Dating back to early in this forums history, the question of the parasocial relationships comes up every few years. Though never actually called out for what it is. The difference today is you have other internet celebrities taking the subject much more seriously. So I'm curious if the views have changed for cam models.
When you look at Youtubers and streamers today, you see that its pretty much universally accepted that they have a responsibility to draw their boundaries with their audience and consistently state and reinforce it. A huge reason for doing so is for the creators own protection. We're consistently seeing those who failed to do so being accused of some heinous things, even when they actively try to age-gate those they interact with. Even in cases where the creator seemed to start off with innocent intentions, there are many cases where they ended up crossing lines.
I think a big problem with this from the position of specifically female cam models is that it is considered socially acceptable for them to lie with the intention of further establishing a parasocial bond for the purposes of increasing the amount of money they make. Historically, the position of this forum has been that the models are selling a fantasy and its the customers responsibility to understand that. Ideally, this is true, but unlike those other content creators, a lot of models (at least historically) actively continue the manipulation on an individual level. Personally, I generally agree with the stance that each individual should be held responsible for their own actions. The thing I've realized is, I don't have people throwing ever growing piles of cash at me and buying me ever more expensive items and I'm not going out of my way to further incentivize such behavior. There has to be a line there where you go from creating a fantasy to actively manipulating a delusion you built. There are models today that have been doing this for more than a decade that should have a much greater insight into this subject than maybe anyone else in the world.
In the past, models said they feared that there may come a day where they could be sued for "tricking" their customers into giving them all of their money. I think today there should be more serious concerns, like being hit with wrongful death in cases like the one where the guy killed his entire family after they disowned him for spending all his money on a specific cam model. Or being charged w/ selling adult content to minors, or even viewing a minors cam when doing privates as governments conclude the protections in place aren't enough and the websites attempt to make it more clear on the daily that you are independent contractors. Does actively fostering these parasocial relationships give you some control over them that these other content creators lack? Do you still believe these concerns aren't an issue or that they aren't your responsibility? Is there something inherently different from what these more traditional content creators do that you feel makes you less culpable?
What is the view general of models that cross over onto platforms like Twitch and Youtube where they will inherently draw more attention from minors? Often times with their accounts having their linktree profiles with direct links to things like their patreon, onlyfans, fansly, manyvids, etc. Only Onlyfans is widely known for distributing adult content by the average person. The others, parents might believe is just an alternative platform where fans can support their favorite content creators, ala patreon, but don't realize that even patreon is widely used to sell adult content. At the very least I think it would be fair criticism that these creators are jumping into the pool where parents are falsely led to believe the content their kids are viewing is "safe." They might not actively be pursuing kids to sell their adult content to, but are they actually naive enough to believe clicking "yes" on a pop up that asks "Are you 18 or older?" protects them from selling content to minors? At the end of the day, any of these platforms are going to throw you guys under the bus while constantly reiterating that you are independent contractors and that you knew that and they took the legal steps to protect themselves and you took no further steps to verify anything for yourself. Do you believe that they might be actively marketing to minors, especially considering the number of models who do everything in their power not to be flagged as not kid friendly?
In the past I think it was pretty black and white and, in all honesty, there were no morality issues outside of those cases where models are forced to perform against their will. Today, the very nature of the type of relationship you foster with your customers is under heavy scrutiny. Your "employer" has spent the last few years separating themselves from their contractors in a clear attempt to remove legal liability. There's governments criticizing how easy it is for minors to make purchases on their parents cards in general and isn't even specific to adult content, yet. Governments becoming ever more critical of websites only demanding people click yes to allow access to adult content when apps like tiktok are getting blasted for doing nothing to stop underage people using and posting content on their platform. And finally, you have the issue where models are dressing up as the most popular cartoon, anime and video game characters and "indirectly" doing so to market their adult oriented content while streaming on mainstream platforms with nothing functionally preventing the content reaching minors.
At the very least, I think people should be asking themselves some uncomfortable questions. Could a DA argue that dressing up as Yuffie from ff7 on Twitch with the intent to later go onto Chaturbate, MFC, or OF later and get railed while portraying the teenage character is abusing a character which is designed to target kids with the intent to sell your adult content? That the concept itself is marketing it to kids? Should you have some measure of legal responsibility if you continue to actively market to a person who has told you that they have financially destroyed their family and may be facing legal punishment for their actions all so they can pay for your content? In the past, these things didn't seem like an issue bc nobody was crossing those lines. Today, you can point to examples of that behavior and the cosplay example is extremely common. At the very least you need to understand a company like Nintendo is widely known to send cease and desists and file charges for using their characters to create content they don't approve of, including parody, which should otherwise be protected. Can you even argue parody for dressing up as a character to sell the idea of said character getting or fucking themselves stupid? I think the adult industry as a whole needs to be asking these questions, but think its incredibly important for the individual models who don't have the same protections a company does. And I also wonder what sort of percentage of models don't understand that if things go sideways, MFC, OF, etc are likely going to cut their potential losses, shove you guys into the path of the legal systems as they run off into the sunset having collected a fairly solid share of all of your guys' revenue while providing you with very little.
