As I leave at my house on an overcast Tuesday morning to walk the dog, I’m approached by a neighbor cheerfully yelling down the street, “I hear you’ve got OnlyFans now!” I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
OnlyFans has a—how to say—reputation. Like many online platforms, it connects content creators with their audience. But OnlyFans is mostly known for one type of content: sex.
When friends and acquaintances hear that I—a 43-year-old father of two—created an OnlyFans account, they’re intrigued. When I explain that I only post content that is non-sexual and very safe for work, their next question is “Why?” In their minds, it’s clear that “having OnlyFans” means doing sexy things on the internet for money.
OnlyFans, a UK-based organization that made $658 million in pre-tax profits last year, wants to shake that image. For every student raising money by sharing nudes, there’s a healthy housewife uploading DIY tips or an aspiring musician posting her latest songs, at least if you go to the accounts highlighted on the company’s blog.
“Everybody’s dancing around the rest of social media, where it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re not supposed to show people your penis here and you’re not supposed to say crazy, wild shit,'” John Hastings, a 39-year-old Canadian comedian, tells me by phone from his home in Los Angeles. On OnlyFans though, he still has people sliding into his DMs just to say “I want to see your legs, I’m not here for jokes”.
Like all the safe-work creators I talk to, Hastings has a presence on many social networks, from Instagram to X to YouTube. OnlyFans’ audience will generally be smaller than on other sites, but followers are often more engaged and – importantly – should have a bank account linked to their profile ready to be opened.
“It’s definitely a different world compared to the people who are on my other social media platforms,” says Dudley Alexander, an R&B artist who releases music under the moniker Nevrmind.
Alexander, 33, joined OnlyFans in 2019 before the site’s profile grew as the Covid-19 pandemic pushed many previous IRL activities online. As such, he pioneered the safe-to-work OnlyFans scene and has amassed more than 67,000 likes on his page. (OnlyFans only shows the number of likes per user publicly; the number of followers, which is usually higher, is hidden.)
