The 1990s dream of a democratic cyberspace has finally been laid to rest. What should, may, or must be allowed on social platforms and in digital spaces is (finally) becoming a matter of public debate. And rather late, belated in any case, the monopolized power of digital platforms is being recognized and negotiated politically. Due to the now obvious flirting between billionaire tech oligarchs and powerful politicians and their collaboration, due to manipulative influence on platforms such as Twitter/X, and due to the fact that one's own digital footprint can lead to rejection at national borders or criminal prosecution, the question of the extent to which the general public has access to information, self-representation, digital protection, and privacy.

The question revolves around appropriation and use: How do we use this digital sphere in such a way that we continue to preserve valuable knowledge exchange?

Sex workers, as people who are often marginalized in multiple ways, are pioneers of such strategies. They warned early on that the digital control and censorship they had experienced for decades on commercialized and gentrified platforms would sooner or later affect society at large.

In the video work My Internet Is Not Your Internet But My Reality, Jennifer M. Scherler approaches the relationship between sex work and internet infrastructure for the first time in a kind of playful lecture performance in 2021.

In Part II of her video work, Jennifer Scherler is no longer concerned solely with interpreting a problem, but also with providing a survival guide.

This is based on the findings and materials from her research and investigative work, which she has been conducting for several years now. Scherler is interested in how sex workers describe the digital and legal changes of recent years. Aesthetically, she remains in her colorful, pop-culture, drag-inspired world—you have to believe that the future will be at least a bit sexy.

1: My Internet Is Not Your Internet But My Reality (2021) Script Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XjNueRO1TeVDYBdeiQUc8kzDyy6KTXHb/view

My Internet Is Not Your Internet But My Reality (2021) Video Link:

https://youtu.be/UAhx4Bca1HU?si=yhPO4cGYa-W_huOR