The Darkside of OnlyFans: How OnlyFans Hijacked the Souls of Men and Women in a Few Years

I was lying in bed with a woman I had recently started dating, enjoying the moment’s intimacy. Suddenly, she rolled over timidly and began to speak slowly.

“Andrew, um, I have something to tell you,” she spoke softly. “I haven’t been completely honest about what I do, but I’m making about $30,000 a month doing this thing my friends told me about.”

I was stunned. Thirty thousand dollars a month? Doing what, exactly?

As she started to explain, I felt a knot forming in my stomach. It was an uncomfortable feeling, one that left me feeling vulnerable and exposed. She was using a platform that was notorious for its explicit content – OnlyFans.

To say that I was taken aback would be an understatement. I had heard of OnlyFans before, of course, but I had always dismissed it as little more than a glorified Patreon with generous community guidelines around semi-nude content like Playboy. But as she continued to speak, I realized that I had been wrong. Very wrong.

She told me that a few of her friends were making as much as $50,000 a month on the platform. One woman she knows even made over a million dollars last year.

The sheer amount of fast money being made was mind-boggling, but it wasn’t just the income that shocked me. It was the fact that these women were making it by selling explicit photos and videos of themselves online.

I stared at my date with a mix of disbelief and intrigue. She was not the kind of woman I would have thought of as an OnlyFans model. She had a college degree, grew up in an upper-middle-class family, and seemed to have it all together. But as she spoke about her secret life as an OnlyFans model, I couldn’t help but wonder what else I didn’t know about her.

My mind raced with questions. How did she get into this line of work? Was she in it for the money or was there something else driving her? Does her family know? Should I continue to date her?

As the night wore on, I couldn’t help but feel drawn into this strange, secret world. I wanted to know more, to understand the motivations of these OnlyFans models. I gave up any attempt to sleep and started searching for answers, delving deep into the world of OnlyFans.

As I read more and more about OnlyFans, I found myself feeling a range of emotions. I was intrigued, fascinated, and even a bit turned on. But I was also disturbed, disgusted, and deeply worried about what this all means for the future.

The explicit content and revelations about the platform’s inner workings were shocking, and I couldn’t help but feel like I had stumbled upon something dark and sinister that was quietly brewing before our eyes and no one was paying attention. I felt compelled to share what I found.

Viewer discretion is advised. The following text may leave you feeling angry, confused, and deeply disturbed. But it is a story that needs to be told.

What is OnlyFans and How Does it Work?

Before we dive into the dark underbelly of my research––and my personal experience dating multiple OnlyFans creators over the last year––we need to first establish what OnlyFans really is and how it works.

On the surface, OnlyFans is a tech-driven social media site designed to put creators first.

Similar to Patreon, OnlyFans gives creators the opportunity to offer paid content to their fans in exchange for a monthly fee and tips.

Additionally, creators can offer private pay-per-view content through direct messages.

On the surface, this all seems innocuous enough.

With big players like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook pocketing most (or all) of the profits generated by creators’ hard work, a platform like OnlyFans seems to be the market’s natural response to putting creators in the driver’s seat.

But there are a few unsettling differences that set OnlyFans apart.

Nudity and explicit sexual content is not only allowed, it’s the bedrock of the platform. In fact, the new owner of OnlyFans is a notorious porn mogul

Creators can request “tips” from users to unlock Pay Per View content (nudes, sex tapes, any type of shenanigan you can imagine)
Direct contact with creators through direct messages and live streams where the response rate is nearly 98% from the creator (unheard of on any social platform)

But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

What really sets Only Fans apart is the economic model underpinning the platform.

Inside OnlyFans: The Billion-Dollar Business Model Revealed

Since its inception in 2016, OnlyFans has grown at a breakneck speed.

