I am both sorry and glad I didn't read this thread sooner, because I have a lot to say on this matter and I know it might get me into some trouble haha. My opinion isn't popular or accepted by many camgirls, some of whom might have a personal interest in keeping the in-outs of the Top 20 dealings quiet, but I don't care. So, here goes my personal opinion as a model who placed a handful of times in top 20 and a couple of times in top 10 and over 20 times in top 100.
Self tipping happens in every spot of the spectrum. But, the higher you go on the ranks, the more people do it, and the more insane the amounts. When you get to top 10 self tipping is almost not even an option. I know this because I have ranked in there and competed against girls who used every cheat in the manual to pass me (and others) successfully. When you are fighting for those spots you are hyper vigilant and you notice the weird things that always seem to happen around some of them. Others do it cleanly so you know the difference. I have no way to prove any of this, no hard evidence, but I know it is going on, in the same way say, a cyclist knows that his competition is taking steroids even if he can't prove it. Certain things simply don't add up.
I don't think it's fair because it has the self tipping option, but rules are rules, girl with the most amount of tokens wins and it doesn't matter who is the tipper.
I do consider self-tipping cheating because you are not really "earning" the most amount of tokens on the site. You are earning less than many other girls who are earning more than you, the difference is you simply are "rinsing" your tokens through MFC twice. It is a ridiculous thing to do, but some people when given the option between gaining in dollars and gaining in ego, they will choose ego. It doesn't only happen on MFC, there are ego-driven people everywhere too, the only difference is on MFC they have a place to aim for and a very practical way to make it happen.
I am actually surprised that out of the 30 thousand models, or so, on MFC there are only so few who tip themselves to rank at the top consistently. But the more models join the site, the more ego-driven models join, and the competition gets harder and harder so they have to spend more on self tipping. My theory is it takes twice more money to place in the top 20 now than 4 years ago not because there is that much more money being spent on the site, but because the group of self tipping models wanting to place in top 20 has grown, and it is a matter of who tips themselves more now.
Self-tipping can be done, but to move up even ONE place in the top 100 can sometimes be $1000+, so anyone who wanted to self-tip would have to spend nearly double that to buy tokens. It just wouldn't be logical for ONE place movement.
Some of these models are self tipping over 30,000
dollars on months they want to rank #1 by my estimation. They save up money just to do it which is why no model ranks #1 consistently, models know this is an investment so they try not to compete against one another on months where one of them announces they are going for #1 as it would make no sense for either of them. They are
that fucking crazy. On regular months to rank in the top 10 some of them are spending almost everything they make after paying their bills on tipping themselves. It is insane, no normal person would do this, but these are not normal people
How many of these models actually "self tip"? Is it really worth losing 60% of what you spend in order to get yourself into the top 20?
I don't know how you are making the calculation to reach the 60% number. But this is how they self tip: they buy large token packages at the best rate they can get, let's assume it's 0.8. So, with this package 1000 tokens would cost them $80. But the model will always receive $50 out of every 1000 tokens she is tipped regardless of how much money the member paid. So far, she has invested $30 bucks. But we are not finished yet. If the model is smart she will also have an MFC affiliate link and buy these tokens through it so she receives 15% of what the member spends back. That would be $12. So... to self tip 1000 tokens, a model needs to spend $18. You see how this can become addictive, right?
A model wants to self tip 10,000 tokens? Costs her $180. A successful model working 8 hours every day could be making around $1000 a day with a little bit of luck, some days she won't make 20k, but she will make it most days. If she invests half of what she makes in tipping herself, it would buy her 27,000 tokens. Add that one to the 20,000 she already made, and this gives you a beautiful total of 47,000 tokens daily to pull herself up the ranks. It kinda crushes your dreams doesn't it? I never tipped myself, I am a self made person and I struggled a lot to have what I have now. I would never spend my money in senseless competition like this, which is why I never worked enough to rank top 20 consistently. I got discouraged by all the cheating going on.
Top 100 is much more honest. Some girls there also self tip but it is much more rare to see and the amounts aren't nearly as high as top 20. MFC's whales are the top 20 girls who engage in this. I won't name any names because I don't want to create bad blood, but anyone with a sharp eye knows who they are. MFC probably thinks of them like you and I think of our highest tippers. Because they pay MFC more than 70% of what they make to have their names on the top 20 and the little crown on their avatar and the banner on the site, it is really pathetic in my opinion.
