What I find fascinating/disturbing with OnlyFans and in some way with Twitch and streaming in general is more the client side than the creators. Here are basically people paying, and paying a lot, for parasocial relationships. Because clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.
I think it says something quite dark about our society as a whole that we have basically commoditised distress and are encouraging some people often themselves in dire circumstances to prey on others to the benefits of the middle men. I find these new pimps scarier than the old sort in that they pretend to have clean hands.
> Because clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.
I think you should step back and look at it with a bit of distance. Is the content they're paying for really the same as you think is available for free, and do they even get it under the same conditions, in morality and circumstance.
Not knowing your life, it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available.
> commoditised distress [...] often in dire situations
The first step to alleviate these specific situations could be to stop marginalizing this kind of content and give them a regular professional status, instead of systematicly pigeon hole it.
> it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available.
The analogy holds. Most people don't pay concert tickets for the music itself. It's the experience, the crowd, the physical presence of the artists, etc.
But the OP is right about the parasocial aspect. OF content and other such platforms is about the personalization aspect. Sure, there's some kinks/fetishes too.. but it is primarily about engagement. In some ways, it's just an explicit, subscription based, social media platform where it feels like you're being treated uniquely... But most times you are not.
> it feels like you're being treated uniquely... But most times you are not.
That's just any customer business.
When you go buy a house it feels like the agent is really looking at your personal circumstances and trying hard to be your friend. When you go cut your hair the staff will remember your name and ask about your day. Your dentist will keep track of your operations, personalize your care and make sure you're in trust and as comfortable as possible.
There's really nothing special about having people you pay be friendly with you.
The first time my dental hygienist asked a small talk question referencing something I said last visit, I was impressed by their memory/vaguely flattered . The second time it happened I was pretty sure they're just writing notes about what to say in my record. Especially when the new hygienist did the same trick :)
I hate it when a dental hygienist small talks. I'm there to get my teeth done not to talk. If I talk, they can't do their job. Personally I have no need for small talk. So I'm just doing it to please them.
Now, the waiter at our office lunch restaurant that we went to like every 2 or 3 weeks knowing exactly what each of us would order and even the ones that alternated between 2 or 3 dishes he'd ask "oh is it the butter chicken or the chicken tikka today?" makes sense and is impressive and appreciated. He didn't do any non essential small talk instead of doing his job either.
On the other hand you have restaurants where you're a table for two and the guy doesn't remember who had which dish when serving in a basically empty restaurant.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote in a couple of places about how recording and mass reproduction destroyed the social (and monetary) value of small-time creative or artistic-expression talent, like knowing how to play the piano OK or being a pretty-good singer or dancing decently well, or being a quite good (but not top 0.1% good) storyteller, or being fairly good at sketching people.
Took social, and perhaps making-a-living value almost totally away from anything but tip-top talent in those areas. Nobody in your family needs you to play music at get-togethers and parties—you’re worse and less-convenient than thousands of artists on Spotify. They don’t wonder with excitement what sort of sketches Uncle Robert will bring to the next holiday, to give to his extended family. At best, that kind of thing’s indulged and tolerated now. The demand is all but entirely gone.
I reckon it was a real belief of his, given he wrote of it more than once, and whose voice it was put in, the one specific case I can call. There’s a chapter in Bluebeard about it for sure (that novel’s kind of a whirlwind tour of most of the major themes and points of Vonnegut’s work—dunno if it was intended that way, but that’s how it turned out) and I know I saw it other places, can’t recall which books.
This is very close to my feelings about the swathe of AI tools being released. The ability to write an essay, create unique art, spit out a SQL script, write a pithy limerick... all these things are being cheapened somewhat.
It's like every time hundreds of millions of humans figure out how to do a creative thing to a given mediocre standard, the rest of us figure out how to either give global broadcast reach so that the work of one can satisfy millions and raise the bar that way (large amphitheaters, printing press, public transit, tv, telephone, internet), or teach a robot how to accomplish the same task (sewing, precise assembly labor, automobiles vs horses, GPT, maybe eventually self-driving cars or vending-machine cooked to order fast food).
If I talked about putting all of the telephone sanitizers on a spaceship that might be a reference those of a certain age might be able to grok. :)
I agree with you on everything except the SQL scripts. A world where absolutely nobody has to master SQL or regular expressions is a small step closer to paradise.
I see the same things emerging in the computing realm. Really, we don't need you to come over and help with X, ill just get off-the-shelf commoditized do-hickey and we'll be all set. I'd like to think the same won't be said for developers in the future.
But I am quite sure I saw similar sentiments at least one other place in his work, and I think a couple places—years and years ago I read most of his novels, plus most of the collected short fiction and short stories, but it’s all pretty fuzzy now.
His first novel, Player Piano, is about a different, but related theme.
It's about machines replacing human work, but it's not at all about the machines. It's about the people. It's about human dignity. Or, as Vonnegut says, it's about "a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use."
It's safe to say that the impact on one's emotional and mental state is vastly different. This is a wider discussion of porn vs music, not necessarily OF vs recorded music though.
The reason I don’t think only playing with the band counts is: in a hunter gather tribe 70,000 years ago, did everyone sing all of the songs all of the time? Or did some people just listen, at least some of the time?
Practically speaking I think it must have been the latter.
Of course there are lots of unnatural aspects in live music still, like too many people, too loud, etc. But recorded music is wholly unnatural, like pornography is.
It seems like you're drawing an arbitrary line in the sand to determine what things are natural versus what things are unnatural. Furthermore, it seems like you think by definition, unnatural is negative.
By your logic, writing things down is also unnatural and we should've kept with the oral tradition only.
Natural is stepping on a piece of metal, contracting tetanus, and dying without appropriate medical treatment.
I get how it could be seen as "natural", but I'm not sure to see value in that definition. From that token, most of human culture is unnnatural, but honestly it doesn't bother me much.
I'm glad we have books, even as it's not as natural as oral transmission. I love photography, I'm so glad we have chemical food that requires such a brewing process to come to fruition, and I have no desire to go back to a hunter gatherer society, I like civilization in general. And pornography is sure part of it.
Highly recommend the book "This is your brain on music", as it explores this question (among other interesting things).
According to the author, having separate words for singing and dancing is a relatively new phenomenon in linguistics, and the concept of a performer and an audience as a distinct separation is also relatively recent. He likens it to conversation - sure in any given instance there may be people more or less involved in the dialog of a conversation, but we would all think it very strange if someone said "I only listen to conversations, I don't talk in them" in the way someone today might say "I only listen to music, I don't sing/play/dance".
