ONLY NIGHTMARES
We’re going into the ins and outs of Only Fans. As many of us know, the platform is for anyone and everyone to make whatever kind of content they like. OF creators make their income solely from the contributions of their subscribers as well as charging them a fee to have access to a creator’s content. The site is most commonly known for it’s pornographic material and since its inception in 2016 it has been over run by digital sex work. With explicit material being the most popular content OF quickly gained widespread notoriety which in this case equals a lot of revenue. The free advertising for the site over the years has also been more than welcome as it is referenced in music and popular culture. This continues today and more celebrities are heading over to make an account.
The popularity of OF comes with how easy it is for absolutely anyone to make an account and create content just from their phone. Stories about regular girls next door making obscene amounts of cash through OF became a fixture in news stories. Which is also interesting as the media did glamorise these kinds of ‘rags to riches’ stories in terms of the kind of language used in the stories and how easy it is portrayed to be. Larger coverage led to a wider group of people discovering Onlyfans through these articles and therefore more demographics having access to it
These stories piqued the curiosity of many girls and women all over the world. Maybe they too could make enough money from OF to quit their mundane 9-5? It seemed easy enough, just own a phone with a decent camera, get a ring light or three off Amazon and a few pieces of lingerie? OF creator status reached. As more and more people use their mobiles to consume most of their content, having a site that is also accessible in app form is very important as convenience is a strong selling point in our lazy microwave society.
These overnight sensations definitely paved the way for more regular everyday people to try their luck and see how much money they could earn for themselves. Even children.
The British site requires users and creators to be 18 and over to use the site however that hasn’t stopped a great amount of children from still using OF and posting child pornography on the site. This obviously goes against the company’s policies, is super illegal and immoral as OF gets a 20% cut of every creator’s earnings. Essentially they have and are still making bank from CP content.
In May 2021 the BBC began an investigation and leaked documents highlighting how easy it was for under 18s to create OF accounts despite the site’s terms of service.
During the start of the pandemic I briefly covered the astronomical boom of activity on the site in my podcast episode also titled Only Nightmares which you can find at the bottom of this post.
The platform was and is still great for people that are unemployed and it also became quite popular amongst sex workers as it made online sex work a viable income stream in more ways other than cam work or the porn industry. As long as you are a paying subscriber every month on Only Fans, you have ‘exclusive access’ to view sexual content without ever visiting a porn site.
That is also another USP with Only Fans, users feel they are personally connected to the creator they are subscribed to. They can request private videos with a personal message dedicated to them, for an extra fee on top of their subscription of course. Fans can also send their favourite creator lingerie, or other clothing items that they can then request them to wear in a future video. This keeps the connection going strong as fans will continue to spend money if it feels like a legitimate relationship to them even though it’s transactional. Top earners on OF have mastered the art of making their fans feel like they are special and the ‘only one’. Similar professions whose earnings are based purely off customer spending also follow the same framework, make the customer feel special and they will keep coming back.
However that in itself can be a rather intimidating position to be in as certain fans become obsessed with a creator as some will. Seeing their favourite Only Fans creator through a screen isn’t enough anymore. I covered some of these terrifying cases in my podcast episode so I won’t go in too deep here however there is a silent epidemic of young girls and women on Only Fans finding themselves in deadly situations. Why isn’t light being shone on that enough instead of how much money one can make?
On August 19th 2021 Only Fans announced that it would remove all sexually explicit images and videos published on its platform on the 1st October 2020. Their reason was that banks were refusing to process payments associated with adult content. There was an outcry on Twitter, mainly from people making money on Only Fans and other women who said it was an attack on sex work? A bit of a reach from the online SJW community but for some people Only Fans definitely offered a life line so it caused a great deal of alarm. Here are some of those tweets, as well as some funny ones.
Only Fans quickly backtracked a few days later and announced they would no longer be banning or removing adult content as the banks had reassured the company that they would in fact accept payments made for adult content. Coincidence? I think not. Only Fans makes is predicted to make 2.5 billion dollars in 2022 and it is not a crazy idea to attribute most of the company’s success to the adult content that is regularly uploaded. Someone definitely pointed out that this decision would be a terrible business move. So Only Fans reversed the ban not because they care about sex workers but because they love money and profit just like any other business.
However what about the fallen soldiers that made no money? The young women who thought it was super easy and an idea to create an Only Fans, only to generate no revenue?
After many countless celebrities joined Only Fans once they realised they could make money on there without posting explicit content like the rest of the peasants, (yes I know there are some celebs on there that post adult content) many ran to the site to create another stream of income for themselves. Many other young women thought they too could do the same, they were pretty, had a following on Instagram so why couldn’t they make some money posting cute pictures and videos? Well because they are not famous nor are they teaching a skill or doing anything interesting. Many people complained about the likes of Bella Thorne making a million on Only Fans for doing nothing. However what they fail to realise is that they are not Bella who already has an established fan base from other things she is known for. Yes, the game is rigged. Welcome to planet Earth.
Furthermore, Only Fans just like every other site is prone to vulnerabilities and in 2020 there was a huge breach. in February 2020 around 1.6 terabytes of Only Fans content was leaked online from what looked like a major hack. Most of the content came adult content created by women and girls.
This obviously kills business. As when these hacks take place, very specific creators are targeted. The whole point of Only Fans are for creators to make money off of exclusive content that you can’t get anywhere else. To add insult to injury, this content is then leaked all over the web and shared for free by hackers. Anyone can then, view and save the content. In 2020 hundreds of Google Drive folders were dropped in hacker forums where thousands of explicit images and videos were shared and exchanged.
Some of the adult content has been reuploaded on porn sites and even sold for profit. Only Fans has been hacked since that last big leak online where almost 4 Terabytes of data was stolen. The incident highlighted just how weak the security of the site is though they have constantly claimed to have rigid systems in place. There are many risks involved with holding such sensitive content and information in one place, creators themselves have criticised the low security measures in place leaving them under threat of future hacks and even their accounts being taken.
As many people continue to join the popular website, Only Fans now has over 130 million users. With the business going from strength to strength and widening its range of content there is much to be said for how easy and user friendly the interface is which was what put it on the map in the first place. Hopefully they can invest more in their cyber security and avoid any further major hacks as the creators are always the ones that will be hurt the most.
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