 "Video calls")
A sidebar internet ad claiming that RosePetal, located in my neighbourhood, wants to meet me, clicks onto a live video of a “cop”, police cap dangling off her foot. Then, a black screen wraps her, and leaves only the head visible. A loud buzz plays and adds to the general confusion as we both clumsily speak over each other, and seem to have trouble connecting, technologically and emotionally. “It looks like a dungeon out there, on your side,” I remark. “Cold.”
“Right,” says the woman. “Well, this video calling stuff is cool.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I respond, adding, “you must have got a lot of people who want to see you in this jail, sorry, dungeon.”
“What???” she says, struggling to get me.
The audio is horrible, the buzzing is incessant, and when RosePetal moves out of the frame, the screen goes black.
Screen blackouts, I later learn, are clever tricks rather than bugs, to tantalise you into paying for “undisturbed” streaming. Video calls are free; you can chat from home or wherever the heck, but for “unblurred” streaming, you must pay.
People compare these video calls to Skype, but it’s not like that: Skype and others are designed to make us feel together when we really are apart; these video calls do the opposite, make you feel worlds apart.
Video calls
And then, out of the blue, RosePetal launched her face into the screen: “Look, no marks,” she said. The video kept jerking ahead and I couldn’t assess her skin tone; I could only watch her Bugs Bunny teeth sticking out at me. I quickly suppressed a laugh, and wondered how the interaction had reduced to its crudest form. It was time, I decided, to cut out the hang-ups. I paid up for uninterrupted streaming. And there she was, atop her chair, police cap still hanging off her foot. “Why did you start camming?” I jumped in. “Well, because I hate my real job and wanted to see if this could be a viable financial alternative,” she said, running fingers through her black hair and adjusting her sturdy brown glasses. “How does it feel to be in front of hundreds of people online?” the journalist in me began. “It’s okay, I guess. Neither here nor there,” she said instinctively, and then stared off into her own reflection of a baggy-eyed 25-year-old. RosePetal is the net name of a Romanian based in Amsterdam, where she landed a thankless entry-level job at a non-profit, and where she spent a year botching spreadsheets and crying in bathroom, before being placed on probation. “In spite of my attempts to reach out, my communication skills were not improving at office. My boss put me on notice. Maybe I’m just dumb, maybe I can’t communicate, maybe I shouldn’t communicate, I thought,” she said, her tone welling up. RosePetal, her online avatar, is the “new and improved me”, who “parades around the internet” and doesn’t get painfully shy. This way, she sabotages her career, as opposed to letting it go bad on its own. “If there is going to be a funeral, at least let me dig my own grave,” she says.
I wouldn’t say she has dug a grave for herself: the people RosePetal meets online rarely fall into the category of anonymous idiots. Many, in fact, are successful professionals. “I came here for something else, but stayed for the intellectual banter,” remarks RosePetal, whose most popular performances entail her reading books that are oftentimes gifts from fans. Bob, net name of a Finnish academic, forms a part of that novelty-driven audience and occasionally corrects her grammar. “My bad,” she always replies, not giving a damn, and knowing all too well that her book-loving fans will never fail to nourish her soul — and finances.
ashish.sharma@bsmail.in