As of this writing, according to OnlyFans’s website, they have:

170,000,000 registered users (more than half the U.S population)
1,500,000 registered creators
200 employees
And payouts to creators exceeding five billion dollars annually

Considering that OnlyFans pays out a hefty 80% of their earnings to creators, this means the company generates in excess of $1.25 billion a year in gross profit.

And when you consider the low overhead costs––if each of their 200 employees earned $100,000 a year, that’s less than $20 million in employee costs––their economic model is one of the most profitable in the world today.

If we compare this with a household app like the video conference platform Zoom, the power of the OnlyFans business model becomes startling.

As of this writing, Zoom has:

300 million daily active users (more than double that of OnlyFans)
8,484 employees
Annual revenue of $4.1 billion

As a publicly traded company, we know that Zoom’s profits in 2022 totalled $1.37 billion.

Think about that for a minute. Zoom is a household name with nearly double the number of users as OnlyFans. They have 41x more employees.

They offer a valuable service that is necessary to conduct business in the modern economy.

And yet…

OnlyFans is set to surpass their profits in 2023 with far fewer employees.

When you look at the full story of what’s going on, the implications are as profound as they are disturbing.

Not only is OnlyFans one of only 1,200 unicorn companies––a privately owned business with a billion plus valuation––on the planet.

But its operations are so lean that it’s able to generate profits on par with some of the biggest and most disruptive tech startups in all of human history.

Although one can’t help but to admire such a profitable business model, these facts all beg one important question.

How Is OnlyFans Thriving in a World of Free Adult Content?

As I started to dive deeper into the world of OnlyFans, a single question grew in my mind.

Why on earth would someone pay for adult content when it’s freely available with the click of a button?

After all, it’s been estimated that nearly 25% of all content on the internet is pornographic in nature. And most of that content is free.

Even after their recent scandal, pornhub still hosts more than 3 million videos on their site. With hundreds more being added each day.

Meaning that, even if they wanted to, no man could watch every video that exists online in a lifetime.

So why pay for sexual content from creators on OnlyFans? Especially considering that many of those creators only do semi-nude images and refuse to upload sex videos.

And even when they do, it’s often a shaky 18-second smartphone clip that doesn’t get the job done.

There’s no shortage of porn. Yet the difference of women on OnlyFans is they are your average “girl next door” who did well in school, played sports, and has a college degree or professional career underway.

She’s not the drug addled, rundown pornstar in her last years holding on for dear life.

So when you can see hot girls doing anything that you want to see on any free adult site… Why pay money to see a few amateur nudes?

The further I went into this rabbit hole, the more eye opening the picture became.

1. The “Normalization Effect” Creating a Sense of Safety

One of the first things I noticed about OnlyFans is the general lack of stigmatization surrounding the platform.

Afterall, it was originally designed as a social media site. And that’s exactly what it feels and looks like.

From the moment you land on the bright homepage, the entire experience feels wholesome and safe. Like a big tech company in Silicon Valley is behind it all.

Compared to a site like Pornhub, where pop up ads for male enhancement pills and wildly explicit short clips fill the margins of every page––and the difference is night and day.

For many men, their experience on OnlyFans feels similar to scrolling through Instagram or Twitter.

They aren’t really watching porn, right? They’re just scrolling through “content” from some of their favorite “creators.” And besides… they’re supporting someone they like directly or may even know.

It’s not that big of a deal right?

And this is where the second distinction with OnlyFans comes into play.

2. The Inner World of Attractive Women

Unlike run-of-the-mill porn which often feels overproduced and frankly, cheesy. OnlyFans feels like “real life.”

You’re getting to peek into the inner world of a young attractive woman through her own phone. You get to see what her daily life is like. Almost like she gave you her phone and gave you free reign to swipe through her photos.

It’s the new porn, but it doesn’t feel like porn. It’s more real, more authentic, and seemingly, more genuine. Often the content is shot at her actual home in her real bed with an amateur quality that makes it feel like a social media site.

And this is where things start to get interesting.

