But in some cases, this camgirl isn't real at all, and is nothing more than a customized porn video -- an archive of prerecorded ass slaps skillfully woven together by some dude sitting at a computer. Any hitches or blending problems get blamed on lag, and everyone walks away happy ... except possibly the dude making it, who probably thought he'd be doing more with that cinematography diploma.

bcerasani/iStock/Getty Images
"So long as you ask no follow-up questions, my job's going fine, Dad."

This isn't a well-hidden industry, either. If you know where to go, you can buy a collection of these video clips for as little as $10. We're not going to tell you where, though, because this isn't really a career we recommend, for a few reasons. One: These video packs are often stolen from real camgirls who went through all these motions, had them recorded without their permission, and aren't making any money from their resale. Second: This is exactly the kind of career which could end with you becoming the sex puppeteer for one of your relatives.

bcerasani/iStock/Getty Images
"So long as you don't ask how they got there, could you clean some viruses off my computer, son?"

The Hollywood Sign has long been a must-see attraction for tourists visiting Los Angeles. Perched in the Hollywood Hills, it looms over the city's skyline, serving as a metaphor for how important this one place is to television, film, and popular culture in general.

It also does a pretty good job of looming over the people who live in the hills below it, drawing in hordes of tourists who jam their streets, litter, and trespass. More troublingly, these tourists can get in the way of fire trucks which need to access these highly combustible hills. In short, the proximity of the sign can be a bit of a nuisance -- the kind of thing people who own knee-shakingly expensive homes don't like dealing with.

downtowngal / Wiki Commons
"This place is incredible. Let's close the fucking door."

So the residents fought back in the most devious way possible. Most tourists were finding their way into the neighborhood by using Google Maps, and then kind of blundering their way through the streets to get as close to the sign as possible. So the local residents got Google to change the GPS co-ordinates of the sign, directing any tourists to a lookout at Griffith Observatory, miles away. Even the "walking" directions on Google Maps ignored the public hiking trails people could use to legally access the sign. You could be standing underneath the thing, and Google would still direct you on a two-hour death march to the distant observatory.

Google Maps
Any closer, and they would still smell the putrid stench of the poor.

On the one hand, this is slightly defensible. There were real public safety concerns which needed to be addressed, and neighborhoods around the world have implemented all sorts of measures to calm and control traffic. On the other hand, fuck these rich guys. This was clearly done mostly for selfish reasons. One of them has even threatened to sue a blogger for directing tourists along these same public roads and trails. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck them.

Google Maps
If you set your coordinates for Mt. Lee Drive and arrive between midnight and a minute past, they might not release the hounds.

More generally, dealing with public safety concerns is kind of the job of the government, isn't it? Like, we're having all these fucking elections for a reason, right? For public roads to be hidden thanks to the actions of private individuals and companies is a little bit spooky.

All these campaigns have essentially found a weak spot in the fraud-detection policies employed by these crowdfunding sites. Because they're actually making something, even if it can't do what's promised, it makes it hard to quickly identify them as fraudulent. You'd need baseline scientific literacy for that. The sites have to rely on their users to complain first, which is a lot to ask of their know-how. Even the media isn't entirely innocent (we never are). Consider our habit of writing glossy promotional material for every interesting laser razor that comes along.

Skarp Technologies
Who wouldn't want to go face-first into one of these?

And this all ignores the seedy truth at the heart of crowdfunding: Even the best-run, most honest, and most viable campaigns are asking people to make an investment whose best-case scenario is getting their money back, while all the professional investors involved are coming out with much, much more.

But with growth comes problems, and Airbnb has come down with some fucking seedy ones. Like having a pair of customers wake up to find an angry man standing over them, asking who they were, and why they'd drunk all his booze and also redecorated his dining room with a hookah. In that particular case, it was because that man's roommate was an asshole who posted the place on Airbnb without his permission. The exact same situation occurred with another couple, who went away to Burning Man and left their home in the hands of a house-sitter, who then flipped it for $2,000.

Or there's this one guy who's made what is essentially a gentrified slum, turning a Manhattan apartment into a 22-bed hostel where he forces his "guests" to sign a contract with some bizarre obligations. Like a minimum 30-day stay, a provide-your-own-sheets policy, and a "giving permission for your belongings to be inspected at any time" clause.

E. David via Gothamist
It only just stopped short of a requirement to don ritual shrouds.

And those are merely the ways owners have abused the system. Renters are even worse. Here's a case of a couple overstaying in a rental so long that it became squatting. Another well-known case involved these two jagweeds who stayed in an Airbnb for 30 days, making them legally un-evictable under local tenancy laws. It was only after great legal expense that they finally left, though not before dickishly threatening to sue the owner, claiming the house's water had ruined their espresso machine.

And hey, speaking of Airbnb being full of fuckers ...