> Practically speaking I think it must have been the latter.
This assumes music was made as a performance. Music can be (and i argue probably mostly was) people jamming together. Musician and audience are blurred in this scenario.
Agreed, that's my experience growing up in a family where we regularly sang songs together casually as part of parties. It was less about listening to one performer and more about being part of the performance. Same still happens today with things like choirs - people are in it for singing with others, not for the eventual public performance. It's a very social activity.
I don't know, quality of modern life degrades after 30 for many of us. After living with chronic diseases for a decade or two, I kinda envy the hunter-gatherers.
Die quickly at 30, with 10 children and some grandchildren even. Sounds like mission accomplished to me.
‘Reading words etched into a stone or inscribed on papyrus by other human hands is the natural way of things, like actually having sex with another human.
Reading words created via machines is much more like pornography.’
Words etched in stone? Bah! Words were created for speach!
> For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.
It's the feeling of being more personalized. I see what you're saying about concerts, but it is not the same. Nobody is going to the concert thinking the musician is "talking to them" or making content specifically "for them".
Most OF content is not personalized. It might be consumed solo, but it's produced for a wider distribution. On the concert side, I feel there's a similar situation where you can pay a little to get the same experience as everyone else, or you can pay a lot to get VIP passes and a personalized experience.
Also, both situations are strongly dependent on the size of the fanbase. You're not going to get a personalized show from Taylor Swift or Bella Thorne, but smaller musicians and OF performers target that vibe exclusively.
I'unno every concert I've been to has included the band/singer replacing a placename randomly from the lyrics of one of their songs with the name of whatever town the concert was being held in. shrug
I don't know about you, but I also find concerts very strange and off putting. Like, is "Denver" really a special crowd? I'm pretty sure you are doing a very staged reppeded performance but making us think its specially for us.
I like things without crowd interaction, like musicals/plays, because there is no dystopian parasocial aspect to it. I am only there because the live is different than the recording.
I'm 100% with you. When people say that they go to these types of events and say things like they're "feeling the energy", I just can't understand at all. All I'm feeling is the massive amount of BTUs being emitted by humans packed in close proximity...
However, give me a good piano recital with elevated seating to be able to see the pianist hands, and I'll be there in a flash.
How is a solo classical pianist's concert any less staged, rehearsed or repeated performance than any other concert, other than a (not so) vague sense of elitism?
Unless you're close, you're not catching the nuance of the pianist's hands any more than guitar licks from a guitar frontman. Indeed, many modern pianists are following in the footsteps of rock concerts and having live video camera work to capture these details for people not in the front 10 rows.
As someone who frequently goes to concerts, I can absolutely testify that the audience can vary a lot between cities. You can usually tell if the band/artist is genuinly enjoying their performance or if they are doing the bare rehearsed minimum.
If you read/watch interviews with touring musicians, all have stories about how "Tokyo was crazy", "London was boring" etc – even though the set list was the exact same every evening.
Maybe a parasocial with the crowd then. Small venues are better for social life but bigger venues create more revenue. So we get less social life.
People build connections whatever they do, we have had phone sex for a long time. Now you need a camera and take some clothes off to do it. It is obvious that the people who manage to earn a lot streaming are mass producing content. There are ones who strive for a social connection and the creators who give that are never going to be big earners. Same as small venues.
> Taylor has always cultivated a parasocial relationship with her fans, and her success is in no small part due to this cultivation. Here are just a few examples besides just her deeply personal and largely autobiographical lyrics:
> 1) Publishing her personal journal pages in the four different versions of the Lover album.
> 2) Inviting fans to her house for Secret Sessions to listen to her albums before release dates.
> 3) This direct quote from the Eras Tour in Tampa: "I'm really loving this tour. It's become my entire personality and I've always loved putting on shows, always loved that connection... Knowing you have felt the same way... I need you guys very much for my well-being."
> 4) The Fearless TV announcement. "This was the musical era in which so many inside jokes were created between us, so many hugs exchanged and hands touched, so many unbreakable bonds formed, so before I say anything else, let me just say that it was a real honor to get to be a teenager alongside you..."
> 5) Leaving secret messages in the liner notes of her physical CDs and the eventual TS culture of Easter Eggs.
Funny enough, I follow an OnlyFans creator on Xitter, and they've been complaining that OnlyFans was cracking down on kink/fetish content. I guess OF only wants parasocial slop on their platform!
Well given that OF tried to ban all porn a year or two ago (obviously quickly backpedaling while dodging projectile-spam of rotten fruit) I'm certainly not surprised.
> Not knowing your life, it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available.
Wow, What a great analogy. That really is almost the same except not with music but sexual attraction.
If OnlyFans is really paying 80% of gross to creators, it seems that any kind of "regular professional status" would be worse for them, at least for the top 10%.
> The first step to alleviate these specific situations could be to stop marginalizing this kind of content and give them a regular professional status, instead of systematicly pigeon hole it
I dislike arguments made in this vein, it's sortof a way to intellectually dismiss someone's point without addressing it.
I share the grandparent poster's concern. Parasocial relationships feed us in a certain way, but do not nourish.
Don't get me wrong; I'd rather have OnlyFans than pimps. But that's not the point.
I'm not sure what's to address about parent's point, in that it's already a focus of law enforcement, there will be widely popular polical campaigns to gather people with these inclinations, and it's the standard rethoric of most western societies.
I don't see the CrossFit like dogma of "if it's not working just do more of it" as beneficial in this topic.
I also don't like looking at a service like OF and only focusing on the extremes.
It's way worse in the case of YouTube/Twitch than OnlyFans IMO. People have been paying for pornography/sex for millennia. It's just part of human nature. On the other hand an 11 year old throwing money at MrBeast...why?
While I agree with the general sentiment of your comment, the specific example you used is not really relevant: MrBeast is not on twitch, and his revenue comes from youtube ads and brand partnerships. He also has 'classic' merch and several companies (burgers, chocolate bars), but he doesn't bring in any money from subscriptions/donations the way twitch streamers or onlyfan creators do.
Same reason why kids have paid for Transformers merch, Star Wars merch, band merch, etc.
It's a brand, they like it, they want to be reminded of it and show their love of it off. It creates an "in group" which is socially valuable. Streamers are nothing special in that regard.
I had football jerseys with my favorite player's name on them growing up and I'd look up to my birthday to see if I got one or I had to wait another year. This seems like an arbitrary decision. I don't see any difference in buying a jersey of my favorite player or a kid now getting a t-shirt merch of their favorite youtuber.
