The Camgirl Diaries

Buzzes, for the emblem of a bee, for vibrating toys in your vagina. Fambase is an app where what we colloquially call “cam girls” perform to make “diamonds”, a.k.a. money. A decent amount of money too, if one puts in the time and learns the correct techniques. About every aspect of it, from the invite-only structure to the depths of Reddit one searches for promoting, caught my fascination sometime in March, and ever since then I’ve been falling down an endless rabbit hole of the layers to this weird little world. It splinters outward you see, creating a root system without a tree, but it all starts with the click of a blue link.

Invite-only means to follow someone on Fambase, you need their group link. How does one find someone’s group link? Likely search them, right? Like any other social media. Not on Fambase. There is no searching for someone. It’s as if the audience can’t reach the orchestra until the violinist opens the door, one by one, into the auditorium. So to find followers one must self-promote, but where to begin?

I began by using another app named Clapper to dual stream, which means stream on two platforms or separate devices at the same time. I would post the link to my Fambase profile in my Clapper bio, fire up Fambase on my phone, Clapper on my iPad, and repeat the phrase “link in bio” until I was blue in the face. In fact, I still use this method to build up larger numbers of followers, because more followers means more visibility. There are limitless “promo” groups on Fambase, as well as performers having their own “personal” groups, and in the “promo” groups sexy pictures and flyers in some cute Canva font that says “link in bio”, or “come zap my pussy daddy”, can be displayed for a small price to the owner of the group. 

When I exhausted all these options, I thought to myself, what is the underbelly of the internet? The place I go with my strangest questions? You can promote on Reddit. There are quite a few subreddits just dedicated to these precious invite links. Besides that and your other social media you might as well start sending out snail-mail; the hunt for followers is exhausting.

There is another option when it comes to the follower count. You can “buy promo”, aka followers, from other larger promo groups. Followers can be bought for personal and promo groups. This is a much faster, yet expensive, alternative path to Fambase numbers game fame. However, a month or so in to using the app I noticed something. The names selling promo were always the same. Hundreds of people joining groups from some girl’s name you can recognize by their emoji. Not just in one group, in many. So I began to wonder. If all these numbers are bought and sold, do followers equate to more money?

From what I can see, no. It’s counterintuitive, but the two run almost parallel versus being connected. The entire structure of the app is actually run by a very small number of people, buying and selling back numbers, to create the perception of many people. In reality it’s a house of cards, because those followers don’t actually mean anything – or possibly even exist. There are some very good coders making social media bots on the internet these days. 

So, getting paid is a separate game, and not an easy one. It doesn’t sound so hard from the outside to be a cam girl, sounds even glamorous in a Nomi and Cristal Connors kind of way. However, the hours, physical intensity, social interactions, self promotion, attention to appearance and schedule, the list goes on, are all grueling honestly. You have to be competitive to do well, because its not always rewarding. Oftentimes its more disappointing than times it isn’t. One night you’ll make $300, but the next only 100 bucks. Some girls have told me they’ve spent weeks trying to reach cash out, which is only $50. It doesn’t matter how many people the group you’re in has; it matters how many gifters. 

Gifters themselves are fascinating; they fall into categories, or more a hierarchy. At the bottom are “level 0s”, so known because on Fambase groups you level up each time you gift and the level is displayed for all to see; either a badge of honor or shame is placed on you in each individual group you enter. A level 0 means you have never gifted the group you are currently in and, unfortunately, the massive numbers you will see will be upwards of 80% level 0s. That means a lot of what we call “lurking and jerking”, because, well you get the point. Above them fall one the users who gift just to enter rooms where girls are charging an entry fee, as the streams can be open for free or have something resembling a cover fee charged to get into a club. If Fambase were a real world entity it would be nicely set up for a strip club truly. 

It’s a fascinating app, and I have to say shockingly, the users are very kind and respectful. I would go so far as to call one or two “friends”, and I’ve given out my number to precisely two sugar daddies. The overall climate of the viewers is far less aggressive than online camming sites I have tried, and the pay is better. Fambase may be a house of cards, but as long as it doesn’t tumble I’m determined to climb my way to the very top.