In 1991, the faculty set up a camera that would allow people sitting in other rooms to view the coffee pot remotely. They aimed to level the playing field. But after they posted a link to the Trojan Room Coffee Cam online, it received 2 million hits.
It was proof that people will watch anything, even boiling water.
The first legitimate camgirl came five years later. Jennifer Ringley was a pretty blond Pennsylvanian who set up a live stream from her dorm room at Dickinson College. The 20-year-old broadcast herself 24/7, chatted with fans on message boards, and kept publicly viewable diaries. Ringley told the BBC that 100 million people would log on each week to watch her muse about romance and perform mundane tasks. She would have sex on camera, but Jennicam wasn't explicitly pornographic; it was a documentation of her life.
Although Ringley and other early camgirls of the era were in their 20s, camgirls slowly began getting younger. "It [became] about this fey little girl, Hello Kitty kind of thing," says Theresa Senft, author of a book on the subculture called Camgirls: Celebrity and Community in the Age of Social Networks. "They all seem[ed] to have those big eyes and pale skin and to fit the bill in a much more cartoony way than a pinup way."
The story of Loli begins with a 15-year-old girl named Olivia, who became known as Cracky-chan online. At 2:17 in the afternoon on January 6, 2005, an image appeared on 4chan of an unconventionally beautiful girl with a red-painted nose. Looking coyly into her webcam, she flashed a simple message written on her upturned palm: "Sup 4chan."
Originally intended as a site to share anime and manga images when it was launched in 2003, 4chan is now known for its affiliation with the hacktivist group Anonymous (whose members somehow got 4chan's founder, Christopher Poole, voted Time's Most Influential Person of 2008 by manipulating the poll), its memes (pretty much anything that's ever gone viral began there), and its offensive content (as Senft, the academic, said: "For adults, 4chan is sort of the ninth circle of Hell.") (...)
Just as Ringley inspired a legion of "livestreamers" who would spend years of their lives on cam, Cracky encouraged a new generation of artsy and insecure millennials to become live-action cartoon characters on the internet. She became the de facto figurehead of a splinter subculture. Today, a handful of fansites are dedicated to bringing her out of hiding. The homepage of one site, Dear Olivia, reads like an open letter: "This page is to show you how much you have impacted our lives. We want you to know that we care about you. We hope you care about yourself! From having fun imitating your great sense of style, to becoming obsessed with various perceptions of you... we have met friends and people with similar interests because of you."
Young girls, too, became obsessed with Cracky. Instead of plastering teen heartthrobs or boy bands across her childhood room, a 13-year-old Loli would Scotch-tape images of Cracky on the walls. She says that as an adolescent, she had sexual fantasies about the mysterious girl but also dreamed that one day she'd garner as much adulation. Most of the friends she has today are fellow "Cracky-fags" whom she Skypes and sometimes visits. "There's a whole religion around her," Loli explains. "People call her the Sky Queen."
Why did the Cracky phenomenon take off? "Because her photos weren't slutty, these guys elevated her to some sort of holy figure," offers Camel, who posted nude pictures of herself as a preteen after suffering sexual abuse and now studies business at a Canadian university.
Camel explains that a Chan name is given by the online community to only the most beloved camgirls and that hundreds strove for that designation between 2005 and 2007. She didn't make the cut. "In the end, I wasn't cute enough and didn't put enough presentation into my photos [to earn a Chan name]," Camel says. "And thank goodness for that."
by Allie Conti, Miami New Times | Read more:
Image: Liam Peters
