OnlyFans, as the saying goes, is "having a moment." The platform, which allows people to subscribe to creators for personalised sexual content, played a major role in the recent seasons of Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Euphoria, generating a plethora of think pieces along the way.
But it’s a moment that has been ongoing since the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020, when a world trapped at home turned to OnlyFans to ease their loneliness. Still in the headlines six years later, journalist Leon Neyfakh and OnlyFans creator Gracie Canaan have teamed up for Audible podcast OnlyFantasy, a six-part investigation into the relationship between the site and the people who use it. (Ed. note: Audible podcasts are now available on Apple Podcasts with a subscription.)
Neyfakh and Canaan host the show together in a classic set-up, with Neyfakh functioning as the audience surrogate and Canaan as the old industry pro. OnlyFantasy is better for combining both of their perspectives, and the seamless transitioning between their points of view helps give the show a broader outlook, and a lot of propulsive forward momentum.
While Neyfakh and Canaan are always courteous and curious about the people they discuss, OnlyFantasy is not a judgement-free zone. Instead, the podcast interrogates judgement as it arises.
As the hosts take us on their journey, veteran podcaster Neyfakh is honest about when something strikes him as weird, incomprehensible, or wrong. He’s never rude, but he is certainly open about things that seem "off" to him. Neyfakh's honesty allows for self-examination or additional context, usually from Canaan or an interviewee. Altogether, it is a far more enriching experience than it might have been if Neyfakh had kept his mouth shut.
That warm and honest tone extends throughout the entirety of the series, as Neyfakh and Canaan try to understand what the many users are getting out of the popular website. Sometimes this question relates to practical things: earnings and tips; whether the extra business an agent can earn for a creator is worth their percentage. Many of the creators are surprisingly open about the exact figures they make, some of which are eye-watering.
Most of the exploration, however, is dedicated to what there is to be gained from OnlyFans psychologically and emotionally. When the site began growing during the long lonely days of the pandemic, many asked, "Why pay for their porn when there’s so much for free on the internet?" In OnlyFantasy, it’s clear that consumers seek than the sexy videos, and it’s the personal connection that many subscribers value above all. Not only are creators adept at marketing themselves, they are a large cohort of armchair detectives and psychologists dedicated to working out precisely what their subscribers want and why is integral to their success.
In one case, that connection proved literally lifesaving. During a video chat, a creator noticed that the man she was talking to had one testicle significantly larger than the other and urged him to get a doctor to check it out. It was cancer. Thanks to her, it was caught before it became deadly. That’s a rather extreme example, but like a lot of OnlyFans interactions, it’s the kind of service that could not be provided by regular old internet porn.
While the podcast leans positive in its coverage, that doesn’t mean it’s simply an OnlyFans commercial. One major critique is over the use of employees to interact with clients. Although personal connection is the site’s USP, many creators hire "chatters" to talk with subscribers in their stead. OnlyFantasy talks to men hurt by that betrayal, often conned out of vast sums of money by anonymous salespeople employed to extricate as much as possible. On the other side are creators who are often bombarded with abusive messages; Canaan shares her firsthand experience of the vitriol she’s received.
In a broader sense, there’s the acknowledgement of how messed up it is that it does make a lot of financial sense for young women to become OnlyFans models rather than pursue a more "respectable" profession, considering how ravaged the job market is and how much money there is to be made on the website. It’s not ideal, but considering the state of the world, there’s a pragmatism to the choice which is understandable.
OnlyFantasy doesn’t address every angle of the OnlyFans experience – though there is a lot of talk around the many wives who’ve discovered that their husbands are subscribers, Neyfakh and Canaan don’t interview any. That decision undoubtedly made it easier for the podcast to retain its largely positive outlook. Additionally, the show sticks to discussing straight female creators and straight male subscribers. While that is the majority dynamic on the website, it would still have been interesting to hear a little about the lives of LGBT OnlyFans users.
Nevertheless, though it’s not totally exhaustive, OnlyFantasy covers a lot of both logistical and emotional ground within its six episodes, and thanks to the charming rapport of Neyfakh and Canaan, it does so in an engaging, enlightening style.