The rise of porn removed all barriers to entry for access to hot naked women.

Decades ago, the only way to see an attractive woman naked was through seduction (or prison time for breaking laws).

But today, the average man will see more naked women by Monday afternoon than his ancestors… no scratch that, even his grandfather saw in their entire lives.

OnlyFans takes this a step further. Even just ten years ago, for a man to get an “inside look” at the life of an attractive woman, he had to date that woman.

This required effort, strategy, resources, countless rejections, social skills, and access (going out into the world and meeting these women through either skills or his network).

OnlyFans changed this dynamic in the same way that film and later the internet changed access to nudity.

With the rise of OnlyFans, men can get a behind-the-scenes look at an attractive woman’s life from anywhere in the world at any time. Pull out the phone. Open app. Scroll. Enjoy.

It provides an artificial sense of connection that will only increase with time.

But it gets even darker.

Because OnlyFans doesn’t just give men a glimpse into these women’s day to day world, it gives them the ability––or rather the illusion––to join them in that world.

3. The Fantasy of Dream Women: How It Impacts Isolated Men

The biggest distinction between OnlyFans and traditional porn is the ability for fans and creators to interact in real time.

And that’s where this gets interesting.

The average man on popular social media apps like Facebook, Instagram and even dating apps experiences one of two things when he attempts to reach out to an attractive woman:

Rejection
Nothing

Most men haven’t developed the skills necessary to stand out and attract the attention of an attractive or high quality woman.

And many of them have rarely, if ever, received positive responses from attractive women in person or online throughout their entire lives

But with OnlyFans, not only can you get a response––for the right price––but you can get an enthusiastic and positive emotional response which many men have never experienced before.

You aren’t required to develop yourself or grow as a man. You don’t need to be highly successful, in your prime age, to be physically attractive, interesting or witty.

You simply need to pay $5 – $30 a month and women you could never imagine approaching in the real world will carry on conversations with you virtually.

Whether you want to hear about her day, send or receive naked pictures, or share your darkest fantasies, she’ll gladly engage with you… for a fee. And all of this just seems too good to be true right?

Well there’s an eye popping catch to all this…

The Wo-Man Behind the Curtain

What I discovered after dating and talking with multiple OnlyFans models is that most creators have a dirty secret that they can’t share with you.

So secret that it could break down their entire profit model.

And this is especially true for the more popular creators with hundreds or even thousands of fans.

Their dirty secret?

Even though they charge their fan base high fees for access to DMs, “personal” nudes, and ratings…

None of the creators I met manage their own messages.

Almost every popular creator works with a 3rd party talent agency that handles ALL of her communication and promotions.

She works a few hours a month doing scheduled photoshoots, the photographer uploads her content to the cloud, then the agency rolls up their sleeves and starts hustling her fans.

The model may only log into her OnlyFans account to check her daily revenues then off she goes to Tulum, Miami or yet another EDM festival.

A whole new niche of talent agencies has been created where the model outsources their Onlyfans page to marketing agencies for a percentage of their earnings.

Meaning that men who are paying to connect with their favorite creator are often carrying on lewd sexual conversations with men in a foreign country who are copy pasting messages from a library with keyboard shortcuts… and simultaneously carrying on the exact same conversation with dozens of other men.

Their sole aim is to engage with the user in the messages and comments, develop a connection quickly and extract as much money out of the user as possible with private pay per view content.

Afterall, if the model earns more, the agency earns more.

What’s crazy is that some men even know this. Yet they decide to feign ignorance and continue engaging on the platform.

Think about it…

Most people struggle to respond to all of the emails, DMs, text messages, and phone calls they get from colleagues, family, friends, and employers. People who they either have a deep relationship with or who pay their salary and a living.

And yet men expect these OnlyFans models––who always seem to be traveling the world and going on wild luxury adventures––to make the time to somehow respond to them instantly out of the thousands of other fans paying her every month?

