“We live in a society that loves a lens.” - Goldie Hawn, 1997
Jennifer Ringley is not a movie star. She has not had a musical hit nor has she published a runaway bestseller. Yet she became a celebrity, and her face, her life and her most intimate actions have been scrutinized and observed by millions of people. In the late 90's Jennifer became a net star when she broadcast herself on the internet, live and uncensored, 24 hours a day. “Jennicam” became the sensation of the day as Jenni allowed viewers to watch her doing things that everyone does in the privacy of their own homes; brushing her teeth, sleeping, undressing, even performing bedroom antics.
Jennifer Ringley became an overnight sensation, instantly famous and sought after. At the height of her fame, she was featured on CNN, E! Entertainment News and even on the Late Show with David Letterman. Jennifer, attacked by many as an exhibitionist and an anti-feminist, has maintained that her seven-year webcam effort was a simple experiment to prove that “no matter what you look like, you're still just as interesting as people on the TV or in the magazines."
Being on 24-hour webcam might not appeal to everyone, but Jenni's fame is certainly something that a growing number of people are aspiring to - if the mushrooming population of webcams and blogs on the internet is anything to go by. While most bloggers will protest that they blog primarily for the fun of it and rarely have more than the closest acquaintances read their posts, the best known and most popular blogs feature more risqué reading such as online sex journals. Belle Du Jour, the nom de plume of a woman who claims to be a real, legal "woman of the night," maintains a blog that very candidly chronicles her professional life. Belle's blog, often erotic, sometimes hilarious and always witty, was so successful - with a reported 15,000 hits daily - the entries were eventually published in a book, "Belle Du Jour: Intimate Adventures of A London Call Girl."
Other enterprising young women have discovered the power of photos and websites to bring them fame - and even fortune. An increasing number of teenage girls are setting up their own websites, complete with an online journal, scrapbook and links to their favorite fan sites, as well as a Wish List - a page of links to shopping sites where visitors can see - and purchase - items that will fulfill their materialistic wants and desires. In exchange for CDs, cosmetics or PayPal "donations", Cam Girls will send you intimate photos, get hot and heavy on the phone with you or even send you live video feeds of themselves in uncompromising positions. These girls are ready to do almost anything to gather attention, and as one Cam Girl, Leslie, put it, “Having fans makes me feel good about myself. Whether it's someone who says how pretty they think I am, or even just someone who says, "You"re cool, Leslie' it means a lot to me.”
A survey by the UK-based Learning and Skills Council (LSC) showed that at least one in ten UK teenagers have dreams of fame, and are ready to drop out of school to star on reality TV shows to get famous. Reality TV has been seen as the ultimate ticket to instant fame and fortune, as people like Kelly Clarkson and Richard Hatch (respectively, of American Idol and Survivor fame) have been catapulted from obscurity into the public eye. Even locally, ex-Malaysian Idols Jaclyn Victor and Daniel Lee, and Academia Fantasia's Mawi became instant celebrities once they achieved success on their chosen programs.
The most popular reality TV programs such as Survivor, Big Brother and the Idol franchises have tens of thousands of hopefuls queuing up for days for just a handful of positions. The roar of the masses who are clamoring to be seen on TV is so great that at Be On Screen.com, at least 1000 paying registrants sign up every week for limited opportunities on various new and ongoing programs.
So desperate are people for their 15 minutes of fame, that the BBC current affair program Mischief created a fake show called, “Let's Make A Baby” to see how far people were willing to go to get on TV. The shows premise was to gather a group of men and women, all strangers, together in a "fertility house." Each week one couple would be voted off until only the two most attractive couples were left, and the race would be on to see who could be the first to conceive ... live on TV. Despite “Let's Make A Baby” being what Mischief producers considered to be “the most tasteless and morally dubious reality TV idea ever,” TV channels were queuing up to get the rights for the series and hundreds of people jammed their phone lines for a chance to be in the show.
