Some frenetic surfing on the web. Am amused by the opportunistic whoring that cam culture represents. A lot of it isn't even seriously sexual, but just a lot of winking and nodding; pretty girls with pictures and elaborate, java-script saturated layouts, the requisite artistic blog and gallery, and even wishlists of kinky items and books which they hope deprived guys seeking attention and affection will purchase for them.
Of course some are just narcissistic by nature, while others are probably whoring themselves for hits (I'm not sure, but I *think* they get paid for click-throughs). Some of course are doing for the same reasons of artistic and emotional expression which us blog writers do. Some of them maybe just get a thrill of being parts of networks and cliques and watching their hit rate climb. *sardonic laugh* But who am I to judge? I don't blog for the most wholesome of motives myself, as I realise in my rare moments of genuine self-introspection, despite my hypocritical assertion that it serves mainly as a verbal exercise and a way to organize my thoughts.
It's vaguely pornographic, of course, with a definite sensual veneer to the whole thing. But at least explicit pornography has a certain direct honesty to it. This feeds into .. something a lot less wholesome, I feel. Degenerate, lonely people desperate for a glimpse of other's lives on the net? Repressed longing being transmuted into a desire to "be friends"? Believe me, I know all about being that.
It strikes me that Net addiction shares a few similiarities with Skill-addiction in nature. (A ref that only makes sense to Robin Hobb affocionados). The possibility of losing your identity in a flow of sheer knowledge and other, corporate identities.
In any case, I can't describe it, other than maintain my sense of appalled awe at just how much hunger and desperation there is on the Net, and just how many predators there are out there willing to feed on that in even the most trivial of ways.
Go and see:)
And go check out how even our inhibited, culturally backward Third World nations are represented here and here!