In 1996 I didn’t have a computer but often visited a friend down the road who did. I was instantly hooked on this thing called “Windows 95″ and “the internet” despite the fact there really wasn’t much going on at the time. I built my first web page with Netscape Navigator and hosted it, I believe, on that site. Then I moved it to a Geocities page in which it sat until I discovered a way to make it personal and got hosting from Simplenet. My domain? A very cheeky dreamy.simplenet.com.

Being a female in her early 20′s, there wasn’t much online I could relate to. I kept an online journal that I thought only friends and family read. Not many people had a computer (including myself – I had to keep borrowing!) so I basically made things I thought were fun. I met some friends from Germany and Washington D.C. that were friends with a girl named Jennifer Ringley. She had created a 24/7 cam in her dorm but, in 1996, had taken it down (she’d later put it back up and become known as Jennicam). They asked if I wanted the cam and, since it was free, said yes!

It took 4 programs to run the cam, 3 of which my trusted geek friends wrote for me. Due to limited memory of the borrowed computer, I could only run so many programs (the four for the cam and one to chat with my friends). This meant I never could see the photos until after people sent them to me. The cam just literally snapped every two minutes, sent the image up to my web site, and refreshed. The cam was not 24/7 as I did not have a computer and was not on one a lot. It was on sporadically when I chatted to friends/family. I was never, ever naked (it was not that kind of cam). There were no shows, no money exchanged nothing. Just a fun thing I did so family and friends far away could see me. (It wasn’t until late 1999 I decided to take “pictures” with it since I love photography but lacked a digital camera at the time.)

Very early on, however, the cam (unintentionally and unknowingly) became really popular because there wasn’t another one going on at the time, I was more than likely only a handful of girls with a personal page and the web was still relatively new. I was so daft about the internet I hadn’t realised others could find my site without me directly telling them where to go or “giving permission” (whatever that meant!). The unique hits ended up at over 1.5 million at one point. My site’s title in 1996 was “Isn’t it Dreamy?” (which was a very cheeky name I should say) so the cam became known as the “DreamyCam” (there are now people who use the name DreamyCam and I assure you, it’s not me!). Salon Magazine even included me in an article they wrote about cam phenomenon (which I didn’t include myself in. I didn’t want to be or think of myself as a camgirl). I was constantly asked to be interviewed and flown all over the world for tv appearances. I was offered marriage proposals, contracts for companies, and lots of money for appearances. I turned them all down because I didn’t like receiving attention for something as simple as having a cam – there wasn’t any effort behind it, no science, nothing inspiring. It was supposed to be fun, not something to make me famous. So I took it down.

During bouts with immigration, I used the cam again as a way to keep in touch with my family and friends. It wasn’t public in the last few years. And now, I no longer have a cam.

I used to be highly embarrassed about these pictures, the attention, and that whole era (I was, at one point, the only girl with a cam. Can you imagine the stir? I didn’t like it). But now, so many years later, I see it all as a sweet little thing, something that was fun, interesting and new. So I share it with you now.