>> You've been writing recently about Bella Thorne and OnlyFans and the sort of-
>> Yes. >> Uproar that came about as a result of her
work there and some of the stuff that she's announced for the future for people who might
not have been following this. Who's Bella Thorne, what is OnlyFans, why is all of this
such a big story?
>> Okay, so, a short version of a long story that spans the years of Bella Thorne's career
is that she's a former Disney actress. She did that career trajectory where she turned
and became super sexy in adulthood, she posts a lot of sexy selfies, she does a lot of controversial
things.
And so she joined OnlyFans which is a subscription platform for content creators. Where they
can charge for videos or photos, things of that nature. And because it allows pornographic
material on OnlyFans, it's obviously very quickly become a hub for sex workers who are
doing custom videos, custom pictures.
They have fans, they promote themselves online. They work really hard to maintain an online
presence so that they can route people to the OnlyFans. Where they're getting money,
a revenue stream from the content that they're posting. So, Bella Thorne, this actress who's
always kind of in the mix, a household name, decided she was going to join OnlyFans.
She broke a couple records as soon as she did it, she made a million dollars in the
first the day. And the first week she had $2 million, and she was charging $200 for
a private photo that she swore would be nude, they weren't nude. She never got nude, unlike
a lot of other creators on the platform, she just was posting lingerie.
And so OnlyFans had to issue a bunch of refunds for people who thought that they were getting
the full Bella Thorne and then they didn't. And so then, they instituted all of these
caps and now people who've been using this platform to create and distribute for a long
time are realizing that instead of getting their payments in a week, they're looking
at 21 to 30 days get their payments back.
>> Wow. >> Now there's caps on how much they can make
on individual interactions with the people who subscribe for them and the people who
pay for different photos. Now, they're seeing these caps and they're seeing all of this
negative publicity and Bella Thorne apologized. But the damage appears to be done.
OnlyFans says that the caps aren't in response to what she did. But it's a little coincidental
that it would happen after they're issuing all these refunds because she never got naked.
>> And so also, generally OnlyFans is fairly siloed off from other social media sites.
On Instagram in particular, if you have an account on Instagram you can't advertise that
you have an OnlyFans as well.
But she was able to get around that, right? >> Sure, I mean, she's a huge household name,
and in her apology she even referenced that. She said that she was really trying to destigmatize
OnlyFans, destigmatize sex, as she said, because she has this wide appeal. She is a household
name and a mainstream voice as she said.
But that also affords her a lot of of luxuries that other creators do not have. There are
people who get fired from their day jobs because they have an OnlyFans that they're using to
supplement their income. Teachers get fired for having an OnlyFans, Bella Thorne isn't
getting fired from anything.
She can skirt a lot of different rules just because of who she is. And who she is, is
why it's unfair In the minds of the sex workers who've been using that platform for her to
have joined up and marshalled her millions of followers over on to that account.
And just used her heavy influence to kind of blow up the entire platform.
>> Yeah, and to make far more money in a short period of time than they probably can when
they're presumably doing what they actually advertise. And so she said that she was attempting
to destigmatize it to sort of do something that would benefit the creators on there.
What is the reaction been like for people who, this is not a thing that they dabble
in for a week to promote something, or whatever, this is their life, how do they feel about
all this? >> Sure, so far reactions are still extremely
negative, she said she's meeting the people at OnlyFans, is she going to?
How will she prove that she did that, because they're still putting out statements saying
that the cap had nothing to do with her. But she's been seeing a lot of people who are
outright angry with her, sex workers, people on the platform. There were trending topics,
I've seen a number of people posting directly to their Instagram stories about this.
A real awareness raising campaign about why they see this as being unfair. But then there's
also other kinds of blowback for her, too. The director that she said she was working
with on a documentary that would explore why and how she created her account, put out a
statement and was like, yeah, that's not true.
We're not working on a documentary like that, I did not tell her to make this account. And
in fact, I told her that if she did make an account, I would have nothing to do with it
and I wanted her to check in with sex workers first. So she's getting distance from all
the professionals who should be backing her up or who she would need to back her up in
this instance.
And she's getting a lot of rage from everybody else, and it's unclear if and when those meetings
at OnlyFans will actually be taking place. >> Wow, yeah, no, I can imagine why they'd
be frustrated. It's one thing perhaps for Bella Thorne to pop in and make a few million
dollars.
But if all of a sudden that's a thing that non-sex workers do, that they have these huge
followings. They come in, they deceive their fans, they make a few million dollars. I assume
if you've been grinding out an income on that, that's gonna be scary, that potential future.
>> Sure, and risking your day job to meet that end and going as far as to post on your
social media to raise awareness of your OnlyFans. And who knows, risk alienation from your family,
risk a lot of violence. I mean the kinds of people who are on there could be really vulnerable,
you never know what kind of family you're going to entice.
You never know if one day, you're going to get somebody who's dangerous. They go through
so much to put that content out there, that she just cannot deal with because of who she
is. >> Yeah, well it's great reporting, we'll
see what ends up happening if that documentary does get off the ground.
If this controversy leads to her having a little bit more input and involvement in the
actual people that she says she's doing this to benefit. But we really appreciate your
work, as always, Lindsey, thank you for joining us.
>> Sure, all right, have a good day. >> You too.