The camera is on Jomtien Complex

[mauRICE]

Looking at the social media pages featuring Supertown, Jomtien Complex, it seems that everyone - staff, guests, passers by, content creators - is taking pictures and videos of their environs and zealously uploading them without care or concern for other people's privacy. I was amused by the number of bald spots I could see and count while watching a performance recorded at M2M bar. In all the media that I've seen, faces could clearly be identified if they happened to fall within the camera's gaze and not too many people seem to be bothered by it. Is this the new normal? 

[macaroni21]

6 hours ago, mauRICE said:

Is this the new normal? 

I would say yes. 

[Londoner]

Visitors of my generation may recall that, back in the day, photographs in Boyztown- the soi itself- were forbidden. Ambiance used to have, for many years, a very nice guy as doorman/ security guard. I respected him because he  was so kind to the guys I offed, treating them as customers, the same as me.

One of his tasks was to stop-or at least discourage- anyone using their cameras to take photographs of the soi.  Oh for the blessed days before the advent of mobile phones!

I'm only joking about that...I think.

[Olddaddy]

I think it's fantastic 📷📹

People love to remember the great times they are having 🕺🏿

Film away I say 🤳🏿🤳🏿and enjoy the good times with memory 

 

 

[Vessey]

There is a balance to be struck somewhere, some people are desperate to avoid leaving behind any visible 'footprint' of their visits to gay bars, while other of us are less concerned.

On the other hand we bewail the lack of customers and boys in Jomtien, especially in low season, and the consequent failure and closure of bars that we know and love. Some of us also bewail the lack of any effort of self-publicity by the bars themselves to promote themselves and their boys. 

In Soi 6, the girlie bars are always promoting themselves on social media, almost on a daily basis, highlighting the girls working there. Soi 6 is consequently always very busy, reaping the benefits of its publicity.

Boy bars are so very far, far behind them in promoting themselves. My couple of boy spies working in Boyztown regularly report on activity there, often by video calls from their cameras, or rather the lack of customers there, and not just in low season. Toy Boys, for example, seems to have no social media presence at all. 

In Jomtien Complex, boss Charlie is an exception, promoting his highly popular M Bar, Gus Bar, Sunee Bar and now Jungle Bar which are (consequently perhaps) currently the busiest in the Soi. The massage shops in the Complex are also getting in on the act and now regularly appearing on social media. 

In contrast Facebook, TikTok are full of the various Pattaya karaoke bars promoting themselves, showing off the boys and their 'numbers'. 

A thriving gay bar culture in Pattaya/Jomtien needs visual publicity, but a consequence is that we, as customers, might end up getting caught up in that, even if only as a potentially identifiable bald-spot in the background of some bar 🤣 For me that is a price worth paying! 🥰

[mauRICE]

1 hour ago, Olddaddy said:

Film away I say 🤳🏿🤳🏿and enjoy the good times with memory 

Uh-huh. Thank goodness for digital cameras. In the old days, there won't be enough film to capture yourselves. 😏

[mauRICE]

1 hour ago, Vessey said:

A thriving gay bar culture in Pattaya/Jomtien needs visual publicity, but a consequence is that we, as customers, might end up getting caught up in that, even if only as a potentially identifiable bald-spot in the background of some bar 🤣 For me that is a price worth paying! 🥰

 

You raise an interesting point but could it be that all this filming is scaring potential customers away? My impression is that many of the sex tourists in the commercial gay venues are only gay in the commercial fleshpots of the world like Pattaya, Patpong, Rio, etc and go right back pretending to be straight when they hit Main Street back home (even though the entire town and its cockroaches know they're as gay as a picnic basket). On the other hand, others may be openly loud and proud but may not want to be known as sex tourists and tell people back home they go to Thailand to visit temples and collect first-day covers.

Secondly, rightly or wrongly, Pattaya and Thailand in general have got a notorious reputation when it comes to certain forbidden sexual activity (and I'm not talking about stamp collecting - think Sunee Plaza of old) and a skinny, elfish and juvenile-looking ladyboy on the lap of a seventy-year-old could reinforce this image. In turn, this image caught on film could deter potential visitors out of fear of being tarred with the same brush. OR it could entice those of similar ilk to buy that first ticket to Thailand because rocking that young adult cradle appears normalised in Pattaya.

So what is the net effect of all this publicity and do the positives outweigh the negatives? 🤷

 

[PeterRS]

18 hours ago, Londoner said:

Oh for the blessed days before the advent of mobile phones!

I'm only joking about that...I think.

I'm not! And not just for the advent of mobile phones LOL.

[Ruthrieston]

Me too PeterRS, I avoid all the social media nonsense completely and if my phone battery goes down to 80% in one day that is a lot of use for me. 

[PeterRS]

15 hours ago, mauRICE said:

So what is the net effect of all this publicity and do the positives outweigh the negatives? 🤷

I'm wondering if there is much difference between the Soi Twilight in Bangkok of old and JC in Pattaya now. I recall sitting at Dick's Cafe or after it closed outside one of the host bars near the entrance to Soi Twilight seeing people taking photos and no-one being concerned about it. Admittedly I'm talking about 6 years ago. I guess the main difference is that many of the venues in Twilight were indoors, but near the entrance to the soi there were several host bars. I sometimes saw tourists taking pics of the soi from Suriwong and not venturing inside. I assume they could then just show the photos to friends as Bangkok 'sights'.

Is it more that JC has more volume? Why would a tourist be more concerned being seen with a boy in a JC bar but not seen in roughly similar circumstances in a Twilight bar a few years ago? There was quite a lot of fawning of customers in those host bars.

[a-447]

I remember sitting on the terrace of the Ambiance Hotel in Pattaya, watching the Chinese tour groups wandering down the soi, videoing all the gays.

When I turned my camera on them, they ran a mile! 😂

 

 

[vaughn]

I try my very best to avoid the lenses pointing around some venues.

It could end my career to be snapped in a 'for hire' establishment. Outside the bars i don't care, i can explain that away, but inside a bar watching gogo boys while sitting with my acquaintance of that night, a bit more of a predicament.

It's not my place to set the rules, so if i see people filming crowds i either give a hint to the person behind the camera by putting my glass or hand in front of my face it or go somewhere else.

[kram987]

To me it seems unlikely someone will notice me in the background and if they do 🤷🏻‍♂️anyway I am close to retiring from a union job so that probably helps.