Greetings and welcome, my name's Heather and I'm a Camgirl from Manchester UK. First time here on Steemit and I wasn't exactly sure what to write about. So I thought I would introduce you to my life as a Camgirl, webmodel, Adult performer, which ever you'd like to call me. I've been called a lot of things over the last year, so nothing really shocks me anymore.
Before I continue, this isn't a shameless plug for my site or a free advertising board, it's just a little bit about me, the industry and what I am trying to do to change certain aspects one play at a time.
Most of you guys and girls out there will have visited a camming site at one time or another, there is no shame in it, we are all human beings, we all have desires and the demographics suggest that it isn't just single guys that can't get a lay who watch. At the root of it, Camming is Porn, I am technically a Porn worker, although I don't go along to 100 guy bukakes or have 4 guys tag teaming me for some under the counter, seedy, smoke filled shop to sell for a couple of bucks. I do it all from the comfort of my living room, with merely a good PC and a webcam.
I started in the "industry" just over a year ago. Without trying to sound stereotypical, I probably started for the same reasons many women start. I was flat broke with nowhere else to go. The cash machines used to laugh at me, what little I did have went on rent and no jobs available in my area. A lot of models work for some extra cash, some do it to pay for Uni, you really would be surprised at the high education level of some of the girls. Me? Nah, I was just broke with no qualifications what so ever and at 45, all I could see ahead of me was still being in my mold infested apartment in the back end of butt fuck nowhere for the rest of my life.
I was down to my last 30 quid, I already had a PC and a Cam, granted, not a good cam and my internet connection sucked, but I started early evening on a Saturday on a site called Chaturbate. To my amazement, having sat there for some 6 hours, knowing not a thing about what I was doing, I made $40. That was the first $40 I'd earned for what seemed like months. I had 100's of people watching my truly dreadful, pixelated stream, buffering was an actual sexual act I think. My followers where sitting at something like 400 after the first day. "I'm on to something here" I thought.
So over the next few months, I kept logging on and the little bits of money kept trickling in. It wasn't 100's a day but it's fair to say that as a mature model, I thought I did OK. Then, after about 4 months it literally exploded, my pussy did at times as well. I could guarantee that every show was $100, sometimes I could hit that inside 30 mins. It went crazy, yet I never got that many viewers in my room, well compared to the other models anyway. My conversion rate for viewers to tips was up in the 30% range, which is brilliant.
I was interested though, why am I not getting the 1000+ viewers in my room? If I can get that many at a 30% conversion, I'd be laughing all the way. I decided to market myself more, create a brand and that is where it all went wrong on Chaturbate. I opened Twitter, I opened Instagram (got immediately banned on that one lol) I started Snapchat, I made videos, had pictures taken, upgraded all my equipment, spent a fortune on outfits, toys, I had more toys than I did as a kid. Yet, everything on Chaturbate disappeared. But why? My stream is 1080p, my videos are hot as are my pictures, yet my viewers are tumbling and nothing is selling.
Twitter, they say, is a camgirls best friend. You'll never last if you don't have Twitter. Don't believe it, twitter send so much useless traffic to rooms. All you have to do is @ chaturbate or # them in a tweet and you'll be sure to get a room full of anons and grays, which are simply freeloaders who will never tip yet expect everything.
So I did some research and the findings made me change everything that I thought I was doing right.
Not just Chaturbate, but all of the "Free" to view sites simply don't care about the models. They have investors to keep happy, so as long as the revenue is coming in they don't care. If you leave, someone will take your place and so on. The viewing numbers help keep their investors happy as the anons may one day register. Chaturbate, and I can only really talk about them as I have experienced it, have approximately 90% of their viewers Anonymous. Meaning they haven't even registered, meaning that could be anyone watching as all they have to do is click the "yes I'm over 18" button at the start. That to me is a scary thought, literally anyone can be watching you, streaming your stream, ripping it and selling it. I found 100's of sites with my stream being illegally broadcast and sold. Non registered viewers do nothing for the models, zero, nada, zip, sweet FA. If they cannot be bothered to register then they'll never tip. And yes, that is what we do it for, the tips. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love performing, it is such a turn on knowing that you are turning someone else on, problem is, I wanna know who I'm turning on. That isn't a lot to ask for is it?
I sometimes go into the rooms that have 20.000+ viewers, and you can see exactly who is in the room. I once saw a room with 25.000 viewers and 24.000 of those were Anons, with about 500 grey (Grey means they don't have tokens) The model was gorgeous, she really was, yet the things she was doing, was merely earning her 1 token tips every now and again. I asked myself that if someone like that, has those numbers, yet still doesn't even get 1 cent per viewer. Something is seriously wrong here.
Porn is a massively saturated market, the choice is endless, the things you watch are the things your girlfriend wont let you do to her. It's fantasy land and the freakier the better for some. Plus, it's almost always free, everybody wants everything for free. Sites are run on add revenue, affiliates, and the occasional paying member. You can't compete with them, look at Pornhub, it's predominantly free. In some respects, Movies and Music is also free so the industry isn't alone.
I realised that something has to change. I'm never going to change the attitude of the sites, they're making money so why should they, so I need to change me.