I think the implication is that if a kid buys a toy they will have something tangible that they can play and interact with, but tipping/donating to a streamer doesn't provide that.
You can get porn anywhere. The selling point of OnlyFans is specifically the parasocial connection. These people are paying money to exchange DM’s with LLM’s and third world gig workers pretending to be their favorite porn star.
I owned an operated a "free" adult website for 18 years. For 15 years it was my primary source of income. During those years I always got a kick out of "there is so much free porn online, why would anyone ever pay for it?"
The way that my website worked was that it was very content-rich and content-focused. The content came directly from the affiliate programs that I was advertising for. Despite it being all advertising, I often got compliments that my website was "ad free." That's because I didn't push banner ads or anything intrusive. It was free content plus a text link that you could click on if you wanted more of that content.
The website shut down in 2022, and the bank accounts are all closed. But many of the affiliate accounts are still pulling rebills.
Most of the subscription based websites that were advertised were not websites that promised any sort of interaction with the performers or models. It was very obvious that you were paying for content, not social interaction and if anyone were ever confused as to that, the rebill numbers would have reflected otherwise. The fact that an indivdual subscription rebills is not a conclusive indication of a happy customer. But when so many in the aggregate rebill, it doesn't really paint the picture of a large number of people feeling duped. It's also worth noting that chargeback rates were nearly non-existent. I could count the number of times that happened over 18 years on one hand.
Now, if you've read this far thanks, I will acknowledge that we're talking about OF specifically.
At the risk of TMI, I subscribe personally to one adult content site: suicide girls. I am happily married, I'm not looking for any social interaction. It's purely eye candy. Many of the models on that site promote their personal OF pages, and while I haven't subscribed to any, I will admit that I've been tempted because they produce content that I like and I'm curious about what else they offer. I'm not at all interested in DM'ing them or trying to start some kind of parasocial relationship. I've watched a few live streams on SG, have even had some interaction in the chats in those ... but there's no desire what-so-ever to try and have some kind of "relationship." I've never tipped them or sent them money or gifts. Just the annually recurring subscription to the SG website.
People who are in difficult situations in life, have mental illnesses or physical disabilities may try and use online porn to fill a void in their life, and for some it may be unhealthy. People also stalk celebrities for the same reason. Yet we seem to make more assumptions and talk about it a hell of a lot more when it comes pornography for some reason. I'm not saying that there aren't social issues that are important to look at and talk about. But when it comes to porn there's such a taboo and willingness to shame others and make mass assumptions about their motivations even though we have very little idea of what we're actually talking about.
I appreciate your comment and I find your stories interesting. I'm saying this because I'm going to clarify my point in a way that might otherwise come across as dismissive. I know people pay for porn. I was specifically talking about what differentiates OnlyFans from other paid porn sites, and that's the parasocial aspect. It's not just an unhealthy thing that some people do; it's a huge part of how they distinguish themselves from the decades-established online porn industry.
I suspect it was always monetized as well, but the internet allows for both for a massive increase in followers and an increasingly easy path for money to move from the followers’ wallets to the celebrities. It seems new or unprecedented, but similar models have existed on smaller scales for thousands of years at least.
Think back to ancient philosophers. Who got students to pay for their work or students parents, or just outright donations... And later various artists both those creating works and performing them. Patronage is very old model.
yes, these are perfect examples. I was going to add people like Jordan Peterson here in Canada, but now I’m not sure if he’s entirely different. Maybe he would have qualified as a philosopher worth teaching people 2000 years ago. He’s certainly intelligent. Perhaps his model of gathering attention is the part that’s different, yet even that I’m not entirely sure of… But people like him do seem to be part of that new phenomenon that the internet has enabled.
The vast majority of people will not have ever paid for porn or sex though. Sure sexual indulgement in some form is human nature, but it always is a special group that uses such direct or indirect services.
9.4% of men in an official Swedish study from 2017 said they have paid for sexual services (0.5% of women). It's a minority but still almost 1/10. I can only imagine that OnlyFans has normalized this behavior a lot since then.
There's also the narrative that people on these platforms are choosing to do this because they make a lot of money, and that it's less problematic than the rest of the porn industry somehow. I'm very sceptical about both of these notions.
That is what I meant, I understood you comment as "paying for OnlyFans" is human nature. I would dispute that as a general statement because I believe it is a very special demographic that does that.
I would understand human nature to mean that it affects every human, but sure, after that definition I guess it remains some form of constant at least.
This view isn't matched by the stats. I have a friend who is a successful OF model and only a fraction of one percent of her subscribers ever DM her. A lot of them subscribe, see what they want and then immediately delete their accounts. There's no apparent relationship between her fans and her, for the most part.
Parasocial relationships don't require interaction, you could just watch a twitch streamer a lot. I think if we defined it by requiring interaction we would underestimate the percieved impact of these social phenomenon.
I think the size of the crowd matters here. Streaming feels more personal because you are doing it by yourself and the total number of people watching the same stream is probably quite small. You could even message them and they might respond. It's more personal than watching a movie or TV show. On a slightly grosser level you know deep down that there is zero chance of ever hooking up with Megan Fox, but with a random OF model that feels like it might be possible. Even if it really isn't.
An interesting comparison is K-Pop singers who are at the same time megastars with millions of devoted followers, but also carefully managed to always seem available for a relationship. A truly difficult bridge to cross, but they somehow do it and make bank.
You can like Ryan Gosling and catch every movie he's in. But if you're buying a tabloid so you can see photos of him getting coffee at Starbucks, that's parasocial.
It is also parasocial if you just like Ryan Gosling and watch all his movies. You still have one-way feelings for a personality. It is just that it is not pathological.
Parasocial relationships are not bad per se. Let's say you are thinking about Donald Knuth when working on a computer science problem, nothing bad here, taking inspiration from the leaders in the field. But it is also a parasocial relationship, it is like imagining Don Knuth next to you, helping you solve your problem, even though he has absolutely no idea about who you are. It is a one way connection, but here, it is actually productive.
There’s no neat boundaries - read a Ryan gosling autobiography. How about an autobiography of Einstein. Or a biography? What about watching a film of a historical figure? Do I have a parasocial relationship with Anne Boleyn because I saw Six?
If you’re ignoring the “believe you have a two way relationship” then everything could be defined as parasocial.
Most people who form parasocial relationships don't actually believe it to be two-way.
It feels like it is two-way, in other words, it is an illusion, but just like with optical illusions, you don't have to believe them. For example, mirages may look a lot like water, but people who are familiar with them know it is just a trick of their senses and don't assume there is water there. Same thing for parasocial relationships, even the most intense. Proof is, parasocial relationships with fictional characters is common, and most people who feel a bound with Harry Potter are not crazy enough to believe the feelings are shared, as they are aware that Harry Potter doesn't actually exist.