It doesn’t make sense. And intuitively, most men know this.

Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t respond to all of the messages she receives on a daily basis.

Yet despite this knowledge, many men continue to engage with “her” for one simple reason:

It provides them with the illusion of connection and intimacy.

Two things that modern men are so desperate for, they’ll take it wherever they can get it––even when they know it’s not the real thing.

And can we really blame them?

Men are struggling more than ever before in their relationships.

According to a social survey published by the Washington Post in 2019, nearly 28% of men under the age of 30 haven’t had sex in the last year.

Pile on top of that the stark decline in marriage rates (and the increase in divorces), the increasing rates of obesity and sexual dysfunction (and the anxiety that accompany them), and the fact that nearly 50% of men feel isolated and 15% claim they have “no friends at all”…

And it’s no wonder men are resorting to fake virtual connections as a temporary escape from their connectionless reality.

Because the brutal truth is this:

We live in a society where men aren’t taught how to increase their value and status and show up as the type of man that attractive women are drawn to.

Which means that if they want to develop the skills required to have success “in real life,” the path in front of them is long, painful, and filled with rejection, failure, and frustration.

Given the option between the high-effort path of personal development, social skill development, rejection, experimentation, and doing the real work required to grow as an attractive male…

Or the path of zero effort to experience an artificial connection with quality women that few men could ever hope to attract.

Millions of men select the latter and are paying good money for it. Ultimately, the biggest difference between porn and OnlyFans is this:

Porn offers a quick pleasure-filled release whereas OnlyFans offers the illusion of connection, intimacy, and pleasure from your dream girl next door without any risk of rejection found in real life.

It stacks multiple human needs on top of one another and delivers them in an artificial way from your boy Duy Phuong in Vietnam, the outsourced master of the keyboard shortcuts and sexting extraordinaire.

It’s the perfect storm for an increasingly isolated and lonely male population with easy access to virtual connections. It’s no confidence that Onlyfans saw a huge growth during the pandemic.

The timing couldn’t be more perfect for a site like this to enter the market.

Blending together sex, intimacy, socialization, connection, and validation into a single place––all for a low monthly fee.

And the most interesting part of all?

It’s baked into pre-existing daily habits that make it inescapable from the naked eye.

The Brilliance and Danger of OnlyFans Business Model on Men

Unlike other major platforms, OnlyFans has virtually no customer acquisition costs.

In a “normal” business, you have to spend a meteoric load of money––the actual technical term used by accountants––to acquire new customers.

To make things even more challenging, you often acquire these customers at a loss with hopes that they will generate profits over their lifetime.

Meaning you’ll spend $50 to $100 to get a customer who only pays you $30 at the point of sale.

But with OnlyFans?

The creators and mostly the 3rd party talent agencies do all of the heavy lifting for them.

By leveraging free platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, Tinder, Bumble, Pinterest, and YouTube (along with all the dating apps), creators share their lives to capture attention and acquire new subscribers for their OnlyFans channel––and by extension, new customers for the platform.

And they’re acquiring a lot of new customers.

According to influencermarketinghub.com and earthweb.com, OnlyFans has more than 500,000 new user sign ups each day and 5,000 new creators joining the race daily.

And these numbers are only increasing quarter over quarter.

From here, the situation turns exceedingly dangerous.

The average American spends 2 hours and 31 minutes on social media each day.

It’s a habit that’s become oddly normalized and ingrained in our culture.

So much so that it’s almost weird to not be on social media.

And creators exploit this habit to draw in a never-ending stream of new customers (and ensure that their current subscribers stay for as long as possible).

They use these free accounts to post semi nude content that barely passes the photo guidelines which remind their subscribers that there’s exclusive new content just a click away.

You go to your favorite social media channel to find funny content, catch up with friends, and enjoy a few minutes of mindless entertainment.

And as soon as you do, you see a semi nude 19 year old girl dressed up as your favorite superhero holding a special “toy” in one hand winking at you.

