All Hands Off the Keyboard!

Pseudo's and DEN's Biggest Mistake? Asking People to Stop Typing and Watch

A A A Comments By Nick Mamatas Tuesday, Oct 24 2000

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"Once you start charging a 'member' fee, you are obligated to provide something to people who've given you money," elly says. "At that point it becomes a service, instead of a hobby or a gift of expression I give to random Internet passersby. I don't like the goods-for-cash idea on cams. I am not goods. I do not want cash."

Other camgirls, like Jenni of the infamous Jennicam.com, pay themselves salaries, says elly, who claims to be content with the occasional gift or random deposit of money into her accounts. More important are the personal connections she makes with the anonymous viewers. "I've had people send me their entire journals, or write me long, entertaining mail," she says. "I've flown out a couple of cam fans after talking to them for a long time and becoming friends. I recently went to visit a girl in Australia who was originally a completely anonymous cam fan." And all because of a handful of still images refreshed once a minute.

illustration: Limbert Fabian

Web-based television makes about as much sense as radio-based television.

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Grassroots webcammers go with the momentum of the medium. Not much happens on webcams because very little needs to happen; viewers have plenty of ways to fill in information gaps, and have plenty of other things to do while sound and images load.

DEN and Pseudo made a mistake when they took an "all hands off the keyboard" approach, asking viewers to stop everything else to watch. The Internet is an absolutely frigid medium, in which the end user is not a recipient of media messages, but a participant in them. When webheads log in, they are ready to work their keyboards and mice; they are there to surf, not just stare at a screen. Television as we knew it won't work on the Web. Ironically, the fleeting visuals and inexplicable bursts of information from the mechanical TVs of the 1920s are far better suited for Web-based TV, where they are just cool enough. Web television won't succeed until a dead medium rises from the grave. On sites around the world, a new form of television is humming along, waiting to be reborn.

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