They come from most of the Canadian provinces and the majority of American states; from points south in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina; across the Atlantic from unconfirmed reports in South Africa, Egypt and Israel; rumors, as well, from Japan and the Philippines before doubling back to Europe: the British Isles, France, Spain and Portugal, Italy, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Scandinavia and countless places elsewhere.

They are insouciant and prolix teenagers, disaffected and lonely twentysomethings, and if you believe the stories, married and divorced mothers and fathers: they are an innumerable and disparate group. They are camwhores.

/soc/, as it stands, is roughly eighteen months old. In those eighteen months, untold thousands of people, men, women and transgender, have shed their clothes.  Despite those numbers and the large role that camwhoring has played in the development of culture (if it can so be called), history (if there is any), and identity (if it has one) of the board, precious little has been written on the subject.

This undertaking by and large is designed to preserve the cultural artifacts, and was borne out of the morbid curiosity over what has been written. However, I do not wish to simply be constrained by historiography — tracing the history of /soc/-camwhoring is a bit like tracing the history of spoken language: we know it’s been around for a long time and have seen it develop and change over that span, but we have little to no idea from whence it came and how it began.

Rather, there are questions that were never asked that should have been asked and explored.

Why are there almost no famous male camwhores?

What is the obsession with traps?

What, if any, morals govern underage camwhores?

Camwhoring, despite having provided a hefty percentage of threads on /soc/, has simply been glossed over or disregarded as unworthy of discourse. Beyond that, there are where-are-they-now stories: camwhores who are shrouded in equal parts mystery, half-truths, and outright lies. Some of the most famous names have simply up and vanished, thus cementing the reputation of the camwhore threads as dark and seedy speakeasies where fame is fleeting and flesh is flaunted in front of a feverish and increasingly factious flock of gawkers. Nevertheless, from the metaphorical and literal low point of camwhoring on /soc/, the foot threads, onto the fringe threads for husky men and traps, through to the Big Three of SMA, Chubby and Big Girl Thread, and all points in between, this is the story of camwhoring on /soc/.

—
Guest editor IG is a scholar, gentleman, and Nobel Peace Prize-winning author of Camwhoring For Cash?: A Sugar Daddy’s Guide To Not Getting Ripped Off By Crazy New Jersey Bitches. He lives and breathes on the Internet. In his spare time he meticulously dissects culture (if it can so be called), history (if there is any), and identity (if it has one) on the Social board of 4chan.