How on earth does a lonely guy who yearns for female intimacy not click?

Pretty soon, the cycle becomes unstoppable.

This business model preys on two unique psychological mechanisms that keep men unconsciously trapped in a vicious cycle.

The first is something called “Environmental Design.”

Simply put, your environment influences your behavior in ways that you few people realize or understand.

Just to give you an example of what I mean:

In Europe, simply changing the form people received when getting their driver’s license increased people who decided to be organ donors by 21X
If you eat on a dark green plate, you’ll subconsciously eat 30% more vegetables than you would if you ate on a white plate
Reducing the size of your plates from 10” to 8” reduces the number of calories you consume by 20%

Many of the decisions you make throughout the day happen by default, not design.

Subconsciously, you’re simply responding to your environment rather than making a conscious decision.

And because most of us have our phones on us at all times and default to scrolling social media the moment that we’re bored or uncomfortable…

This creates a situation where we’re always just one click away from an endless stream of amateur porn on OnlyFans.

Even if you didn’t open your phone because you actively wanted to engage on Onlyfans, environmental design pushes you toward the platform––and leaves you “cleaning up” after yourself 10-minutes later wondering what the hell happened.

The second mechanism at play is something psychologists refer to as habit stacking.

Anytime someone wants to build a new habit, coaches and psychologists will encourage them to “stack” the new habit on top of a habit that already exists.

Psychologically, the pre-existing habit (going on social media) serves as a “trigger” for the new habit (talk to hotties on OnlyFans).

And OnlyFans has leveraged this psychological tool to increase viewership, new subscriptions and profits.

Afterall OnlyFans has become a top 41 website out of millions of websites in the United States under our radar.

Sure, from a business standpoint, their model is brilliant.

By using the combination of a creator-driven acquisition model leveraging free social and dating app channels as their core traffic source, they have access to a nearly limitless pool of new customers.

But from the standpoint of the male consumer?

It creates a dangerous dopaminergic flywheel that can cause irreparable harm.

How Can Men Reclaim their Power in an Artificial Pleasure Seeking Society?

Everything we’ve discussed so far tells me two things:

First, men are hurting.

They’re lonely, displaced, and unable to get their needs met physically and emotionally.

Shit is not working.

They aren’t happy with their purpose, their relationships, their social life, or their sex life.

Second, it tells me that it’s time for men to regain their POWER.

Not their power OVER women.

But power over themselves. Their futures. And their lives.

If reading this article has made you angry… GOOD.

If it makes you feel like billion dollar companies are exploiting your psychology and playing mind games to extract every dollar out of you––while leaving you worse off… GOOD.

If you’re feeling pissed off that many women on OnlyFans have few if any valuable skills are able to earn 10-30X more than you after all the work you’ve put into developing your skills and education…GOOD.

My invitation to you is to embrace that anger. To use it. To harness it in a healthy way to break free from the shackles of vices, instant gratification, and artificial connection.

And CREATE the life you’ve always wanted to live dammit!

The truth is…

Men need to make a change NOW.

As technology continues to advance, it will only get worse from here. As companies invest more and more money into creating addictive experiences engineered to prey on your biological desires, more and more men will lose decades of their life to distraction and virtual substitutes for natural human needs.

It’s up to us to wake up, short circuit this system and put an end to it now.

And it starts by accepting one immutable truth:

If you could choose between being romantic with a woman in the real world who was beautiful, sexual, intelligent, and brought immense value to your life…

Or having a digital “girlfriend” (that’s likely a dude overseas in his boxers)

… We all know that you would select the former.

So why settle for anything else?

Why accept the substitute when you can have the real thing?

The moment you accept that OnlyFans isn’t offering real connection, real intimacy, or anything that’s real at all––except that it’s taking your money, time and attention––that’s the moment you begin to reclaim your power.

OnlyFans is to sex, intimacy, and relationships what Call of Duty is to real urban combat.

