Interview with South African Webcam Performer, Angie Jewels

Angie Jewels, 24, South Africa

Matt: How long have you been working in [the adult] industry, and how did it start for you?

Angie: I’ve been in the adult industry for like 5 years. I was working at restaurants doing waitressing jobs and things like that, and then I went to the strip club to meet Ukrainian girls and became a stripper! Next thing you know, me the introvert, I was working late nights in noisy clubs for 2 years entertaining men. That taught me so much!

I always knew I was going to have my own business. That’s always been a goal for me. Lots of researching how to make money online, and of course webcam modelling was the perfect option for someone who has experience as a dancer. I’ve stuck to webcam modelling and I’m not quitting any time soon!

Matt: Is camming your main source of income, or do you do any other kind of work?

Angie: There’s a lot of different aspects. Selling photos, selling videos, Skype shows, all of that. Camming is a lot of it, but it’s not just broadcasting! There’s a lot of offline work that goes into it. It would be my main source of income though, you can say that.

Matt: Every job has it’s ups and downs, pros and cons. Is there anything that you particularly love or hate about this line of work?

Angie: One thing I really do love about webcam modelling, and the reason I won’t stop, is the fact that it really is your own business. There’s no limit to how much you can make, your earnings increase over time. It’s all yours, it’s based on how much you put in. I really love that aspect of it.

Another pro is the fact I can work from anywhere in the world. I am a person who can’t stay in one place, so I love that I don’t have to ever be tied down to a certain city, or certain job, certain boss, anything like that. It’s nice to know that all I have to do is be online, and then I can take care of my business from anywhere in the world.

I feel like it’s not just all about sex and the adult industry for me. I find it so interesting to learn what’s going on with the rest of the world, and how they think! It connects us all so much.

The hardest thing has been to treat it as a business. The transition of having to call it a business and a job, and stick to a schedule, saying I have to do it. Maybe it’s not as hard for other people, but being disciplined to run your own business is not that easy. You might spend 4 hours online, but you spend 12 hours working a day.

Another con is that there’s no such thing as privacy, sorry to say. So many times I’ve blocked South Africa’s IP range so it can’t access my cam, and I get a room full of South Africans! That just doesn’t work. Also, if you’re looking to be serious about it, and to be a webcam model, you have to be okay with the fact that you’re going to get found out.

There’s also the stigma of webcam modelling, which we’re ultimately trying to eliminate here. The stigma about it, and the adult industry. You’re going to have people that judge you, or don’t want to associate themselves with you. It’ll be difficult to go out there and meet people after seeing the honesty of people online, and how people are different in the real world. When you’re camming, everyone is so friendly, and so cool and happy about you being naked! But then you go out into the real world, and you can’t really be the same person. That’s the hard part.

Matt: Is there any one piece of advice you would say is the most important thing to know for someone looking to get into this line of work?

Angie: Know what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it. You have to have your goals, you have to have your vision, you have to know what you’re expecting to gain from it. Otherwise, you’re going to get disappointed. If you’re going to make this a career choice, then I think you need to treat it as a business. You need a separate workplace, you need to have working hours, a set schedule… You need to actually write down everything you need to do, and do it! Set your alarm clock. Have a vision and goals.

Save money! Budget! You’re going to make money one day, and then you’ll have a quiet week sometimes where you don’t make anything. It takes a really long time for it to become fairly consistent, and still even then it’s not like that all the time. You have to really think ahead. What if it’s a quiet month? What will I do? If you’re looking to get into it, be ready to treat it as your main source of income. Think about it, have a business plan, have everything planned out.

Matt: Do you have any sort of closing thoughts, or anything you’re working on that you’d like to talk about for a moment?

Angie: Webcam modelling has empowered me to be self sufficient and have my own business, and to do my own thing. I would like to give that opportunity to other girls as well. Obviously it helps me too, but that’s the cool thing about it! I want to get more and more people more interested in making money in a safe environment, and show them the safest and easiest, most pain free way of doing it. What’s the worst that can happen? A guy can tell you something and insult you, and you’ll cry all day. But it’s not the same as what it’s like in the rest of the adult industry, it’s really dangerous. I feel that a lot of the girls really need to be educated on this. And they want to be!

I plan on opening up a studio here in Durban as well as Johannesburg. I’ve already got quite a few girls working from home, and surprisingly the South African girls are quite sought after internationally! I’d like to have the facilities, because unfortunately here, not a lot of girls have laptops and spaces and all that. I want to have proper studios where they can come in, have training, have the right equipment, the right internet connection, everything they need to succeed, and to help empower themselves to run their own business. That’s my goal.

Thank you Angie!

Connect with Angie Jewels:

Email

Twitter

Fan site: angie-jewels.com