Talk:JenniCam

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This is my first contributin to Wikipedia (-: We-ho!

Anyway, I added a small paragraph of information, mainly translated from the mentioned book. I also corrected a few spelling mistakes (hit enter instead of clicking Show preview - duh). There is still much more to be written about the JenniCam phenomomen. Feel free to do so (-: -Berge Schwebs Bjørlo


I think I just did the edit that makes the page complete, if poorly worded. --Defenestrate 08:29, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that this page about Jennicam should be deleted, its about internet history.

No real mention as the start of the "cam whore" phenom. No mention of the various hack attacks and vitriol against this cam whore.

It's probably as noteworthy as the "anonymous Wikipedia asshole" phenomenon, anyway, or the "hypocrites who can't stand anyone who dares to get naked but who troll sites and pages about them anyway" one. I say go for it. RGTraynor 15:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Jeepers guys, JenniCam was the first person to go 24/7 on webcam, plus was one of the first examples of an Internet celebrity. She has a place in Internet history. She has appeared in the "Fame After Photography" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Cleaned up the text without changing statements, including using Ringley's last name only to refer to her, which I hope will make this article more neutral in tone. I won't even try to verify the accuracy of any statements. Gladmax 12:29 PM 12 May 2006 (EDT)

Changed the category back to "Adult" from "Erotica". Jennicam did on occasion display nudity and sex in the context of one's daily life, however, the site was certainly not pornographic or "erotic" in nature. Patrick80639 23:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Keep the discussion at a high level

JenniCam was arousing to some viewers because it tore away the curtains that society had established by tradition. It is clearly NOT pornography and the level to which it was erotica is probably not above the baseline background of normal activities that occur "behind closed doors". I dare anyone to prove that Ringley was exceptionally promiscous. -- 64.175.42.128 23:19, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

She is properly classified as a camwhore. She posed nude in front of a camera (see here: http://www.darkhousenetwork.com/jennicampix/jenni_cat.html), and she made a lot of money doing it. She wasn't just documenting her life; her life was structured around her webcam business. And she knew that that the success of that business depended on her appearing nude (and often engaged in sex acts) in plain view of a camera with good lighting. Instead of keeping it on a "high level", let's keep it on an honest level. As it is, this article lacks an NPOV.
Quite the opposite; she never "posed" for the camera. She did whatever she did normally in front of the camera--as if it weren't there. She did not think of the camera as a camera, she thought of it as a link to another person. Her life was not "structured around her webcam business." She had no idea that so many people would care or find out about it. It was an experiment. She wanted to get people's reactions. Sorchah 17:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origins

I removed this text today: "There was, however, certainly a voyeuristic aspect of this which Ringley had to have been aware of, since whenever Ringley would spread her legs for her male lover, the penises of thousands of her male subscribers, and fellow Dickinson College students, would become erect and they would masturbate. Ringley, in a sense, became the alpha female who would allow only one male to access Ringley's vagina, whereas all other members of her tribe of followers had to pay to masturbate to her." - sorry, what is this rubbish? Someone projecting their fantasies, no doubt. Achromatic 22:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I've removed some of the more provocative language but have reinstated my changes with my central claim, and some necessary supporting text, intact: that this was the first opportunity ever, in any setting whatsoever other than an illegal or purely pornographic one, to observe the explicit sexual behavior of a complete stranger. This claim is not mere fantasy on my part--there are any number of surviving photos on the internet supporting my claim that explicit sex was shown. If you wish to dispute the other aspect of my claim and claim that this was not the first such case, you should provide a supporting example and not merely delete my text. I also reinstated my claim that Ringley had the same initials as J.K. Rowling since it is hard to see how that can be dismissed as fantasy.--DharmaLion 14:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
If you'll read the actual text that I removed, you'll see that it IS purely limited to that 'provocative' language. I am well aware that she was one of the first - I'm kinda curious though as to the absolute of your language, "first opportunity ever" - I doubt that, even beyond the context of the Internet. Jennifer was very doubtfully the first person to ever let someone watch her on webcam. One of the first to become internationally well-known as a result. Achromatic 21:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hmmm...