And yes, I believe that parasocial relationships are extremely common and in most case, positive or at least harmless. I don't believe reading biographies is always parasocial though, it could just be the search for academic knowledge, without any feeling of connection, but done repeatedly, in can become one, which is again, not necessarily a bad thing.
You can absolutely have a parasocial relationship with Anne Boleyn, and I suspect most people who study her in depth do, as picturing oneself with her can help better understand her life and its historical context. It is essentially a mind hack, instead of just using logic, you also use emotions.
I wouldn’t say that movies per se are parasocial, but if you behave and feel like you have a relationship with somebody in a movie, then it’s probably parasocial.
To a degree it’s also quite normal to have parasocial reactions to personaes from media, it only becomes problematic once people substitute actual social relationships with extreme parasocial relationships.
I've never subscribed to any only fans so my only exposure is checking out twitch. I assume there's a difference in that movies don't act like they're talking to you as an individual person. Also, parasocial is a fairly newly emerging term and I don't think we can clearly define everything that facilitates it, but we can easily identify some of the outcomes
On the assumption that there is a relationship (believed to be) involved: yeah, I would say so. Streamers (often) have a chat, actual interaction is possible in a way movies do not allow.
The closest equivalent you would get with a movie is to send fan-mail and get a response. Which people do, but I think it's safe to claim the frequency is much lower.
Characters in a movie only last during the viewing. When following a Twitch streamer, you keep following this person or character over many months or years (since many of them are playing character).
If you feel a strong connection to a character and they barely know anything about you (or barely feel anything towards you), that's not truly social.
>So like, movies are more para social because they have less interaction?
More live TV/streaming series than movies, IMHO.
How many times have you heard someone say they just finished watching $SERIES and will miss their TV friends?
And with OnlyFans (I'm guessing here, as I don't use the platform), at least the sexual stuff there (is there other stuff?) it's like going to a strip club, except it's all recorded (and sometimes? mostly? more explicit) and instead of dollar bills in the garters, it's tips/subscriptions.
But then what's the difference between live streaming and recordings? There's some magic in live streams -- people prefer to watch boring live streams instead of hand-picked recorded videos of best games/conversations/jokes.
Personally, every time I decide "I'm going to check out this streamer's live stream" I always end up joining at some point where they're getting set up, they're taking a break, they're reading chat, they're eating soup... I've never actually tuned into a livestream I'm actually interested in.
Meanwhile, RTGame was one of the first gaming content creators I ever subscribed to, and all of his content is his twitch livestreams edited down to actually interesting clips or sections.
I think different people prefer different things, and also different creators provide different things.
I enjoy smaller Twitch channels where the chat isn't going 1000mph because you can actually chat with other viewers. There's definitely a parasocial element if the streamer reads your message, but it's more that it's an online community with shared references and in-jokes.
Also the people I follow are mostly part-time streamers doing 3-4 hour streams a few nights per week, so they don't need many breaks like the ones doing all-day streams.
There is generally a TON of money to be made in live streaming in porn. A friend of mine, way before current gen of social media, bought 2 apartments and a sports car doing exactly that.
I'd say the audience willing to pay extra for that is very limited, especially once you move to lets say a very niche stuff, but oh boy they paid a ton. Live also means 2-way interaction, additional added value (and price).
Not sure about views, but hours spent might be higher for livestreaming.
Especially I think most people don't know about steaming, never watched a single live streamer, but if we filter them out, then among people who watched a live stream at least once amount of hours spent might be higher.
Regarding parasocial relationships in general, I like [0]:
> a few exceptional people (many of them imaginary) get far more love than most people need or can enjoy.
> This seems an essential tragedy of the human condition. You might claim that love isn’t a limited resource, that the more people each of us love, the more love we each have to give out. So there is no conflict between loving popular and imaginary people and loving the rest of us. But while this might be true at some low scales of how many people we love, at the actual scales of love this just doesn’t seem right to me. Love instead seems scarce at the margin.
> Please, someone thoughtful and clever, figure out how we might all be much loved.
>subscribe ... and then immediately delete their accounts
Sounds like credit card fraud to me. Bots using stolen cards to scrape OF content. Also easily verifies that the number works before attempting a pricier purchase.
> Sounds like credit card fraud to me. Bots using stolen cards to scrape OF content. Also easily verifies that the number works before attempting a pricier purchase.
I’ve subscribed for one month to two different creators just to check the content. Neither was interesting enough to maintain a subscription. I don’t think the described behavior sounds nefarious.
I suppose that hinges on what "a lot" means in that comment. If it's "a lot" in absolute values, that's very plausible. If it's "a lot" as a percentage, OnlyFans would have to have a high rate of account closures.
The problem with subscription sites like that is that paying for a month's subscription gives you access to the entire backlog of the work that a person has been doing for years. There's only so much that an OF model is gonna be able to do in terms of posing before they've done all the angles that someone would want to see. Why pay for repetitive content when you can just pay for a month and download everything, wait a year, and then do it again?
If these sites were smart, they'd implement a 3 month rolling backlog and then a set add-on price for accessing additional months worth of content.
> The problem with subscription sites like that is that paying for a month's subscription gives you access to the entire backlog of the work that a person has been doing for years.
If you assume that all of their content is included-with-subscription and not separately-purchased add-ons, sure, but my understanding is that that's not the most common business model on those sites.
> If these sites were smart, they'd implement a 3 month rolling backlog and then a set add-on price for accessing additional months worth of content.
Or they'd allow creators to remove previous posts, thereby giving them the ability to control whether or not they want posted content to expire, what schedule they want it to expire on, whether they want expiration applied equally to all content, and whether any or all of the expired content would be then made available to purchase as add-on content, and on what terms. (AFAIK, they do, in fact, allow this.)
Hmm.. or "$x per month of backlog" along with each month of new content. So basic tier of $x/mo gets to see content from the previous ~30 days. But if they stay subscribed, they get to see the upcoming month .. and the month from before they subscribed. Hang out another month, get the next month as it happens and the month 2 steps before subscription for a total of 5. That way staying subscribed slowly opens both past and future in lockstep. Pay for the $2x pro plan? Be getting 2 or 3 months of past content with each new month of future content that elapses.
That actually sounds like a smart system. It would also increase the barrier for those who log in just to scrape the whole profile and upload it elsewhere.
