They say everything in life happens for a reason or with a good reason. It’s mostly true, but when you find yourself right in the middle of the storm, you’re not exactly seeing the unicorns and rainbows that storm can leave behind.
It’s the same with when I started camming. I grew up in a nice, small city in Romania, the land of opportunities and taboos. My mom is awesome, and my dad is my hero. They both taught me the value of money, the importance of being happy over all other things and they’ve supported me in everything that I chose to do.
My journey through this industry has not been paved with flowers and chocolate. I’ve worked for 14 nights straight before, in shifts of 8-10 hours. That’s a lot even for the best of us. This is not an easy job.
I started camming a few years ago because I heard it brought great money and I actually liked the idea of getting so much attention. That’s why in the first months of performing I was pretty well known at Studio 20 for always putting on a show: I was dancing, lip-syncing, laughing and playing. I was an entertainer and I took my job very seriously.
This past September, during the first-ever XBIZ Europa Awards in Berlin, I won the Cam Model of the Year — Female (Studio) award. I was so nervous on stage, so grateful, so happy and so excited that after I got down, I just needed to breathe and take it all in.
So, when I got back to my room, I lay on my bed and smiled. Then, I felt tears fall down my face.
I never, for a moment, forgot who I was or what my goal is in this industry. I didn’t want to be like anybody else but sometimes, the pressure of the industry got to me.
That’s exactly what I would like to talk to you about: the pressure.
You’ll feel pressure in every industry in the world, no matter what you do, but here, oh boy, there’s the new “Cam Model of the Year” just around the corner.
We live in the digital era, the wham-bam-don’t-have-time-to-say-thank-you-ma’am era, the swipe right and left and the “show boobs, I have five credits and want a quick wank era.” That’s perfectly fine, I don’t mind that.
My journey through this industry has not been paved with flowers and chocolate. I’ve worked for 14 nights straight before, in shifts of 8-10 hours. That’s a lot even for the best of us. This is not an easy job. From growing your cam model account to your social media followers, to being pretty, staying healthy, trying to get sleep and also have a private life, this is not easy.
You have to be hungry and even when you’re full, work like you’re still hungry.
We, as women, and especially as cam models or women in this industry, we’ve got a lot on our plate and even if we are the bread makers in this, it’s still a world governed by men and men’s desires. Some of us forgot how to be women, how to be kind and I found myself at times trying to protect myself from people that were trying to steal my thunder.
During the time that I’ve been camming, I’ve had people come up and say that I should be acting in a certain way, that I should get my ass done, my beauty marks removed, get some colored contacts, dance more, sit more, sit on my head, fly a spaceship, make peace in the Middle East and all of that got me confused to a point where I didn’t even know who I was anymore. I felt that I had to be like a specific cam girl, that I had to create a new persona and that nothing that I did was good enough.
So, consider this a motivational speech for the new cam girls: I was like you, ladies, I was lost and confused and thought that I had to look or talk in a certain way, like a trained monkey. I thank any god that’s out there that I had someone from the studio that kept me grounded and told me, “You’re not here to please everyone, you’re not ice cream. You’re your own damn self and that’s beautiful.”
The secret to success, then? Find yourself, because that’s something that nobody’s got. And don’t be a cunt.
