The fantasy of the influencer economy is to find an audience for your content, be swept away on the winds of the algorithm, and live a glamorous life with all the money you're making. And someone is certainly making money. Take adult web-camming, for example, a billion-dollar global industry in which content creators build up devoted followings as they stream themselves to meet endless demand.
But far from the dream of mansions and diamonds and luxury cars, a new report finds that webcam models are often making pennies on the dollar in deplorable conditions where they face bedbugs and cockroaches, filth, and shared streaming equipment often covered in semen, blood, vomit, or feces. Research released this week by Human Rights Watch shines a light on conditions in one of the adult camming industry's hubs,..
. Lily Hay Newman.