Also I wonder if there is something per account anti-scraping... So you might be able to scrape everything with single account, but if you hit multiple models there is some limits? Never used OF, but could be a some limitation.
Sounds like it, and I'm sure it is sometimes... but it's also legitimate behavior from people struggling with guilt or self-actualization. At least as far as internal fraud detection, a lot of sites like these have had to re-think what kind of behavior is a red flag. For instance, it's also common for sellers to have multiple separate identities on these sites, where they may re-sell the same content but they act as totally different personalities. On any other site, like say Facebook, that would definitely be a fraud indicator. On adult sites.... less so!
She's had essentially zero chargebacks that I know of. She's tried to figure out if it is just guys in relationships who want to check her out and then clear up all the traces?
I feel the same, but I also feel that the desired levels of staged human intimacy actually depends on cohorts, as in it's probably not what large bulk of the users are looking for.
You mention that OPs conclusion Doesn't align with the stats, but then you only provide a single data point. Are there other stats that you were referring to?
> I have a friend who is a successful OF model and only a fraction of one percent of her subscribers ever DM her.
I have a friend who produces a few successful OF models and makes about 5-10x a good SF tech salary. He has a whole army of sexters who impersonate models and DM with fans. Vast majority of his income comes not from subscriptions, but from content sold in these DMs, content which is presented as "exclusive" to the buyer.
The shocking part is how new generation have a fully rational reinterpretation of all this, they call it "ethical sex". It's beautiful to them (probably in contrast to the boat loads of issues IRL social and intimate relationships can bring with them). And anything not aligned with their view causes a lot of angry arguments.
The circle of life. People said the same thing about Playboy when it first came out, about Internet porn when it first came out… People have been “falling in love” with strippers for as long as strippers have existed. In many ways OF feels like a positive step because it allows the removal of toxic middlemen that stand between the model and their customer.
To my mind the bigger issue is how much of it is a total scam. OF models offshoring their DM responses so their clients think they’re having conversations with the model when it’s actually some dude half the world away. Or using AI for the same, which I’m sure is increasing exponentially.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when AI is able to generate on demand video/photo and chat that’s realistic enough to satisfy an online client. If people are specifically told it’s AI will they be content with that? Or will they still want an actual real human? We're not exactly rational creatures at the best of times so it’ll be fascinating to see. We’ll have gone from the phone sex lines of yore, where you are interacting with a real human even though they’re definitely not the human you’re imagining in your head, to an AI video chat where you’re seeing exactly what you want but there’s nothing behind it.
> OF models [...] using AI for [answering DM responses]
This seems like OF's Etsy trap moment.
On the one hand, scaling creator:individual_fan multiples via AI assisted messaging = $$$ (to creators and OF)
On the other hand, it canabalizes their core business value tenet -- authenticity.
It'll be curious to see which path they choose, and if it ends up playing out similar to Etsy. I.e. temporarily increasing their revenue while erroding their brand, then having to tack back once they realize how dire things have gotten in customers' eyes.
Doing it with LLMs may be new but the idea of farming out the fan interaction to an army of gig workers plus automation is well established, including automation for suggested replies, keeping track of past interactions, etc.
Embracing gen AI is absolutely the wrong move for a content creators. People are not paying for visuals and conversations. They are paying for a genuine human to human interaction. If you take away that part, you’re left with worthless pixels on a screen
> Embracing gen AI is absolutely the wrong move for a content creators. People are not paying for visuals and conversations. They are paying for a genuine human to human interaction. If you take away that part, you’re left with worthless pixels on a screen
If people are going to a porn site to spend relatively small amounts of money to get "genuine human to human interaction," there are more than a few flaws in their strategy. Unless they're spending many thousands of dollars a month, there could be no reasonable expectation they're getting anything but extremely superficial interactions. If they get mad because they think they should get an e-girlfriend for $10 a month or whatever, I'd say that's on them because of unreasonable expectations.
Honestly, I think gen AI is pretty much inevitable for these kinds of parasocial services, but it will be clandestinely used because otherwise it makes perfect sense for the "content creator." Whatever relationship they think they have is an illusion in their head anyway, and they're probably expending a fair amount of energy to maintain it.
> In many ways OF feels like a positive step because it allows the removal of toxic middlemen that stand between the model and their customer.
Wait, are you intentionally ignoring the fact that OF is the middleman? Because it definitely is, making about 1 billion dollars off of 5 billion dollars of transactions. Or are you saying OF is a "good non-toxic middleman".
If OnlyFans is taking a 20% cut and Apple is taking a 30% cut of transactions on their platform, it seems that Apple is 50% more toxic than OnlyFans.
I've never done business with them and am not interested in buying that kind of content, but it certainly seems like an improvement over any more traditional sex-related work for those who are interested in being in that market.
I don’t know the ins and outs (pun intended) of Onlyfans but it certainly seems considerably less toxic than a lot of pornography producers, based on past stories I’ve read. If your numbers are correct a 20% take is orders of magnitude better than previous arrangements.
I think people would still prefer "real" content, same way as they prefer live streams to recordings for some reason (hey, handpicked recordings are objectively better!).
Same way as people want "real wood", and "real leather", even when there're objectively better alternatives.
That said, people only need to _believe_ it's real.
I've explored using LLMs for this exact purpose, and there's a huge problem. Onlyfans rules very strictly forbid incest and other kinds of icky content, and Onlyfans sexters are very, very aware of this. If you break the rules, Onlyfans is very eager with permabans, and getting your account banned effectively destroys your whole business.
When it's that easy to screw up, it's easier and cheaper to pay real humans $1k a month for sexting than to build an LLM-based system that never makes mistakes and is 100% secured against prompt injection.
removal of toxic middlemen that stand between the model and their customer.
...
OF models offshoring their DM responses
I mean this sounds to me like the toxic middlemen have changed form, rather than gone away. Now the toxic middlemen work for the performer, rather than the other way around. But they're still toxic and their toxicity is now directed at the buyer instead.
The younger generation has a weird relationship with the physical reality of sexuality, I expect because so much has been perfection-optimized in media portrayals of it, post-~2000.
If you go back and watch <= 90s movies and tv (PG-13!), it's amazing how pervasive and frank sexuality there is.^
In contrast to current mores that mandate sexy, but never actually talking about sex.
The deterioration of more honest discourse in mass media about realistic (read: fumbling, awkward, funny, vulnerable, spiritual) physical sexuality has left young folks ill prepared to enjoy that side of life.