I dunno. Seems kinda like a whitewashing with no mention of the Courtney incident or even of Dex at all. It is relevant because it caused an enormous drop in her fanbase, from which she never recovered. 02:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

That is true. Many of those who were really following her life got very upset with her and could no longer view her sympathetically, that she took her friend's fiance', and immediately started making love to him on cam. And sometimes Jenny would behave just plain weird. Like with no plans to have a baby or anything, trying to lactate. 67.35.26.170 (talk) 21:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Jenni as "New Media Artist"?

The following large blockquote is something of a rabbit trail, so I cut it down to just the bolded part:

Since the mid-twentieth century, surveillance has been an increasingly significant subject of literature, cinema, and art. From George Orwell's novel 1984, first published in 1949, to Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 film The Conversation, surveillance typically has been portrayed as a menacing specter of government or corporate power. By the end of the twentieth century, however, cultural attitudes toward surveillance had become more ambivalent. While concerns about the invasion of privacy remained, surveillance was also seen as a necessary evil, protecting the innocent from threats of abuse, crime, or terrorism. Surveillance began to appear not only as a technology of military and police control but also as a form of entertainment. In Web sites like JenniCAM, in which a young woman installed Web cameras in her home to expose her everyday actions to online viewers, and Reality television shows like Big Brother, in which contestants volunteered to subject themselves to around-the-clock public observation, surveillance became a source of voyeuristic and exhibitionistic excitement. This shift paralleled a dramatic rise in the sophistication and pervasiveness of such surveillance technologies as networked cameras, biometric identification systems, satellite imaging, and data mining. Institutional surveillance and the invasion of privacy have been widely explored by New Media artists.

This passage might be more relevant on the lifecasting article. Also, I'm not convinced Jenni viewed herself as an artist, or JenniCAM as conceptual art. From what I've read, I think it was more of an experiment; something she wanted to try because it was fascinating to her. Eseymour 14:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps. But the point is that others viewed her as a conceptual artist (as Googling reveals). Pepso2 15:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Chuck Jones once said that "artist" is a "gift word" -- meaning a person must wait for others to decide if they are an artist. Pepso2 15:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. I've changed the wording a little. Could you provide a source where someone labels Jenni a conceptual artist? Eseymour 16:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, this can't be sourced but in her online diary she alluded to the fact that she saw herself as an erstwhile artist and published some of her film photography self-portraits. She sometimes stated that her cam was her version of performance art. She started talking like this after she met Ana Voog. Jenni had a bit of inflated ego as to the importance of what she was doing, often fueled by her more enthusiastic subscribers. She made a big deal about her site being featured in a MOMA exhibition, but it would be unlikely that they would hold such an exhibition now. —M (talk • contribs) 17:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I worked on the MOMA exhibition video (it was clips from The Jennishow on TheSync). Jenni did mention the JenniCam being an art experiment. I think she was a performance artist, because she did do some things "for the cam". But she also kind of liked being seen naked and also liked making money. She was very complex and conflicted. Typical artist if you ask me!

It would be good to find some kind of source. Dave Rebecca 19:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Unlikely unless her journal entries were re-published. —M (talk • contribs) 20:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Reference added. Btw, that Webjunk video at bottom link is worth watching, as she tells what she's doing today. Pepso2 20:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I re-removed the stuff about the Big Brother TV show and biometric identification systems, etc. It's an interesting discussion, perhaps, but it doesn't belong in this article. Eseymour 16:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] See also

There is a link to an article concerning an individual, Hasan M. Elahi, that doesn't seem relevant. He appears to be making more of a political statement or is an activist of some sort. I would like to remove this link as it doesn't seem related to Jennicam or Jennifer Ringley at all. The only thing they have in common is they seem to both have used webcams to cpature images of themselves. If such weak connections were to be used, we should have Jaleel White listed under "see also" on George Clooney's article, as they both have worked in front of a TV camera. :) --Patrick80639 18:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Modernferret28.jpg

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BetacommandBot 04:45, 7 November 2007 (UTC)