OnlyFans Isn't Exploitative. Hollywood, YouTube, Cultureconomy Is.

OF, C4S, and MV are designed to benefit their creators. YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram are designed to exploit their creators.

I have a hard time putting an article behind a paywall on Substack. We view Substack as a platform for “writing,” and we writers and artists have been trained to view money as dirty.

Shouldn’t we be writing for the “love” of writing? Is our writing really worth that much? The editor needs to see a full manuscript before they can decide whether they want the piece. Take this job for the “exposure”…

But love of writing can’t buy food. Lucky for us who have been brought up in this culture, many of us are the children of wealthy parents and grandparents, so we have a way to play as writers, filmmakers, documentarians, and other creative fields for a while without worrying about survival. The culture of artists producing for free is exclusionary. The practice of unpaid internships in DC and NYC policy and media companies results in those industries excluding the working class.

I was listening to Dominatrix Eva Oh’s #teakink podcast May 27th episode with Meghan Prescott. Prescott talked about how, after her early breakout with Skins, she struggled, having to do stripping, and only began to make enough money to afford rent after launching her OnlyFans. (I don’t know if Substack allows links to OF, so I link to her LinkTree where you can find it—the bans/suppressions on many websites of linking to OF, et al, is another way mainstream social media exploits artists and creators.) OnlyFans was the thing that allowed her to focus on writing and acting.

Consider the difference between YouTube and MV. YouTube treats you like the unpaid intern.

OnlyFans and other websites associated with adult content are viewed as exploitative by Fox News-guesting influencers with husbands who look at them like this.

But what is more exploitative: the platform that allows you to get paid for your work or the platform(s) that use you and your work for free?

OnlyFans is viewed by the culture as a platform for NSFW content, but it hosts a variety of content, including comedy and lifestyle influencers. Nudity and AVs and all are, of course, to be celebrated here at this erotic newsletter, but the misunderstanding about what OnlyFans is ought to be corrected.

The most important thing about OnlyFans, Clips4Sale, and ManyVids is that they allow creators to get paid. I should know. I just launched on these platforms. (Find previews of my kinky comedy on Instagram.)