^ Exhibit A: Hercules the Legendary Journeys (1994, produced by Sam Raimi!) S01E02, which would make most kids today cringe, despite just being scantily-clad depictions of consensual sexual desire and bawdy banter https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgz7burclcI
> The shocking part is how new generation have a fully rational reinterpretation of all this, they call it "ethical sex". It's beautiful to them (probably in contrast to the boat loads of issues IRL social and intimate relationships can bring with them). And anything not aligned with their view causes a lot of angry arguments.
Do you have a source for that angrily defended "fully rational reinterpretation"?
I suspect the word for what's going on is rationalization not "fully rational reinterpretation" (e.g. "This is a thing we're doing, therefore it's good because we do it. Let's reevaluate everything else to achieve that result.").
I wouldn't say rationalization considering the lack of experience of these teens. Lack of scope in life forbids this imo, hence my adhoc neologism.
These were redditors that were unhappy saying that being an only fan model is the laziest thing one can do. That's when they taught me about their concepts.
> I wouldn't say rationalization considering the lack of experience of these teens. Lack of scope in life forbids this imo, hence my adhoc neologism.
Can you explain that more? In my mind anyone can rationalize their behavior ("a way of describing, interpreting, or explaining something (such as bad behavior) that makes it seem proper, more attractive, etc.", https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rationalization), so no experience is required. Even preschoolers can do it.
> These were redditors that were unhappy saying that being an only fan model is the laziest thing one can do. That's when they taught me about their concepts.
Do you have the thread? Or can you give more context? Were they OnlyFans models? Were they subscribers defending their participation?
Then call it rationalization if you think that it fits. But afaik they were not even trying to paint it as attractive, they felt sincerely in a belief that this was a great new invention that freed people.
Hmm I doubt I could find the link unless I dug my last year reddit history comment by comment. I think these were dudes defending girl models decisions.
Every generation shockingly reinterprets things. Our generation "shockingly" interprets a mixed race couple kissing on TV as normal, instead of obscene enough to be banned.
I don't think recurrences of this kind are an infinite line that can apply forever. Usually I account for the generational gap when thinking, even though it's something that may evade my mind.
Firstly:
“Our youth loves luxury, has bad manners, disregards authority, and has no respect whatsoever for age. Our children today are tyrants; they do not get up when an elderly man enters the room—they talk back to their parents—they are just very bad.”
Secondly:
“I no longer have any hope for the future of our country if today’s youth should ever become the leaders of tomorrow, because this youth is unbearable, reckless—just terrible.”
Thirdly:
“Our world has reached a critical stage; children no longer listen to their parents; the end of the world cannot be far away.”
Finally:
“This youth is rotten from the very bottom of their hearts; the young people are malicious and lazy; they will never be as youth happened to be before. Today’s youth will not be able to maintain our culture.”
The first quote came from Socrates (470–399 B.C.); the second from Hesiod (circa 720 B.C.); the third from an Egyptian priest about 2,000 years ago; and the last was recently discovered on clay pots in the ruins of Old Babylon, which are more than 3,000 years old.
On the matter of holistic degradation with each generation I always think about american presidential debates from several decades ago which, to me, offer irrefutable evidence of an older society with greater command of speech, wit, rationality, temper, etc. What do you think?
I mean, all of those civilizations rose and fell, so there was certainly a point at which the productivity level was no longer sufficiently globally dominant.
Some historians say that the main cause for the Fall of Rome is rising inequality. Initially, society was mainly based on small farmers/warriors, doing war close to their home.
But as Rome grew, wars tended to get farther and farther from home, so farmers could no longer tend to their farms, and also large influx of slaves made them noncompetitive against large slave-owners. So they had to sell their farms to those large owners, exacerbating the problem even more.
I honestly don't know any single revolution that happened for any reason other than inequality.
That's the thing, everyone can be right here. You don't want to regularly yell "fascist, racist, pimp, rapist" or the power of those words disappears. At the same time, if you refuse to use the words when they apply, then their power is irrelevant. Stability breeds complacency, complacency breeds contempt, contempt breeds instability.
The Kids perceptions and mores change every generation (both in some multidimensional average and in their dispersion) based in response to their elder's beliefs and their material conditions. Those changes could be destructive or not, but the idea that "there is no truth" or we've reached "the end of history" mark a more dangerous part of the cycle.
Veracity of the quotes aside, people always bust this sort of thing out like it proves that the current young people aren't so bad. But if anything, it convinces me that these historical figures were probably right! I can see, with my own eyes, how bad my own generation is (let alone those after me). So if that's the case, then maybe the ancient old guys were right in their cases as well.
I'd be fascinated to see an ethnological elaboration of this concept, but nothing's turning up so far - not surprising, I think, but I wonder if you could point to something.
Ethical sex? I couldn't talk long with the kids but I assume they took physical safety and freedom as only important aspect when approaching onlyfans. Teen girl idol can spread her legs if she wants to and no one can take advantage (unlike the pre me too era)
Okay, but what I'm really looking for is the account given by its adherents.
I want to hear in their own terms, because I genuinely don't know if I can understand the idea in terms of my own experience. I can make it make sense to me, sure; anyone can do that with almost anything. I don't have a guide to how closely that would correspond to the sense made of it by the people who actually pursue it. Third-party opinions don't actually count for much there, but this might also be too new a thing to have been studied.
I don't know. It seems to me like it would have to be terribly lonely and unfulfilling. But that might just be in comparison with my own pre-Internet experience, or maybe something I'm entirely missing.
Fair points. If I may add my own perception of their reality, these are often nymph like teen which maps the usual boy feminine ideal.. so instead of fantasizing about it in comics or animes they have real ones behind screens to interact / drool / peep on, which is also a very boy like mindset. Later on your understanding of beauty, love, relationship evolves beyond that thin layer. It's their neverending christmas.
I have an onlyfans and I constantly see people talking about this parasocial relationship thing and how people are managing accounts. Maybe for the big people but I know a lot of onlyfans models by way of working in the industry for 20 years. My first sysadmin job was for a porn company where I interacted with talent a lot. I don't know anyone amateur with social media management.
Anyway, a lot of people who have never used the site before think it's mostly what you said. It's not. The parasocial stuff is tiny unless you're doing specific kinks for people.
What I tell most people not familiar with the industry is that it's usually more like seeing someone in real life (NOT a porn star, celeb, etc, amateurs only) that you've got a crush on naked for only $10/mo. It has the amateur thing a lot of people love. Another reddit comment is always "Why pay when porn is free?" Have you never had a crush on someone? And amateur porn is probably the biggest "kink" I feel weird even calling it a kink, I'm practically on the "who doesnt like amateur porn??" end.
That's 90% of the customers. Lots of people who think a youtuber or instagram or whatever not professionally showing themselves off is just hot and want to see them naked.
