Ready for Your Close-Up?

People are desperate to get a life, even if it’s a pretty insipid one. Just look at the phenomena of “Survivor” and “Big Brother.”

“Survivor” (https://www.cbs .com/network/tvshows/mini/survivor) does keep us on the edge of our seats, but only out of fear that the pseudo-castaways are going to kill an endangered species. Well, that and the hope they’ll start channeling members of the Donner Party.

Compared with “Big Brother,” though, “Survivor” is “NYPD Blue.” The cast of “Big Brother” (https://webcenter .bigbrother2000.aol.com/entertainment/NON) isn’t marooned on a tropical island with only one resort. Members are trapped in a modified prefab on the CBS lot. And their conversations will just suck the intelligence right out of you. Disagree? Then you missed the wounded chicken incident.

But long before television went into peeping Tom mode, there were personal Web cameras sending out pictures of people’s private lives 24-7. So if five or six nights per week of voyeurism just doesn’t do it for you, keep reading. The life you find will not be your own.

One caveat, though. We’re trying to keep this clean, but this isn’t TV. There’s no censorship, and you can never tell what people will do. As always on the Internet, you may stumble upon nonfamily fare.

On TV the people you spy on were picked by some network suit. The good part of Web peeping is that you pick the cast. In the spirit of choice, we’re going to concentrate on Web cam directories, with one nod to history, the JenniCam (https://www.jennicam.org).

Jennifer Ringley was a pioneer in the personal Web cam and inspired thousands of others to give up a significant piece of their privacy. In the beginning it was mostly pictures of a college student sitting in front of her computer. Now it’s more JenniShrine than JenniCam.

College is still a hotbed of Web cams. You know those kids and their broadband. Check out CollegeCams (https://www.college-cams.com/index2.htm) for a disturbingly complete list. There are girl cams, guy cams, apartment cams--tres “Real World”--lab cams and campus cams.

Under girl cams, we visited Gwen, who was feeling disenchanted. Sorry, Gwen. We then went to Brian, under guy cams. He’s really hot on the Deftones and cold on people who wear sunglasses on water slides. We can get down with that.

Next stop on the Web cam circuit is Webcam Central (https://www.camcentral.com). Personal Web cams are in the minority of the hundreds listed here, but there are a couple worth checking out. There’s the Author Cam, which shows “best-selling” author Lorna Tedder at work. Did you know she uses a computer to write? Also check out Boston Youth Hostel Cam and Little Chapel of the Flowers cam from Las Vegas, where you can view live weddings. And people say Vegas weddings are tacky.

Veruca’s Xtremely Cool Cams (https://www .veruca.cwc.net) has a good collection of personal cams. Check out Secluded Grrrl’s odd dichotomy.

Peeping Tom (https://www.coolbase.com/peepingtom) --well, the name says it all--will let you filter a cam list by country, state and subject.

Want to be truly overwhelmed? At WebRing (https://webring.org) a search for Web cams turns up 150 Web rings devoted to live cameras. Many won’t even get you fired if you call them up at work.

Something a little easier to deal with? How about the baby cam from Baby-Care.com (https://www.baby-care.com/newborncam).

But “Survivor” has challenges that force contestants to do things such as eating grubs. The Web always provides. At Dares for Dollars (https://www.daresfordollars.com) you can see regular people humiliate themselves just like they do on TV.

Here you can watch a dare called “Bobbing for Mice” and another that has an engaged couple digging through manure for their rings.

And we thought watching a big naked guy spearing little stingrays on “Survivor” was bad. Maybe it’s time for a nice, uplifting episode of “Cops.”

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