the camera and laptop setup used by a webcam model.
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