Jennifer Ringley
Jennifer Ringley | |
---|---|
Born | Jennifer Kaye Ringley August 10, 1976 Lifecasting |
Website | jennicam.org at the Wayback Machine (archived December 27, 2003) |
Jennifer Kaye Ringley (born August 10, 1976)
In June 2008, CNET hailed JenniCam as one of the greatest defunct websites in history.[6]
JenniCam
Regarded by some as a
"It was basically a programming challenge to myself to see if I could set up the script that would take the pictures, upload them to this site,...just to get that happening automatically, and I shared it with a couple of friends, kinda 'look, I got this working.'"[10][11]
Ringley's desire to maintain the purity of the cam-eye view of her life eventually created the need to establish that she was within her rights as an adult to broadcast such information, in the legal sense, and that it was not harmful to other adults. Unlike later for-profit webcam services,[12] Ringley did not spend her day displaying her naked body and she spent much more time discussing her romantic life than she did her sex life.[13][14] Ringley maintained her webcam site for seven years and eight months.[15]
Sources stated that JenniCam received seven million visitors daily.[16] Nate Lanxon of CNET said "remember this is 1996 and the Web as we know it now had barely lost its virginity, let alone given birth to the God-child we know as the modern Internet."[17]
Origins
On April 3, 1996, during her junior year at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the 19-year-old Ringley installed a webcam in her college dorm room. On April 14, 1996,[18] raised as a nudist, Ringley starts JenniCam, providing images from that cam on a website.[19] The webpage would automatically refresh every three minutes with the most recent picture from the camera. Initially, anyone with Internet access could observe the often mundane events of Ringley's life; however, in June 1997, Ringley started charging viewers for full entry to her site.[5] JenniCam was one of the first web sites that continuously and voluntarily surveyed a private life. Her first webcam contained only black-and-white images of her in the dorm room. JenniCam attracted up to four million views a day at its peak.[5]
At times during the first couple of years of JenniCam, Ringley performed stripteases for the webcam. Ringley stopped doing stripteases after that.
Initially, the camera tended to be turned off during especially private moments, but eventually this custom was abandoned, and images were captured of Ringley engaging in sex.
Ringley graduated from Dickinson in 1997 with a
Washington D.C.
When Ringley moved to
She began charging for access to her site, allowing both paid and free access with the paid access updating the images more frequently than the free access. She added more pages to her website that included pictures of her cats and ferrets. Her site was doing well as she stayed home and listed her profession as "
As Ringley attracted a following both on and off the Internet, more than 100 media outlets from
Ringley's standard of living improved with a new larger apartment, expensive furniture and several business trips to Amsterdam with her accountant. She claimed that the experience improved her self-image and self body image.[27] Ringley began to take trips to visit other cam girls, including Ana Voog of Anacam.com.
At the height of her popularity, an estimated three to four million people watched JenniCam.org daily. She eventually purchased the domain jennicam.com as well. She appeared as a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman. At the end of the interview, and even after having been corrected once, Letterman plugged the site as Jennicam.net instead of the correct Jennicam.com (Ringley owned both Jennicam.com and Jennicam.org). People visiting the previously non-existent Jennicam.net found a pornographic site with the greeting, "Thanks Dave".
She also appeared on
In 1999, clips from The Jennishow were included in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition "Fame After Photography."[29]
Sacramento
When Ringley moved to Sacramento, California, she documented the boxing of her possessions with free live streaming and full audio. Ringley received some criticism from fans when she became involved with Dex, a man who was the fiancé of a fellow webcammer and friend who helped her move to California.[13][30]
She shut down her site on December 31, 2003, citing PayPal's new anti-nudity policy.[31][32][7][33][34][35][36]
After JenniCam
Since the end of 2003, Ringley has avoided having a presence on the Internet and on social media and tries to stay out of public spotlight.[37]
By 2007, Ringley had worked for a web developer after a brief stint as a case worker for a social services agency in Sacramento. Out of the public eye, she stated, "I really am enjoying my privacy now. I don't have a web page; I don't have a MySpace page. It's a completely different feeling, and I think I'm enjoying it."[38]
In December 2014, Ringley spoke to the podcast Reply All about her experiences with Jennicam; the podcast noted that Jenny "is almost entirely absent from the Internet ... just the way she likes it."[37]
In a 2016 interview with the BBC, Ringley described herself as a programmer in California and married to a man with the very common surname of Johnson.[39][40][41]
Further reading
- Blair, K.; Takayoshi, P. (1999). Feminist Cyberscapes: Mapping Gendered Academic Spaces. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-56750-438-5.