I've never spoken to a single customer. I'm a straight man and most of mine are men and I have no interest or desperation for money to do para/kink stuff.
I really don't get why so many people think onlyfans is about messaging talent back and forth. It's kind of annoying to constantly read because it always comes from non-OF users who have this weird morality/ethics problem with sex work. It makes no sense if you know anything about porn. Most people jack off in silence and close their laptop and there aren't thousands of onlyfans models with media managers. Most are 18-25yo women who work corporate jobs or bartenders and have their own life to live. They treat it like youtube, upload content a few times a week and never look at messages.
Don't kink shame, stop with the "I don't know why anyone uses this instead of that, you're a loser if you pay for porn" thing. You like what you like, other people like what they like.
I feel this way about strip clubs. I’m pretty libertine and think that if you can make money dancing naked, more power to ya, but the few times I’ve been dragged to a strip club all I can focus on is the clientele who as you say largely seem to be chasing this dark, parasocial connection that can never be what they need it to be.
Burlesque shows are a 100% more fun than an actual strip club especially if they incorporate some good ol slapstick vaudeville routines in between the strip teases. The audience is also way less greasy.
We’re the cohort putting our hand on the stove to remember you get burned.
Vices like gambling, obscenity, prostitution, drugs, etc are banned or heavily controlled societies over because they have significant negative cultural effects. “Why do YOU care what other people do in their private lives?” was always a stupid justification: if everyone in your community is addicted to vices, that DOES affect me.
Yet humans have fared mostly fine as a whole with even a moderate level of those things, legal or not, consistently happening throughout history and cultures. The biggest problem we have is when these vices are driven underground so the vice itself is conflated with the additional risk of having to put one’s self in a dangerous situation to engage with it.
Looking at western culture (the only one I feel confident speaking about), we are still bound by puritanical values that were imposed as control mechanisms but managed to sneak their way into a set of cultural norms as a moral code despite their actual value to us not being evaluated and actively selected.
It's not a "western culture" thing. Many western cultures do, sure. Many eastern cultures do as well. Not literally puritanism and that specific history, but very similar kinds of thoughts and ideas.
There’s still value in curbing many of these vices. Smoking is a good example. You can smoke, but you can’t advertise cigarettes, you need to be an adult to buy them, you can’t smoke them indoors, and we’ve all been subjected to propaganda from birth about how smoking is bad for you. If you have all of that in place (which took decades for tobacco and now people are trying to ban it in some places), you can have legal vices.
It's absolutely not western nor is it puritanical. The value is clear, there is a wide funnel like no other from starting drugs to ending up on the street, etc. Other societies, asian, middle eastern, etc found their way to the exact same values, sometimes enforced much harsher by the state.
This libertarian stance where neither you nor the state should care about how your neighbors lead their lives is the exception, not the norm, and it has its merits, but the cost of this ideology is obvious.
A better justification is, "prove that it's actually harmful using sources other than your gut", and "suggest a method for controlling it that doesn't almost immediately devolve into puritan witch-hunting, racism, and/or misogyny."
> Vices like gambling, obscenity, prostitution, drugs, etc are banned or heavily controlled societies over because they have significant negative cultural effects
Do they? Citation needed. So far it seems that marijuana consumption leads to far less violence than alcohol, and proliferation of porn leads to much lower rates of sexual violence.
> if everyone in your community is addicted to vices, that DOES affect me
Then choose and manage your own community, but don't push this view on the whole country. Dozens of millions of people (I don't know what country do you live in, so not sure about the population) are not a "community" that you can put under the same norms. If you think that porn is bad, it's your right to do so, and to find likeminded people to build a community that shares these values. But why would you want to force it on other people?
Supposing the premise that these things were entirely unhelpful to society, I would argue that the obscenity specifically is not what makes these things unhelpful.
Not OP, but it is possible for something to be both "obscene" and "helpful" (maybe we should say "of value"?) Say... footage of Hiroshima? Or the liberation of concentration camps? I'd say those are examples of things that are both obscene and have value.
So I think you're looking for another property those videos have in common. It might be closely related to obscenity, but I think it must be a bit more nuanced than that. Why are those videos valueless? (I don't know the answer).
Depends on how you define helpful or how much of a requirement for content to actually be “helpful”.
A strict definition might require content to have academic or intellectual value (implied by the remark about it being shown in an academic context) but this would also exclude a vast majority of non “obscene” content. Further, if you could swap the obscene elements for non obscene elements, I would argue the “value” of the content, as measured by its helpfulness, stays the same.
This all moot, however, as it’s likely not the right conversation to have. There is more useful discussion to be had on harm caused as a result rather than any sort of value judgement.
> clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.
The free stuff isn't always as good, especially if you want something of a specific niche (fursuits, cosplay, etc). A lot of creators only upload cut-down vidros or "trailers" to free sites with a link to their OF.
At least in my case, I simply see it like the Patreon model. I like supporting some of my favorite artists, especially with something like an ongoing comic series I'll get previews of and vote on polls to influence. Onlyfans is the same if I particularly like some creator. It's great that we can directly support content creators of all kinds now.
> [...] for parasocial relationships. Because clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.
I think you're making assumptions about people's motivations that aren't consistent with evidence.
Pornhub and similar sites are full of content that is a dime a dozen and available for free and does not suggest any kind of "parasocial" relationship with the viewer. It's just two or more people fucking. And it's the same as it was ten years ago. And yet... More of that content keeps being made. Porn production companies exist. Pornstars making money for fucking on camera exist. Clearly there are people willing to pay for new porn that will just end up on free-to-view sites anyway.
Your mental model of "it's all about the parasocial relationship" doesn't explain these facts. Thus your mental model can't be the whole truth. I suspect it's at most a fairly small part of the truth.
I think OP's point is that people aren't (directly) paying for Pornhub, although I realize some people are paying some site that make porn, but the amounts remain smaller than what people pay directly on OF.
It is equally disturbing if museums see themselves forced to to move to forced to only fans in protest because of prudish US corps governing the web [0]. I think if there would be more middle ground it would be less of a business model.
It's particularly bad with Twitch and YouTube streams IMHO. The economics and experience of being in a large stream chat is depressing.
The entire system is geared around feeling unheard, unseen and paying to be heard or seen.
20k people shouting into a a void. Paying to get a badge signaling you subscribed. Paying to highlight messages hoping they are read. Hanging on for that hope this popular person gives you 10 seconds of attention.
