So, I started my website out as www.Kayla-Marie.com in July of 1998. (The earliest entry for it on www.archive.org is for Dec of 1998.) That was back in the OLD days before there were networks like SexCamCentral, Camz, etc...so the only shows your memebers got to see were the ones that you performed for them. It was in the early, booming days of membership sites, before there were hundreds of thousands of them. I did two cam shows a day, six days a week. One was scheduled for east coast members, the other for west coast members. I was one of the first sites to have 24/7 streaming video (my cam shows had streaming video with audio running at 5 fps while most cam sites were using WebCam 32 and "fast" refreshing sites offered a frame every 10 seconds). As things changed and amateur sites went from a novelty to a HUGE industry, the camshow networks were born. Instead of viewing solely the one gals cam show, members from participating cam sites were able to view cam shows performed by other cam girls as well. Things evolved, competition grew. By exposing members of each site to the shows, personality and sexuality of other cam hosts it was only natural that a bit of "one-up-manship" became the norm. No big deal. I never sweated it as everyone likes something different. Doing 10-12 cam shows a week as the norm dropped to a norm of 2-6 a week...more if you do not have 24/7 cams, fewer if you do. Still, even after 9 years of cam shows, I look forward to 'performing' my shows and feel like I have let everyone down when my scene filming schedule causes me to have to skip a show. The past 2-3 months, however, there has been a slowly building yet definitely noticable negative change in the "atmosphere" of the chatroom on my favorite network. Instead of a light-hearted, mood boosting, orgasmically intense visit with cyber-house-guests, it has become an insult throwing contest; with insults being hurled not only from guest to guest but from guest to me. I am not the only one with this growing problem. I am not the only cam performer who has noticed and commented on it. Why? Why has it changed so dramatically so quickly? Tonight was brutal! I have a good friend who lost her house to foreclosure. When she was having pool parties, she had tons of "friends" stopping by and hanging out for hours on end. Now that it is time to pack things up and move them in to storage, there has been only me there. Matter of fact, since my driving record is clean (she has had accidents in the past) the U-Haul has been rented by me, in my name meaning that I am the only one who can drive it. I have been helping them pack, load, drive the truck then unload it. I cut it short this evening in order to make it back home in time to walk Halon, bathe and log in for my cam show. I would have been totally justified and able to skip the show had I chosen to do so (provided I give ample notice, of course), but I did not want to disappoint so I didn't cancel out on it. I logged in, started out chipper albeit tired, and started chatting away. The atmosphere started out ... I don't want to say "civil", that sounds so clinical...it started out...okay, for lack of a better word. There were friendly names I recognized in there...some that I look forward to seeing each week...some I had not seen in a bit but enjoy when I do...and, of course, new names. The same ol', same ol' questions (How big are your breasts? Is this a solo show? What are your tattoos? Etc) were asked, some I answered, others 'regulars' answered for me. That led way to a barrage of borderline rude questions. (How much does she get paid for doing this show? What would it take to get to f*ck you? And my favorite {supposedly froma MALE... keep in mind} If I sucked off a lot of black cocks, would that turn you on and make you let me get with you?) No sooner had I moved away from my keyboard/desk and onto my bed, did I see a string of blue text...line after line after line. Blue text = BAD! See, on *my* end, normal chat text is black, anything the Admin or I type is red and any time someone gets kicked or banned, it is BLUE. Even from my bed, I can tell that the room has turned ugly again. Instead of being able to relax and feel sexy, I am drawn back to my desk to monitor the situation and see just how bad it is getting. Why do I care, you ask? I care because: it is a distraction which makes it difficult for me to totally relax and lose myself in pleasure; I hate the idea of rewarding negative behavior and do not want to (even accidentally) fulfill the demands of someone being obnoxious in my chatroom; I do not like to "lose control" of the room and give mob mentality a chance to take root. There have always been the occasional dumb ass f*cktards who make disgusting comments and get booted. No big deal. My skin is not so thin as to not be able to handle that. Tonight, however, there were more than the usual number of "females" trying to corner the attention of the chatters, more than the number of people barking out demands and feeling justified in insulting me if I did not "jump to it" fast enough, more than the number of people bickering back and forth between each other. There was no ONE incident which stands out as the 'final straw' to hurting my feelings this evening. There is no ONE person to single out and point my finger to and blame for the negativity I felt bombarded with suddenly. You know the expression,"One bad apple spoils the barrel"? That was my chatroom this evening. People logging in and, before even saying hello, demanding, "Show me your left tit" or "Hurry up and get me off, I have to go to work". When did common courtesy STOP being common? I am not asking to be worshipped, nor am I asking to have my ass kissed. I am merely asking to have the bare minimum of the appearance of etiquette presented to me. It bothers me that I pushed myself after doing manual labor all day, several days in a row, to make it back in time to be met only with disdain by the very same people I was looking forward to impressing. It bothers me that, in a cyber sort of way, I invited people in to my bedroom only to have then behave like jackylls the moment they thought I was too far away from my monitor to see their text. It bothers me that, for the first time in 9 years, I really wished I had not bothered logging in to do my show. It bothers me that a little over a dozen people ruined the evening not only for me but for over 800 others. It does not make me feel sexy OR sexual when I have to play 'warden' or 'referee' in my chatroom. Yes, I realize I have an Admin, but he has the daunting task of being ONE person monitoring not only MY 800+ but those in another cam show/chat room running at the same time. He is only one person, spread thin as it is, trying to be a buffer between me and nastiness. There were times he could not boot people fast enough. WTF?! What was in the air tonight? Full moon, maybe? Pre-holiday stress hitting earlier than usual? What? Why does anyone think that I, or any OTHER cam performer, deserves to be treated as a sub-human? I mean, if you are logged in then you are a member of one (or more) website(s) in the network. That suggests to me that there is no moral objection to pornography. If there is no objection to porn and there is no porn unless there are porn performers...how do they justify being demeaning to any of us just because we are naked in front of them? What makes them think that because we are stripped of our clothing and out inhibitions that we should also be stripped of our humanity, dignity and pride? There were no petty insults based on my appearance, I am not lashing out as a woman scorned. There was just a general lack of respect, manners and courtesy. I almost think that is worse. I am not saying that insults about my looks don't bug me, just saying that the problem runs deeper than that. When I was WAY bad off with cancer and barely moving about and my weight ballooned, I got almost used to the fat comments (shame that you can get used to being insulted)...even then, though, the mood in the room did not feel as heavy as it did tonight. I am sure that the amount of stress I am facing at the moment makes me a bit more sensitive than I would normally be to this, however others in the room were commenting on the extreme change in attitude in the chatroom so I know it is not 100% me and my circumstances coloring my view. I am willing to write tonight off as an anomaly and see if things start to return to 'normal' next time I log in to that network. My concern is this: What if this anomaly becomes the norm? If I start dreading performing there, I will no longer do so. I have always prided myself on the fact that I fake nothing for my fans...both my site fans and my movie fans...and I will not start doing so now. Tonight, my orgasm was purely physical...quite faint when compared to my usual physical/mental one I experience. Disappointing to me, to say the least. The performer/viewer relationship is symbiotic. The performer relies on the viewer to provide a fun and sexy environment, the viewer relies on the performer to provide the sexual stimulation. Once one side fails to hold up their end of the bargain, the system fails.