- Burgin, V. (2000). "Jenni's Room: Exhibitionism and Solitude". S2CID 161915076.
- Calvert, Clay (2004). Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture. Vol. 47. Westview Press. OCLC 493710705.
- Herring, S.C. (2003). "Gender and power in online communication". In Holmes, Janet; Meyerhoff, Miriam (eds.). The Handbook of Language and Gender. ISBN 9780470756942.
- Jimroglou, K. M. (1999). "A camera with a view: JenniCAM, visual representation, and cyborg subjectivity" (PDF). Information, Communication & Society. 2 (4): 439–453. doi:10.1080/136911899359493. Archived from the original(PDF) on January 7, 2008. Retrieved January 17, 2008.
- Schwebs, Ture; Otnes, Hildegunn (2001). tekst.no : strukturer og sjangrer i digitale medier [Text.no: Structures and genres in digital media] (in Norwegian). Oslo: Cappelen. p. 175. ISBN 978-82-02-19673-8.
- Kunzru, Hari (September 9, 1997). "The Story of the Eye". Mute.
- Vogler, D. (2005). "Design vs. Content: A Survey of Ten Popular Web Sites That Made Emotional Connections with the User". Computers in Entertainment. 3 (2). S2CID 28353513.
Interviews
- "Tales from the Net". This American Life. Episode 66. June 6, 1997. 16 minutes in. NPR.
Conversation with Jennifer Ringley
- Krotoski, Aleks (October 17, 2016). "Jennifer". The Digital Human. Season 10. BBC. BBC Radio 4.
References
- ^ a b Ringley, Jennifer. "JenniCam Frequently Asked Questions". boudoir.org. Archived from the original on December 10, 1997. Retrieved May 8, 2011.
- ^ "Press Release: JENNICAM HOSTS FIRST WEB BROADCAST FROM AN INDEPENDENT MOVIE SET". Hollywood PA - - Live Internet Broadcast of Independent Film Production, Live Streaming Video, Digital Video Camera. Archived from the original on March 2, 2001. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
Since Ringley started live broadcasting from her dormitory room three years ago, she has attracted an international fan base with an average daily hit rate of 5 million...Ringley first attempted live web casting from her dormitory room at Pennsylvania's Dickinson College. Soon Ringley established such a large following that her server could not supply the necessary capacity. In order to limit the number of hits, she attempted to keep the web address private, and changing it on a regular basis. It had the opposite effect, however.
- ^ "Jennifer Ringley". Hollywood PA - Live Internet Broadcast of Independent Film Production, Live Streaming Video, Digital Video Camera. Archived from the original on January 19, 2001. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
- ^ Condliffe, Jamie (April 4, 2013). "The World's First Webcam Was Created to Check a Coffee Pot". Gizmodo. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
- ^ ISBN 9781433105616.
- ^ Lanxon, Nate (June 5, 2008). "The greatest defunct Web sites and dotcom disasters". CNET. Archived from the original on June 7, 2008. Retrieved June 5, 2008.
- ^ a b Baldwin, Steve (May 19, 2004). "Forgotten Web Celebrities: Jennicam.org's Jennifer Ringley". Disobey.com: Content for the discontented (blog). Retrieved March 27, 2014.
- ^ Daney, Charles (September 29, 1997). "Commentary: JenniCam". The Weekly Nudesletter. Archived from the original on August 27, 2006. Retrieved September 3, 2006.
- .