When you look at Youtubers and streamers today, you see that its pretty much universally accepted that they have a responsibility to draw their boundaries with their audience and consistently state and reinforce it. A huge reason for doing so is for the creators own protection. We're consistently seeing those who failed to do so being accused of some heinous things, even when they actively try to age-gate those they interact with. Even in cases where the creator seemed to start off with innocent intentions, there are many cases where they ended up crossing lines.
I think a big problem with this from the position of specifically female cam models is that it is considered socially acceptable for them to lie with the intention of further establishing a parasocial bond for the purposes of increasing the amount of money they make. Historically, the position of this forum has been that the models are selling a fantasy and its the customers responsibility to understand that. Ideally, this is true, but unlike those other content creators, a lot of models (at least historically) actively continue the manipulation on an individual level. Personally, I generally agree with the stance that each individual should be held responsible for their own actions. The thing I've realized is, I don't have people throwing ever growing piles of cash at me and buying me ever more expensive items and I'm not going out of my way to further incentivize such behavior. There has to be a line there where you go from creating a fantasy to actively manipulating a delusion you built. There are models today that have been doing this for more than a decade that should have a much greater insight into this subject than maybe anyone else in the world.
In the past, models said they feared that there may come a day where they could be sued for "tricking" their customers into giving them all of their money. I think today there should be more serious concerns, like being hit with wrongful death in cases like the one where the guy killed his entire family after they disowned him for spending all his money on a specific cam model. Or being charged w/ selling adult content to minors, or even viewing a minors cam when doing privates as governments conclude the protections in place aren't enough and the websites attempt to make it more clear on the daily that you are independent contractors. Does actively fostering these parasocial relationships give you some control over them that these other content creators lack? Do you still believe these concerns aren't an issue or that they aren't your responsibility? Is there something inherently different from what these more traditional content creators do that you feel makes you less culpable?
What is the view general of models that cross over onto platforms like Twitch and Youtube where they will inherently draw more attention from minors? Often times with their accounts having their linktree profiles with direct links to things like their patreon, onlyfans, fansly, manyvids, etc. Only Onlyfans is widely known for distributing adult content by the average person. The others, parents might believe is just an alternative platform where fans can support their favorite content creators, ala patreon, but don't realize that even patreon is widely used to sell adult content. At the very least I think it would be fair criticism that these creators are jumping into the pool where parents are falsely led to believe the content their kids are viewing is "safe." They might not actively be pursuing kids to sell their adult content to, but are they actually naive enough to believe clicking "yes" on a pop up that asks "Are you 18 or older?" protects them from selling content to minors? At the end of the day, any of these platforms are going to throw you guys under the bus while constantly reiterating that you are independent contractors and that you knew that and they took the legal steps to protect themselves and you took no further steps to verify anything for yourself. Do you believe that they might be actively marketing to minors, especially considering the number of models who do everything in their power not to be flagged as not kid friendly?
In the past I think it was pretty black and white and, in all honesty, there were no morality issues outside of those cases where models are forced to perform against their will. Today, the very nature of the type of relationship you foster with your customers is under heavy scrutiny. Your "employer" has spent the last few years separating themselves from their contractors in a clear attempt to remove legal liability. There's governments criticizing how easy it is for minors to make purchases on their parents cards in general and isn't even specific to adult content, yet. Governments becoming ever more critical of websites only demanding people click yes to allow access to adult content when apps like tiktok are getting blasted for doing nothing to stop underage people using and posting content on their platform. And finally, you have the issue where models are dressing up as the most popular cartoon, anime and video game characters and "indirectly" doing so to market their adult oriented content while streaming on mainstream platforms with nothing functionally preventing the content reaching minors.
At the very least, I think people should be asking themselves some uncomfortable questions. Could a DA argue that dressing up as Yuffie from ff7 on Twitch with the intent to later go onto Chaturbate, MFC, or OF later and get railed while portraying the teenage character is abusing a character which is designed to target kids with the intent to sell your adult content? That the concept itself is marketing it to kids? Should you have some measure of legal responsibility if you continue to actively market to a person who has told you that they have financially destroyed their family and may be facing legal punishment for their actions all so they can pay for your content? In the past, these things didn't seem like an issue bc nobody was crossing those lines. Today, you can point to examples of that behavior and the cosplay example is extremely common. At the very least you need to understand a company like Nintendo is widely known to send cease and desists and file charges for using their characters to create content they don't approve of, including parody, which should otherwise be protected. Can you even argue parody for dressing up as a character to sell the idea of said character getting or fucking themselves stupid? I think the adult industry as a whole needs to be asking these questions, but think its incredibly important for the individual models who don't have the same protections a company does. And I also wonder what sort of percentage of models don't understand that if things go sideways, MFC, OF, etc are likely going to cut their potential losses, shove you guys into the path of the legal systems as they run off into the sunset having collected a fairly solid share of all of your guys' revenue while providing you with very little.
It kind of gets to one point the OP made - that this is not a good thing for the industry.
I think I would feel guilty and stressed if I had some obsessed weirdos thinking that I "loved" them while I know I'm just playing them. But, I don't work in a studio in Bulgaria or Romania with boss pressuring me and life in general maybe more ruthless than where I'm from.
But I won’t do racial play, and I won’t tolerate men trying to sneak other name-calling (calling ME names) into the session.