That's the reality of the depressing industry. And that's how the streamers and steaming providers like it. Ever wonder why the stream chat experience has never been improved? ;)
> I find these new pimps scarier than the old sort in that they pretend to have clean hands
The old one does. And I disagree this is worse, as it’s probably just you never encounter the old model yourself or not knowing the history enough to do the comparison. From the book I read, across cultures and societies, old model of pimping is very brutal, on both the client and the server sides.
You could say that about anything related to the internet. But yes when shown extreme examples it’s obvious how unokay it is.
As a person who tried to start a startup but had been hacked and assaulted by the organizations who seem to maintain their monopoly by whatever methods they can use it’s more like a mob of pimps than a single pimp.
It’s crazy right!? Sex sells everywhere.
I’ve read or listend to a idea that because sex is strongly regulated in the US there is more happening in the hidden.
Edit: Maybe there is a correlation between Gamers and Porn.
> clearly it’s not about the content per see which is a dim a dozen and available for free in trove.
I think there is a darker side there: many of those subscribers are minors, who discover this kind of content for the first time. That's why OF models stream on Twitch to expand their audience, there are plenty of kids who came there for Minecraft, but will end up subscribing to OF with mom's credit card.
So we should have a service, instead, that pairs up horny teenagers or puts them in group settings where they can explore their sexuality in a more directly social way? Or what do you suggest, that they don’t have an outlet for these urges?
I have always advocated for legally regulated sex work that is provided to the population for free or a very low price through a scheme like national or universal heath care, which would immediately solve all problems related to sexual frustration and social isolation, but I think the christian conservatives would rather have school shootings and OnlyFans
Although Onlyfans is certainly more exploitative, I would argue that this concept of one-way parasocial relationships has existed since basically the dawn of humanity and likely has roots to our earliest fundamental tribalistic nature.
I mean look at the extremely popular K-pop bands, fans get insanely invested into these groups, following them, bringing glowsticks to show support, etc. Or the entire Japanese idol movement for that matter.
Or think about how people stand in line for hours just to get the signature of somebody at a convention.
I think this is just the way a lot of people are wired. I don't know if it's bad or a good thing, it's just something I've noticed.
You say one-way parasocial relationships have existed since basically the dawn of humanity, but all the examples you give are of things that have only become popular in, generously, the last century.
I do remember a study that people often think label their more popular friends as their "best" friends, but if you go ask THOSE friends, they label THEIR even more popular friends as their "BEST" friends. It's often asymmetrical.
Though tbh going too far down these rabbitholes usually isn't healthy/productive imo.
Or how nerds are willing to argue about the superiority of Linux vs Mac vs Windows while having only faint notions of how to use each to their fullest extent or the workings of their internals. We on HN aren't immune from unthinking tribalism.
I don’t think it’s new per see nor that OnlyFans is unique in this. The K-pop exemple you bring forward is good and I guess you could see the Hollywood star system as a kind of precursor.
I still think there are multiple differences.
One is how OnlyFans has successfully turned everyday people into this source of para-social fixation for a multitude of small communities and somehow massified the issue.
The other and the main one for me is that in both the star system or the K-pop industry the system is a mean to an end - selling movie tickets or albums - while OnlyFans genuinely sells the illusion of closeness.
because OF models cannot realistically produce anything of that high production value to sell. They can take pictures, get videos shot, etc. And in any case, the closeness you speak also applies to the celebrity in mainstream industry.
A more accurate description I think is that "we" have bifurcated. It's another element of political division.
Almost everyone I know thinks that things like OnlyFans are embarrassing at best, and disgusting at worst. Sure, most of us look at porn, but admitting that you've paid for it and _especially_ admitting that you have a "favourite camgirl" or whatever would be properly cringe.
I think it also is quite a special demographic, which is hard to nail down. There are a lot of people that don't have many social contacts but would never pay anyone for only fans. Perhaps you need to have a special character trait to be able to use such services.
But while there are successful people on only fans with either more or less clothes on, the vast majority of creators probably sell their dignity for a few dollars.
Agreed that there is something fishy about these new pimps. I guess there are still the conventional pimps too, but they now call themselves manager.
This framing, "sell their dignity", is your moral judgement (coming from your cultural, religious, or some other) background.
I don't see it as any less dignified than any other work. You sell your labor to someone who pays you less than the value it produces.
Now, if you want to argue that median creators get payed only a tiny fraction of their time, and like Twitch/YouTube it's a losing game for most, then we're on the same page.
You are correct, my value judgements are very likely influenced by my cultural background and experience, as are yours.
I do live in a country where sex work is legal. There is still a darker sides to the trade. I think customers do lose even more dignity. Or someone who does sex work because it is "empowering" compared to someone that is forced into it.
> don't see it as any less dignified than any other work
You do not, and that is your moral judgement. Rationalizing earning money by any means necessary is a very slippery slope, and the discussion is much more nuanced than popular media would lead you to believe.
To the moral question, semi-related is a comment I heard about the idea that a person might raise a child for the purposes of having sex with the child when they reach some age. The idea behind this scenario is asking if such an activity or intent is moral, and if there are certain human relationships that are rich and complex and more positive by leaving the sex out? And if the answer is somehow self-evident or "just" cultural?
That depends on if you think your dignity is predicated on not having a buttplug in your ass, or not doing acts for money, or some combination of both. At the end (ha) of the day, a job is a job. You get to decide if you think it's demeaning or not.
The disturbing societal implications speak for themselves. Personally, I suspect a significant fraction of transactions on Only Fans or “influencer” platforms are money laundering or social engineering campaigns by deeply resourced actors. There may be a large number of clients that are bots making random subscriptions to keep the network alive and large enough to make moving targeted funds harder to observe.
A plausible scenario might be an FBI agent paying a confidential informant without creating an unexplained income stream. The FBI and friends disclosed spending around $0.5B on informants. The truth could be more. We don’t know what other agencies around the world spend. I imagine they aren’t putting cash in brown bags under park benches.
To clarify, in this scenario, the confidential informant would be a streamer or an influencer - a person that has a sizeable following, operates in public, and creates a lot of attention? And that there's a large network of such informants and none of them were compromised (had their true nature exposed in public)?
You would be surprised how many people pay for OF content. The novelty is that the clients are picked using mainstream social media. Most actually believe they talk with the influencer while in reality the “influencer” doesn’t even know where its content is distributed(not that she cares). Chatters and voice-overs are the norm.
I think it says something quite dark about our society as a whole that we have basically commoditised distress and are encouraging some people often themselves in dire circumstances to prey on others to the benefits of the middle men. I find these new pimps scarier than the old sort in that they pretend to have clean hands.