Ainslee Divine was recently featured in a “Job Diary” article for Business Insider.
The piece, titled “At age 46, I earn over $1,000 a day as a webcam model. It’s my ideal job — here’s why,” is an “as told to” article wherein Divine’s words were recounted by writer Jenny Powers. Divine opens up to Powers about her experience camming, taking readers through how she got her start, her typical work schedule and the level of her earnings, among other aspects of her day-to-day life and backstory.
Here are the highlights, per Business Insider, set out in bulletpoint form for easy click-baited scanning/digestion:
- Ainslee Divine (not her real name) is a 46-year-old webcam model who lives and works in Scottsdale, Arizona.
- She worked for 15 years as a property management company owner, but after losing a large amount of weight, she decided to give webcamming a try.
- Her home’s guest room serves as a studio, and she often takes breaks to do laundry, pick up groceries, hang by the pool, or play golf.
- “I have way more freedom than I did in corporate America,” Divine said. “Now when I roll out of bed, I’m already at work.”
There’s quite a bit more to Divine’s story though.
For instance, what started out as a quest for fun quickly revealed itself as a good moneymaking opportunity and “the next thing I knew, I went from zero to 20,000 followers in 45 days,” Divine said. “Now this is my full-time job. I’m at the top end of my industry and making more money than I ever imagined.”
Underlining the fact that camming is real work and requires discipline just like any other professional endeavor, Divine noted that she cams on Streamate, “Friday through Monday beginning at 8:30 am, and I don’t stop until I hit my minimum daily goal, which ranges from $1,000 to $1,800.”
“About eight months ago, I decided to step up my game and began spending Tuesday through Thursday creating subscriber-only content to post on OnlyFans,” Divine added, noting that she brings in “five figures a month on each platform and that during her best month to date, she “earned dollars shy of $80,000.”
Addressing the widely reported increase in cam performers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Divine said that while there used to be “anywhere from 1,700 to 2,200 models online,” with more people looking to work from home it’s now “more like 3,000 models at any given time.”
“There’s a crazy amount of content creators now, but since I was on an upward trend before all of this started, I’m not really concerned about the influx,” Divine added.
On top of her previous award wins and nominations (which include past nominations for YNOT Cam Awards) another sign of her success is the amount of fan engagement she inspires. Divine said she receives “over 3,000 direct messages a day on Instagram and selectively answer between 50-100 daily.” That’s a lot of messaging!
As a first-person snapshot of the life a cam model, Divine’s piece is an uncommon example of mainstream coverage of online sex work absent all-too-frequent sensationalism or negative focus. This is all well and good — actually, well and great — though I do wish the “author” (person recounting what Divine had told her) had offered some sort of context for Divine’s reported stats and figures. Like, is her success “average” or “exceptional”? Are the ideas about COVID-related model numbers increasing online accurate or simply perceived?
Without some sort of context to ground what’s being said, then your average civilian reader has no idea how to digest what they’re consuming. At the same time, generally when a mainstream writer starts commenting on or attempting to contextualize a member of the community or an aspect of adult industry culture and phenomena… well, that’s when shit hits the fan.
In other words, either way is incomplete. As such, let’s just enjoy the fact that Ainslee Divine got a great bit of press! Right on, lady 🙂
PLEASE READ!!! Thank you @JennyPowersBK and @businessinsider for this! I’m honored you’d take the time to write this feature about me and promote positivity in our industry!!! https://t.co/GHyCtNGw0C
— Ainslee Divine (@ainslee_divine) August 9, 2020
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Erika is a sex positive people watcher (and writer). Email her at erika@ynotcam.com.