I was becoming a hermit, locked away inside for 10 hours a day, rubbing my pussy for nothing sometimes, just to try and
get someone in the room that may tip. I became depressed, I started drinking a lot and I wasn't enjoying it. That ultimately came over on Cam, but what really does one expect? When you are bombarded daily with nobody wanting to tip for anything and then typing out insults as you wont shove a giant dildo up your ass for nothing. I'm Heather Fahrenheit on cam, but off cam I am me, I try to keep my rooms honest and not pretend to be something I am not. In the end, I'm a human being, yet being in front of a cam, insults seem to be accepted. Yet would you accept it in your job? I get my clothes off and perform sex acts on camera. I don't see it as a disgusting thing to do, the number of watchers of Porn far outweigh the numbers of models, so it is part of all our lives. Without models there would be no porn. Chaturbate really is gutter Porn. It's a meat market of girls wanting to earn a little and having to do all sorts of degrading stuff in front of 1000's who cant even be bothered to register. It's the ultimate lazy wank.
Im told that it's part of the job, that doesn't make it right though does it?
Still, I wasn't going to let these corporate sites drag me down. I took some time out, stayed away from Chaturbate as every time I went shopping I was saying thank you to the self service machine each time I scanned an item. See me crossing a pelican crossing? I was jumping around in hysterics. If you don't know what I mean, take a look at the tipping sounds haha. I watched a cowboy film and went crazy at a yeeehaaa.
Now, I'm not totally slagging CB, I have actually connected with a few of the guys on there, some have been with me since day 1, always supportive and we email each other from time to time. I find myself connecting emotionally with some of them, we don't just talk sex stuff, we actually have normal conversations and that is what I love about what I do. Yes, it is about the money, but so many times I don't get or asked to be paid if we are just chatting. C2C over a nice bottle of wine, talking about holidays, jobs, ex partners. You know, normal stuff. That is what I was missing through Chaturbate. No real way of communicating unless you are on their site. How can you build up relationships in 20 mins spurts once a week? There is no personality there to enable this without breaking the quite ridiculous CB rules. I'm not ashamed to say that I have pinched some from Chaturbate and I will continue to go on there from time to time to hopefully convert more. When I saw a tweet from Charturbate openly supporting smoking drugs on one of their streams, I think it's a fucking free for all now.
I wanted a more sophisticated environment to work in and I came across a site called SkyPrivate. It's a site that only uses Skype to make cam 2 cam calls which the caller pays for. No more sitting there rubbing my pussy to the point of death. I've been invigorated by it since day one. I have my Mojo back and my contact list is growing by the day. I'm becoming more confident and as yet, no rude, ignorant people. You can have a general chat for free before a show. Once you have accepted their request, you can chat for free whenever they are online. That is what has been missing from the camming world. To be able to really get to know someone without the time restraints. Quite often I leave my Skype on when I've logged out of the Pay per Minute app, so I can chat with everyone and they know I'm not just after their money. One guy even asked why am I talking to him when I know he has no money, simple, because I can and I like to.
I've totally re branded everything, from the dreaded Twitter, yes I still use it, to Snapchat and even built my own website that has been live for 2 weeks. I now have the time to be able to do things properly, without it all looking so whore like.
I made my site membership only to watch all my videos, see my pictures and they can download them. I have a live stream show from the site at least once a week, just for members. When I looked at the pricing structure for membership, I realised that I had to keep the costs low. I'd rather have 100 members paying $1.90 a week than 5 members paying $30 a month. The $1.90 is the same as buying 21 tokens on CB which is less than many models charge for a private message and they get full access to everything for free once signed up. By having a membership, I can do the free shows on my sites, granted, i'm ecstatic when I get tipped throughout a show, but I know that everyone watching has already contributed.
Anyway, enough about my site. I guess what I would like to see change is the whole unregistered viewers being able to watch. I think the UK have a good idea with the Porn Pass, but in reality that wont work as people just use VPN's now. I think the sites themselves need to take responsibility in ensuring who viewers are, and I guess the main one is underage viewers. Simply having to click yes I'm over 18 is indeed childlike. The best way to do this is.....Stop making it all fucking free. Make people pay for the service that us models provide and then they would be able to give the models more than the horrific 50% of the token costs to buyers. Skyprivate is 75% minimum and can go up to 86% with referrals and people you bring to the site. Doesn't that not only make the model feel worthy and also the payer feel like they are not simply supporting another corporation. Wouldn't the models shows be more engaging with better quality streams if they were actually being paid a fair % and knowing that everyone in the room has the ability to contribute instantly?
So I guess to sum up. Camming is a great way to be able to earn money from your own home. It certainly is more beneficial than say, teaching English, but you really must be an open minded person to do it, thick skinned and dedicated. I love doing it and I'll continue. But the industry needs a shake up and more regulations put in place, the camming sites need to listen to the models in ways to improve the system and to make it safer.
I would imagine that some readers of this will just say that I couldn't hack it on Chaturbate and it's all moaning sour grapes. Well, I never let my grapes sour as that is a waste of good wine and it's not moaning, it's just the truth that many models don't like to admit. How will the industry grow for the better if we all stay quiet. We are simply selling our bodies to corporate greed. It feels like fans are tipping the company instead of us. It's one of the most stressful things I have ever done, the amount of time and costs that goes into a show even before you turn the camera on is immense, then the cool down after a show. I have upmost respect for every cam model, no matter if their stream is garbage or their sound is awful. It takes courage, guts and a lot of effort to do it and i'd never slate anyone of them. Just have a think next time you are in a room and have an urge to say something derogatory in the chat box. The lady in front of you might be married and might have to do this as her husband has been laid off and they have kids to feed. That lady in front of you might not have eaten for 2 days as she has no money, that lady in front of you might one day be someone in your life that has fallen on hard times. Or that lady might just be doing it because she absolutely loves it and when people show their love, she'll give you the best damn show of your life.
If you would like to read my daily/weekly blogs you can here www.missfahrenhiet.com