OnlyFans and the coronavirus

Written by: Pieter de Jong

OnlyFans started in 2016 to give people the ability to pay a small sum to pay for content of their favourite content creators. Part of this sum goes to OnlyFans, part of it goes to the creator. Nowadays most people know OnlyFans for the sheer amount of sexworkers that are on the platform. Since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, the amount of people using OnlyFans, not only as users, but also as creators increased enormously. It’s Twitter followers have pretty much doubled since April.

OnlyFans via – Wikimedia Commons

Many people lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic and some of these people are moving to virtual sex work. According to OnlyFans they had a 75% subscription increase over March and April alone and about 200.000 people sign up for OnlyFans each day. Some of these sex workers are making over 100.000 a year, a very substantial sum. Subscribers on OnlyFans usually say they prefer the ‘authenticity’ of this amateur form of porn over the ‘professional’ porn. There is also a possibility to message and talk to the creator of your choice. This urge is said to have significantly increased since the pandemic has started.

It is however also said that the pandemic made many OnlyFans creators earn less, because many of their subscribers can no longer afford to pay for their content, or because the amount of creators significantly increased, therefore increasing competition. Recently BBC aired the documentary #Nudes4Sale, which looked into the fact that there are many underage people selling their content on OnlyFans as well, which is a terrible drawback to its many positives and should be properly looked into.

Besides the increase in use of OnlyFans, it’s also become way more popular on Social Media. A year ago, when I scrolled through my Twitter feed, I wouldn’t ever see anything about OnlyFans, nowadays, however, even though I only follow political, football and gaming communities, I get loads of OnlyFans links, photos and promotions. With this, I also feel like being open about sexuality on Social Media has become ware more prevalent. Content creators say the public opinion on their work is rapidly changing, although according to some, not quickly enough. The amount of linktr.ee links on platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitch that include OnlyFans links have seriously increased.

Besides this, it’s also becoming more mainstream. Former Disney Channel star Bella Thorne opened an OnlyFans account this year to, as she said herself, break the taboo of being a sex worker. She broke all records reeling in 2 million dollars within the first week. Instead of reaching her goal however, she got a lot of backlash from other OnlyFans creators because her photo’s weren’t what the ‘fans’ expected and due to the enormous amount of refunds people requested, pay-cap limits were set by OnlyFans, therefore depriving other users of their income (oops).

Bella Thorne via – Wikimedia Commons

I personally have used OnlyFans to subscribe to content creators in the past, although I don’t have any open subscriptions now, I enjoyed doing so a lot. I find the rise of OnlyFans to be a superb example of the more open look society has towards sexuality and showing sexuality, although it also has some problems considering technically everyone can see what you do, including people who should not be able to.

Would you dare to say if you were an OnlyFans user (not content creator 😊)?