You’ve probably never thought of cam girls and professional atheletes as having much in common, but a closer look reveals the similarities. Like professional athletes, many cam girls have rabid fans and are making a lot of money off a career with an almost certain expiration date.
Beta Beat’s Jordyn Taylor dove into the world of camming and the girls who keep it spinning. Like professional athletes, many of these women are paid very, very well for their work, with some earning tens of thousand dollars a month and a special few earning up to a million dollars a year.
Those figures certainly seem surprising until you consider that camming is an approximately $1 billion industry – then the numbers begin to add up. Cam girls can earn tips for free performances in public chat rooms, (although some feel that it’s “tacky” to specifically ask for tips) but the big money is made in private sessions, according to successful cam girls KatieKays and LittleRedBunny.
KatieKays, who’s been camming for about a year (she’s 19 now, and started just after turning 18) charges $2.99 per minute, plus “a couple dollars extra” if viewers want to be able to talk to her, in addition to watching. LittleRedBunny, who’s been at it for five and a half years and is now one of Jasmin.com’s top-earning performers, charges $4.99 per minute. The earnings can add up if, like LittleRedBunny, your private sessions last up to 19 hours.
Many of the cam girls recognize, however, that this gig isn’t permanent and the work isn’t always steady—”a month of good earnings doesn’t necessarily guarantee another month of good earnings,” Taylor writes.
As with many freelance positions, a cam girl’s income correlates directly to the number of hours she works, with some performing up to 16 hours a day. Most recognize that such an extreme schedule isn’t sustainable. As a result, some cam girls are smartly being very careful with how they manage their profits. LittleRedBuddy explains:
“I’m not material, I don’t buy anything,” she said. “Most of my expenses go to [camming] — you have to upgrade your computer, you have to have the fastest Internet speed … [you have to] buy new toys … Besides that, my biggest treat is just, ‘Let’s have a night out. I’m gonna have a good meal.'”
Yet, as Beta Beat points out, some of that financial conservatism may be do to the fact that she doesn’t want others knowing where the money came from.
Part of LittleRedBunny’s hesitation to spend extravagantly, we expect, is that she’s also very private about how, exactly, she’s earning all this money. “They don’t know where money’s coming from,” she said, referring to when she goes out to eat with family. “I won’t pay for everybody. I’ll keep [my job] secret!”
Not all cam girls are secretive about their line of work, but for those that are, they’re raking in all that money with nowhere to spend it.
Image via Luna Photogood/Shutterstock.