Sympathy For The Tipper...

I'm used to feeling sympathy for a cam girl on Chaturbate when some assclown in the chat comes out with an awful, hurtful comment directed towards her. That's a fairly common experience. But there's only one time I can think of when the roles were reversed, and I felt sympathy for a person in the chat because of the way the cam girl spoke to him.

Yesterday I wrote about the subject of tipping, and it was while writing it that I remembered the following incident, from perhaps a couple of months ago, an example of when tipping backfired for someone.

I was in the very busy room of a very popular girl who always attracts high viewer numbers and lots of high tips. She was quite early into doing her show and nothing overtly sexual was happening on screen.

In the chat, the tip bell rang, and a small tip appeared from a user. I don't recall the amount, but it was a small tip. Let's say 20 tokens.

He followed this up with a very politely worded request for the cam girl. I don't recall what exactly the request was, but I remember the following things about it:

It was something utterly innocuous, not sexual at all. It was totally in context with what was happening on screen - it wasn't some bizarre request from left-field. And it was very politely worded - there was a 'would you mind?' and a 'please?' It was short, succinct, in context, and polite.

I think it was something to do with seeing her feet - or something like that. I've got feet in my head for some reason. But the request wasn't just out of the blue. Let's say she'd had her feet on camera for the last ten minutes, then moved them out of shot. His request was something like, 'Would you mind moving your feet back into shot, please?'

So he tipped 20 tokens and made his request.

The cam girl read it and responded by saying that she'd do it for a certain number of tokens - I don't recall the exact amount. Let's say 50 tokens.

A few seconds passed and then the tip bell rang again and there on the screen was a tip from the guy for 30 tokens.

The cam girl, on seeing his tip, tells him, 'I said 50 tokens, not 30.'

The man replied with something like, 'Yes, I tipped 20 before and that was the other 30.'

The cam girl, a look of disgust on her face, her voice dripping with sarcasm, says, 'Oh, you tipped 20 before? So now we're adding up tips, are we?' She shook her head and told him that no, it doesn't work like that.

I thought her manner was really patronising. She talked down to him, and I felt she humiliated him in front of everyone. His request had been really, really, really tame, and to be honest I felt surprised that she'd asked for 50 tokens to fulfil it. Of course, she can run her room however she wants, do whatever she wants, but her manner of looking down her nose at the guy really bugged me. It seemed so unnecessary. Agree to do something or don't agree to do it, but don't talk to people like they're pieces of shit.

She didn't fulfil his request and the guy went quiet. I felt really sorry for him. He'd made a small tip, a polite request, and then obviously misunderstanding the situation had tipped again, but not enough. And all he'd got for it was to be mildly humiliated in front of everyone. And from the very little I'd seen of him in the chat, he seemed like a sweet guy who didn't deserve it.

I thought about pm-ing him as a little show of support, but I didn't do it. And had I had more tokens I'd have tipped 50 with the same request as him so that he got his request fulfilled anyway.

The truth is I felt angry. It is - as far as I can recall - the only time I've felt angry at a cam girl, at the utterly condescending, dismissive way she spoke to him. He'd tipped 50 tokens, and been polite, and at the very least I think he deserved to be spoken to with basic politeness. 50 tokens cost $5 to buy, and to some people that might be a lot of money, yet I felt she was utterly dismissive of his tip.

In the moments that followed I think I detected a look of embarrassment on the cam girl's face, as if she knew her manner has been too sharp and she realised she'd been utterly condescending towards him, but maybe I was just projecting that onto her.

And the fact is that at that moment, the cam girl lost me. She's a lovely girl, usually, but at that moment, she lost me - as a viewer and as a tipper.