It’s fake!

Commit yourself to reality, the truth of your life. Live your life in front of your own two eyes, not through a screen.

Realize that these OnlyFans models don’t care about you, your happiness or your future. If she saw you in person, she would not stop to talk to you in real life, rather she would be annoyed or even scared of you and quickly leave.

She’ll walk past you no differently than a homeless person, so stop giving so much of your finite time, energy, and money to them!

OnlyFans is nothing more than an artificial substitute for what men crave: Connection, intimacy and pleasure.

And even though the platform comes with a high cost with your credit card plugged in, it offers no long term reward.

Until you’re willing to admit this to yourself, nothing can change.

But once you face the facts, the path forward is simple:

1. Purge Your Social Media Triggers Immediately

If you currently follow any social media “models” that you have zero intention of ever following up with––or even suggestive accounts that aren’t linked to OnlyFans––remove them.

If she would not respond to you, then unfollow.

Remove everything that triggers you to see naked women.

From “men’s interest” pages (that are really just softcore porn) to models to creators.

Unfollow all of them.

Better yet?

Take a break from social media altogether.

Remove the apps from your phone. Install a website blocking software. Get rid of the damn thing for 30-days and focus all of the time, energy and attention you would have wasted gawking at models to go out and build your life.

2. Focus on Action Over Spectation

Lasting fulfillment––not just pleasure––is earned, not given.

It’s something we must consciously achieve for ourselves by becoming creators and action takers in the world.

Fulfillment can never come from consumption alone and my friends, OnlyFans is all consumption.

It must arise from using your unique abilities and creativity to build things in the real world.

Once you’ve purged the triggers and vices, you must replace them with something more joyful (or you’ll fall right back into the old patterns and behaviors).

This doesn’t mean you need to start a business or write the next great American novel.

Simply that you need to stop living on autopilot, become a creator in the real world and an active player in the game of your life.

Pick a problem in your life that you want to solve, a skill you want to develop, or something that you want to learn and go do it.

If you reinvest the 2 hours a day you would have spent on social media and OnlyFans into your real life, the results can compound very quickly.

And as you begin to engage in the real world, explore your curiosities, and develop new skills, the third and final step of the path will reveal itself to you:

3. Find a Purpose Where You Lose Track of Time

Have a mission that supersedes artificial connections and take small actions to build momentum.

Your purpose doesn’t have to be grand or world-changing. Often, in the beginning it starts out simple and small.

Exploring the world traveling
Learning new skills and hobbies
Reconnecting with the people in your life
Fun 30 day challenges (no porn, cold showers, yoga)
Becoming physically fit
Becoming world-class at what you do

But over time as you start to build momentum, surround yourself with new people doing the same, your purpose will morph and grow as you grow.

When I started Knowledge for Men I didn’t have a mission to help 1,000,000 men become fully grounded and live their dream life and relationship.

I just wanted to start a cool podcast where I could share what I thought was interesting about personal development and learn from people who’ve been on incredible journeys in life.

But as I took action and accepted my role as a creator, my purpose started to grow bigger.

And today, I’m living a life on fire. Doing work that I love. Fulfilling a purpose I believe in. And creating more and more every day.

The ugly truth is this:

Of the millions of men who will read this, less than 1% will be willing to take action on the steps I just outlined.

The masses will choose to do what is comfortable and pleasurable. To do everything in their power to live effortless and pain free lives.

But as a result of this decision, they will experience the deepest pain a human can experience later in life.

The pain of regret.

If you’re in the 1% who aren’t content to sit on the sidelines…settling for artificial connection and a life of quiet desperation.

I can help.

I’ve put together a valuable 50 minute video training for men who are ready to become the strongest versions of themselves and reach their full potential.

And inside of this experience, you’ll discover the simple path to becoming a grounded man and creating the life and relationship you’ve always wanted.

Click here to start the journey and set yourself free.