SunnyGrrrl

Honestly, that's sort of a funny story and really indicative of the E/N scene back then!

My boyfriend at the time had just bought us a digital camera (which were just coming to market), so of course the first thing I did was take nudes. He suggested I submit them to RateMeNudeDotCom, which I did. I was #1 on that site for about a week, when all of a sudden, it was flooded with these naked girls with "StileProjectDotCom" written on their bodies with eyeliner and they all quickly overtook me in the poll by a LOT. I was like, "wtf?" and went to Stile Project and was even more like, "WTF??" I asked my friends on the Scratching Post message board what was up with this site and they told me about RottenDotCom and SomethingAwful. I didn't learn about camming and that what I had seen were "fan signs" until a few months later though.

Hrm, common misconceptions...well, back in the day we didn't get a lot of respect on the internet. We had our fans and people who thought we were the beginning of something big, but the E/N scene and internet at large basically thought we were all useless sluts, sucking lonely, unsuspecting losers dry. That was a massive misconception, that I assume carries on to this day. So many people then, and now, think camgirls are victims of themselves rather than artists and entrepreneurs doing what they love.

As for stalking...in 2001, I was also working for an indie pop metal band called Scratching Post and my job was being their merch girl. I would stand behind the merch booth in a uniform of a baby t-shirt with the band's logo, skimpy panties with the band's logo, and knee high Doc Martens and sell CDs/stickers etc. Sometimes the band would pull me up on stage for the last song, "Destruction Of The Universe" and I would dance. The lead singer was my best friend and everyone took really good care of making sure I was always safe. I used to post the dates and times of the shows I was gonna be at on my site and on my webcam caption, and people from the internet would come & pay to see the band, but the band was just a bonus because they'd hang with me at the merch booth all night and buy me drinks (so dangerous, I was a dumbass...do not recommend).

One night the band had a show at Sneaky Dee's in Toronto where upstairs is the bar/music venue, and downstairs is a bar/restaurant. Part of the band's rider indicated that our whole crew was to have dinner downstairs at the restaurant "on the house", so about 12 of us sat down to order and I ordered steak and eggs. Dinner came, everything was fine, we had a good time, the show was played, drinks were drank, mayhem happened etc, and then I got home at about 4am, still drunk. What do you when you're still drunk at 4am? Go on IRC obviously! So I chatted on IRC for a bit while I sobered up and then I checked my e-mail around 5am before going to bed. There was an e-mail from a name I didn't recognize, which wasn't weird at the time, so I clicked on it, and the e-mail was something like, "I saw you tonight. I hope you enjoyed your steak and eggs." No greeting, no name attached, and the e-mail address was clearly a throw away. I replied and tried to play it off like, "haha awwww you should have said hi!" and when I never got a reply, it lead to 20 years of agoraphobia because it felt like EVERYONE was watching me. :(

My favourite things were my birthday shows, which is kinda why I scheduled this AMA for today, it has the same feel, just more nostalgia. :) Every year on my birthday, I would schedule a members only show on Camwhores, and if you recall, on Camwhores, when someone did a members only show, basically the whole site would stop and the community would focus on that person's show, so it was more special than how camming is done today. On my birthday I would always get lots of wishlist items and tips during the show, and personal gifts sent to my PO box when I had one. Growing up my birthdays were kinda shitty, so cam birthdays made up for it.

My least favourite thing about being on Camwhores was making money for Stile because his persona was such a piece of shit at the time. I never got to know the real Stile, but I hear he's a lovely person today. Another least favourite thing was the voting. I have a cam pic in my archives from when voting was implemented that has a caption that says something like, "I"d rather fuck the prom queen than be one" and when I saw it recently, I thought, "still accurate"!

Hiya L :) I recognize your username. <3

Early on I was doing a lot of "processing on the page" publicly on LiveJournal and I think doing that, with a supportive community commenting the whole time, was positive for my mental health. Very cathartic. My mom wasn't super happy about it though, and as a result, she won't read anything I write on the internet, and she won't buy my books or "like" posts about them, I have to give them to her. So it was a double edged sword.

In 2006, when I had my psychotic break on IRC, it was a bad scene and the internet was bad for my mental health BUT! Afterward, the internet was instrumental in accepting my mental illnesses and staying proactive in my quest for wellness. Again, double edged sword.

In 2015, I found some trolls being trolly on the internet when I googled myself and what they said was so heinous and shocking to me that I couldn't stop thinking about it and soon, their words and attitudes became a monologue in my bipolar brain. Ultimately I tried to kill myself. So, that was a time when the internet was not so good for mental health.

I also think currently, social media algorithms aren't so awesome for mentally ill people because they emotionally manipulate you in an attempt to change your behaviour (buy stuff), and personally that has harmed me greatly.

Having said all that, if I didn't have a public outlet to "live out loud" and write about everything, I don't think I would have made it to see this birthday.

Well he was right! Also he said it was safe to out him! KEVIN DAY IS THE GENIUS WHO MADE PORTAL 9 AND CAMWHORES AND HE IS A LOVELY PERSON.