JenniCam
By Zoe Agnew
Jenni of JenniCam is one of the most famous figures on the net, even
if her fame is waning as of late.
She was one of the first, if not the first, people to set up a webcam
in the privacy of her own home and broadcast her daily life to internet
viewers. This viewing experience is in real time, which most of us
knows means that the view is totally unedited, uncensored and often
extremely boring. After all, "real" people do leave their
house for hours on end and JenniCam viewers can only hope for shots
of her multiple cats and dogs frolicking during Jenni's absence.
Even when Jenni is home, expect hours of shots of her working at
her computer and other mundane activities.
So if JenniCam is so monotonous, why do so many users go to her site
- repeatedly? At first, JenniCam must have profited from the novelty
of webcams and their role in the shrinkage and reshaping of private
and personal spaces. Users might benefit from the entertainment pleasure
of identifying with someone else's monotonous domestic patterns. After
all, if Jenni does what I do most days, then I might be more normal
after all.
The pleasure of voyeurism probably added to Jenni's traffic much
more so than the patterns of domesticity. Once you recognize her patterns,
there is great satisfaction in finding the exceptions to her patterns,
particularly intimate exceptions.
Jenni claims to have begun JenniCam as a way to keep in touch with
her mother. If so, it is unlikely that she would also broadcast her
moments of sexuality or her bathing habits. Jenni also claims to have
created the site, and spent a considerable amount of her life maintaining
it, simply "for herself." Perhaps she views it as an online
journal or documentary of her life that she can archive and reflect
upon later at her leisure.
Her online journal supports this claim somewhat. She writes about
her problems with her landlord and finding a new apartment. It reads
like an average person's journal: probably only interesting to yourself,
and maybe to your parents if they are particularly doting.
Yet, as with journal writing, Jenni needs to declare who her audience
is, and stick with that decision. She addresses viewers intermittently
although she mostly addresses herself. Is Jenni talking to me, or
am I simply privy to the ins and outs of her life? She should pick
one route or the other.
JenniCam is no longer a novelty. If Jenni continues to document herself
for her own benefit, then the web will remain a wonderful medium for
her in the near future. Otherwise, Jenni's somewhat subverted reason
for this massive effort, whether it's infamy, loneliness, egoism,
self-confidence or whatever motivations that we can only guess at,
she will need to find a new medium or a new approach altogether for
it to remain engaging.