- ^ Reply All (April 13, 2015). "Jennicam And The Birth Of 'Lifecasting'". digg. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
- ^ Knibbs, Kate (April 14, 2015). "Jennicam: Why the First Lifecaster Disappeared from the Internet". Gizmodo. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
- ^ Keith, Jordan (2014). "Webcam Models". Pandora Modelling. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
- ^ Salon. Archived from the originalon October 26, 2003.
- Salon. Archived from the originalon October 13, 2003.
- ^ "JenniCam Closing After 7+ Years". slashdot. December 31, 2003.
- ^ "Jennicam: The first woman to stream her life on the internet". BBC News. October 17, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
- ^ Lanxon, Nate (June 5, 2008). "The greatest defunct Web sites and dotcom disasters". CNET. Archived from the original on August 6, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2011.
- ^ "This Day in Geek History: April 14". The Great Geek Manual. Archived from the original on March 31, 2009. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
- ^ Dennis, David H. "Jennifer Ringley doesn't live here anymore ..." Amazing (blog). Archived from the original on June 5, 2004.
- ^ * Weeks, Linton (September 20, 1997). "Web site for voyeur eyes". The Washington Post.
- ^ Birgen, Joseph John James. "Jennifer Kaye Ringley". Gremlin (blog). Archived from the original on June 11, 2004.
- ^ a b Allen, Jamie (March 26, 1999). "'Ed' of the Internet: JenniCAM going strong after three years". CNN.
- ^ Weeks, Linton (October 1, 1997). "Jenni, Jenni, Jenni: A Life Laid Bare on the Computer Screen". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
- ^ Ringley, Jennifer. "Frequently Asked Questions". jennicam.org. Archived from the original on April 21, 1999.
- ^ "Chatting with Jennicam". Modern Ferret. No. 28. Archived from the original on December 17, 2003.
- ^ Weeks, Linton (February 16, 1998). "The Moving Pixel Show". The Washington Post.
- ^ Savin, Jake (September 22, 1997). "Jennifer Ringley is her own paparazzi". j-space (blog).
- ^ "Harmful to Minors Law Going to Court in New Mexico". Webcasters Coalition for Free Speech. September 21, 1999. Archived from the original on June 21, 2004.
- ^ "PROVOCATIVE EXHIBITION AT MOMA TRACES THE COMPLEX CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PHOTOGRAPHY AND FAME" (PDF). June 1999.
- ^ Cabron, Lou (July 27, 2000). "Little Jenni Homewrecker: Web vixen gets shot by her own cam". GettingIt. Archived from the original on June 23, 2004.
- ^ Wallack, Todd (December 12, 2003). "Curtains in the bedroom – JenniCam switches off". San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ "R.I.P. JenniCam". BBC News. January 1, 2004.
- ^ Merriman, John (December 12, 2003). "Good-bye, JenniCam ..." The Dickinsonian. Archived from the original on May 10, 2004.
- ^ "Voyeur Web site JenniCam to go dark". CNN. December 10, 2003.
- ^ Haines, Lester (December 10, 2003). "Reg seeks poetic JenniCam memorial". The Register.
- ^ Teachout, Terry (December 11, 2003). "Jenni's Footnote". National Review. Archived from the original on February 17, 2004.
- ^ a b
- "#5 Jennicam" (Podcast). Reply All. No. 5. Gimlet Media. December 17, 2014.
- RSS
- MP3
- ^ "Behind the Scenes with Jennifer Ringley", segment of "Webjunk" on VH1, posted to IFILM on March 18, 2007.
- ^ Krotoski, Aleks (October 18, 2016). "Jennicam: The first woman to stream her life on the internet". BBC News.
- ^ Krotoski, Aleks (October 17, 2016). "Jennifer". The Digital Human. Season 10. BBC. BBC Radio 4.
- ^ Alptraum, Lux (July 22, 2018). "There Is Life After Campus Infamy". New York Times. Retrieved July 22, 2018.
External links
- Jennifer Ringley at IMDb
- www.jennicam.org/~jenni/livecam (Archive)
- JenniCam as seen by Paul J.R. Brown
- Jennicam at jennicam.org (Archive)
- Jennicam at jennicam.com (Archive)
/ "JenniCam's own Jenni" on The Late Show with David Letterman. July 30, 1998