Twenty-year-old Mike Alexander leads a fairly full life. He’s afull-time college student at Golden West College in Huntington Beach,Calif. He works with his dad at a warehouse, which he owns. Butthat’s just his day job.
Mike owns and operates several Web sites — sex Web sites. He’sjust one of the many college students who have taken to the WorldWide Web not just to make money in the sex field, but also for selfexpression, which is the case with “Abby.” She’s the subject ofAbbyTV.com, a site devised withthe purpose of showing real-life via a Web cam.
College Web cams — that is, Web cams featuring the home lives ofreal college students – are becoming increasingly popular and arebringing Internet voyeurism to the mainstream.
So what would webheads see as a part of Abby’s real life?
“Probably at least half (of AbbyTV subscribers) watch hoping tosee me take a bath, and that’s okay, too. Whatever brightens people’sdays, I suppose,” the 20-year-old California State social work majorsaid.
Web cams are stationed strategically throughout Abby’s apartment:The living room couch, the bedroom (focused on the bed) and yes, thebathtub.
“I don’t do it to get people off or anything,” Abby said. “We showreal life. When you watch TV you see all of these perfect, happypeople and happy families and people feel bad about themselvesbecause they’re like, ‘Oh! I’m not that thin,’ or ‘I’m not that happywith my husband,’ … we’re just trying to show that real peopledon’t live like that — real life is messy, you have bad hair days.”She adds that she’s not an exhibitionist all.
Mike’s buddy, Debbie Perez, 19, understands. With Mike’s help,Debbie runs a porn site.
Debbie, a Cal State-Fullerton student and part-time exotic dancersays that she became interested in her own Web site after surfing theWeb and seeing the large number of opportunities. She calls itdestiny. Debbie also says that her site, which has pictures ofherself and her friends, lets her explore her uninhibited sexualside. “I guess I’ve been somewhat of an exhibitionist for a long time(laughs). And I get to meet a lot of interesting people.”
Art, schmart. What about the cash? It’s no secret that Web jobs,sex related and otherwise can be quite lucrative. And as a testamentto this Abby said she made between $1,200 and $1,300 a week, Debbieabout $75,000 last year and Mike pulls in about $12,000 a month –and that is just from one of his sites.
“Waitressing just doesn’t pay very well, and I am making fairlygood money from the Web site,” Abby said. “I’m not getting rich oranything, but I’m living a lot more comfortably now than I wasbefore.”
For Debbie, the need was direr.
“I was running low on funds to go to college, books … justeverything that was needed, so I got into the exotic dancing and theWeb site is just kind of part of that.” Despite the success of hissite, Debbie continues to dance, but primarily for private parties,she says.
Ironically, both Abby and Debbie plan on careers in the childcarefield — Abby a social worker and Debbie an elementary schoolteacher, but neither one see their sexy jobs as affecting theirplans.
Mike, who’s been the object of stalkers, knows that being on theInternet has its risks.
“I’ve had people e-mail me back and describe my car, describe myhome, where I live with my parents — the whole nine yards. Obviouslythey had been following me,” Mike said. “One guy from Chicagofollowed me all the way to Los Angeles, where I live. He startedrenting hotel rooms, which were very close to my home, and he startedwriting e-mails from his laptop. Everyday, he would describesomething different about what I was doing.” Still wanna be aWeb/porn star?
Despite this scary episode and others like it, Mike said that hewould keep doing the site.
“When the threats started to arrive three months into the(creation of the Web site) it would not have been fair to justdisband the Web site for the many members who had signed up, I justtook other precautions and started listing my addresses different.”
