Strange Country Ep. 314: Jennicam

Long before influencers were telling us to shove garlic in all orifices to cure hot-dog fingers, a college student thought it would be interesting to write a computer program that would upload pics of her in her dorm room every 15 minutes. Little did she know she would attract half a million followers (87% masturbators) and possibly play a role in the total collapse of humanity. On this episode of Strange Country, Beth and Kelly upload pics of themselves as they discuss Jennifer Ringley, the founder of Jennicam in 1996. She was one of the first to think it was a good idea to broadcast everything about yourself online. Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands. Cite your sources: Alptraum, Lux. "There Is Life After Campus Infamy - The New York Times." ny times, 22 July 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/style/campus-sex-women-exposure.html?searchResultPosition=1. Accessed 8 June 2026. Carlin, John. "Internet: The site that is bringing home entertainment to millions; A young American woman has a small video camera trained on her bedroom 24 hours a day. The camera, connected to a computer, relays continually updated colour photographs from her Washington flat into her Internet website, where 100 million visitors around." Independent [London, England], 26 Sept. 1997, p. 7. Gale OneFile: News, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A66974447/STND?u=nysl_sc_ahs&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=44e3efd8. Accessed 8 June 2026.  Copeland, Libby. "All a Woman Can Bare." The Washington Post, 26 August 2000, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/08/26/all-a-woman-can-bare/f104e1fc-7cc1-47ca-acad-53193eb1c18b/. Accessed 8 June 2026.   Craig, Elise. "The Discreet Thrill of Lurking Online." The New York Times Magazine, 11 May 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/09/magazine/lurking-online.html. Accessed 23 May 2026.   "Final Days in the Life at Jennicam." The Washington Post, 6 December 2003, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/2003/12/07/final-days-in-the-life-at-jennicam/06aef23c-6ff9-4f05-8ea3-e0857a034b4c/. Accessed 8 June 2026.   Gilbert, Sophie. Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves. Penguin Publishing Group, 2025.   Hart, Hugh. "April 14, 1996: JenniCam Starts Lifecasting - WIRED." Wired, 14 Apr. 2010, https://www.wired.com/2010/04/0414jennicam-launches/. Knibbs, Kate, et al. "Jennicam: Why the First Lifecaster Disappeared from the Internet." Gizmodo, 14 April 2015, https://gizmodo.com/jennicam-why-the-first-lifecaster-disappeared-from-the-1697712996. Accessed 8 June 2026. Marin, Cheech, and Ray Sawhill. "And NOW, The Human Show." Newsweek, vol. 131, no. 22, 1 June 1998, p. 64. Gale OneFile: News, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A20835616/STND?u=nysl_sc_ahs&sid=bookmark-STND&xid=4d1465bc. Accessed 8 June 2026.  Stevic, Anja. "Anxious but Posting? The Psychology of Sharing Online." Stanford Cyber Policy Center, Stanford University, 13 April 2026, https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/news/anxious-posting-psychology-sharing-online. Accessed 8 June 2026.