“Make your influence pay,” says the tagline of OnlyFans. And that’s precisely what the influencers on the platform are doing. OnlyFans allow its content creators to put their content behind a paywall. People would not be able to access them unless they pay for a monthly subscription. The fee ranges from $5 to $50, and OnlyFans charges 20% on all transactions.
Unless you are new on the internet, you would know what the most popular type of content on OnlyFans is. To paint a picture, creators like Belle Delphine often post photos and videos of themselves playing with sex toys. Even Teen Wolf star Tyler Posey dropped some nudes on the platform. As you can tell, content that is erotic or sexual is thriving on OnlyFans. It is the most profitable.
NSFW content is what put Onlyfans on the map. It is the platform’s biggest strength, yet, also its biggest weakness.
How OnlyFans Came To Be
A UK news website dubbed OnlyFans creator Timothy Stokely the “King of Homemade Porn.” It is a very fitting title. While OnlyFans is his most successful project, it is the first time he has tried to penetrate the adult entertainment industry.
In 2011, he founded a website called GlamWorship. GlamWorship.com is a fetish website. Stokely got the idea while browsing Reddit. He realized that this type of service is underserved despite its appeal. And thus, he launched GlamWorship.
Then, in 2013, Stokely founded Customs4U. In a way, you can say that this is OnlyFans’ beta version. On this platform, viewers can request made-to-order content from the adult performer. Basically, it allows men to become their own porn directors.
Finally, in 2016, Stokely founded OnlyFans. He heard adult performers were secretly selling custom-made porn. They use the social media platform Instagram to promote their content. However, Instagram does permit neither content that has nudity nor content that is pornographic in nature. Therefore, the process of sexual content selling was too lengthy and inconvenient.
Stokely thought the situation could be improved. He thought we could streamline the process by introducing a social media platform that does not shy away from sexual content. To access these photos and videos the entertainers post, fans would be required to pay a subscription fee.
Timothy Stokely felt very optimistic about it. So, he relayed his idea to his father, Guy Stokely. Imagine having a conversation like that with your son or father. That would be a little weird, right? But not to them. It seems that for Stokelys, no matter the subject, business is business. As long as there is money to be made, they are open to conversations.
However, apparently, Guy Stokely was not pleased with the outcomes of Tim’s past ventures. So when Tim told him about OnlyFans, he said to him, “This is going to be the last one.” He let Tim and his brother Thomas, who Tim brought along for the project, £10,000 or US$13,271.96. Thankfully, OnlyFans succeeded and even exceeded their expectations.
Thomas became OnlyFans’ chief operating officer while Guy became its director and head of finance. Their family held total ownership of OnlyFans until 2018. Two years after its launch, Ukrainian-American businessman Leonid Radvinsky acquired 75% of OnlyFans. Leonid Radvinsky is also the owner of MyFreeCams, which is one of the world’s largest webcamming sites. With him as the new director of OnlyFans, the platform became even more focused on adult content.
OnlyFans’ Massive Success
In the past, webcam sites and porn sites were the only online platforms mentioned in conversations about sex work. But now, OnlyFans has quickly become a staple in these discussions.
In 2020, OnlyFans reportedly grew over 500%. The global health crisis contributed to this largely as people stuck at their homes needed means to satisfy their sexual desires.
Multiple reports quote OnlyFans CEO Tim Stokely saying that the platform averages 500,000 per day. Also, Forbes reports that in August 2021, OnlyFans had 150 million users. Moreover, it has 1.6 million content creators, with 7,000 – 8,000 new creators joining each day.
It’s apparent that people who want to see sexual content or earn from them are flocking OnlyFans. Indeed, it has revolutionized the online sex industry.
The Catastrophe That Almost Hit OnlyFans
Many people thought sexual content is the only type of content on OnlyFans. This is a common misconception. There are, in fact, content creators on OnlyFans that do not post videos of themselves doing strip teases or having sex with sex dolls. Take Floyd Mayweather and Cardi B, for example. They use the platform to connect with their fans. With OnlyFans, they allow their paying fans to have exclusive access to never-before-seen content or sneak peeks at their daily lives.
OnlyFans planned to shift its focus on these types of content. On August 19, 2021, it officially announced that starting from October 1, it will ban sexual content.
Of course, there is a reason behind OnlyFans’ decision to remove the website’s primary moneymaker. Tim Stokely told Financial Times that the withdrawn support from banks prompted them to make this move. We all know how much banks and credit card companies like being associated with companies in the sex industry. They don’t. So to win them back and attract new investors, OnlyFans decided to ban pornographic content.
Unsurprisingly, the decision was met by widespread backlash from both creators and consumers.
Insert here the meme where Star Wars’ Obi-Wan Kenobi says, “You were supposed to destroy them, not join them!” OnlyFans was created to provide a platform that is sex worker-friendly. So this decision really contradicts its mission. Therefore, the users’ reaction is justified.
Because of the six days of receiving nothing but negative feedback, OnlyFans announced that it is reversing the decision. It says that sexual content would be allowed on the platform indefinitely.
However, this did not reassure creators. They lost subscribers amid the confusion, says content creator Trapcry. He also says that OnlyFans did the ban reversal not for the content creators but for the sake of its own pockets. Another creator in the pseudonym of Boarlord believes it will not be long before OnlyFans announces that it wants to ban adult content again.
OnlyFans avoided catastrophe, but the damage has been done. It made the creators and consumers on the platform less trusting of its handlers. And for any company, that will always have a detrimental effect.
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