27 May OnlyFans management agencies (Part 2)
Posted
in Industry Knowledge
In my previous piece, we went over what to look out for when considering a management agency and the predatory tactics they use to get you signed up.
Once you’re locked in with them, they’ll take over your social media and remove anything that directs to or mentions something other than the OnlyFans account they’re in control of. You’ll get a list of content to give them in intervals, social media stuff that will get clicks until it gets you banned, and NSFW content made to fake live sexting and custom videos. If they get a custom request they can’t fake off-hand, they’ll take a payment in an amount they choose without consulting you and give you the order after the fact. One creator I spoke with said they took a fisting custom (which is against OnlyFans ToS) for $80 without her consent. After OnlyFans commission and the agency fees, she would have gotten about $25 while still being taxed on the full amount, essentially meaning she would net absolutely nothing. Another creator was told to pay a collaborator out of her own pocket for a custom because they wouldn’t direct a fan to someone else’s page to pay that model directly. After commissions, fees, and paying out the other creator, she wound up owing money from that video when tax time came. These are only a few examples of the dozens of horror stories I was told during my investigation, and even though they don’t sound like action movie plots, they are all examples of online sex trafficking.
You’re not the only one who is being victimised in this scene. If you dig around on Reddit or Telegram, you can find some subreddits created to post jobs for chatters. What you’ll see are ads looking to hire people for $2-3/hr base pay, sometimes mentioning commissions but never giving an amount, often requiring 8-12 hour days 6-7 days a week. These obviously prey on folks in developing countries and those in dire financial situations. Before anyone says that the cost of living or average income makes those kinds of numbers fair, imagine if people told you it was fair to pay a small-town creator a fraction of what a big-city creator charges for the same content; you’d be livid. Chatters were much more reluctant to talk to me than creators, but the few I was able to speak to described abusive treatment from managers, insanely high turnover, and literally no recourse when an agency decides to dock or withhold their earnings. It’s not hyperbolic to say that it is on the same level as sweatshop labor, and knowingly using a service that employs such tactics makes one complicit in it.
It’s not just you and exploited chatters that are being hurt by agencies; it’s also your fans. The reason they subscribe to you rather than cruise tube sites is because they’re looking for and willing to pay for a more personal connection with their favorite creators. Yes, what we offer to them is a parasocial fantasy, but it’s based on who we are and the characters we play. But that’s the service we’re selling, and to try and pass it off with pre-made content through a third party is not only deceptive but also plain bad business. Our job as entertainers is to do just that: entertain. When these fans pay for custom content your agency doesn’t have on hand, they’ll just string them along with promises until their payment has cleared and ghost them. After these agencies squeeze every possible dollar out of these people, you’re going to lose that fan, get reported, have a mountain of chargebacks, or make someone angry enough to doxx you. Using these services not only hurts your reputation and risks alienating your fan base but also puts you in a position where you could lose your accounts and have nobody to fall back on.
Last but not least, if you’re using an agency, you’re hurting other creators. It doesn’t matter what niche we cater to; negative sentiment from fans looks bad for the entire community. Conditioning fans into thinking they can get a pile of content for a few dollars makes it harder for the rest of us to sell our work for the value we’ve assigned to it. Fans getting burned and leaving platforms to go back to free sites shrinks the market for all of us. This industry is difficult enough to navigate with the vitriol, stigma, and terms of service changing to make money off our backs and boot us at the earliest convenience without adding pools of rot filled by opportunistic grifters into the mix. And now that agencies have been around long enough, even more are popping up with even less concern for the well-being of the creators or the fans. Never trust anyone who tells you sex work is a fast and easy way for you to make money because those people are looking to make some quick cash at your expense.
Riley Cyriis is a New England-based indie content creator and mortician. She owns Cyriis Studios with her partner, Ryan Cyriis. She’s a cult survivor, a heavily-armed liberal, and the enemy of corruption and greed.
SHARE THIS:
In my previous piece, we went over what to look out for when considering a management agency and the predatory tactics they use to get you signed up.
Once you’re locked in with them, they’ll take over your social media and remove anything that directs to or mentions something other than the OnlyFans account they’re in control of. You’ll get a list of content to give them in intervals, social media stuff that will get clicks until it gets you banned, and NSFW content made to fake live sexting and custom videos. If they get a custom request they can’t fake off-hand, they’ll take a payment in an amount they choose without consulting you and give you the order after the fact. One creator I spoke with said they took a fisting custom (which is against OnlyFans ToS) for $80 without her consent. After OnlyFans commission and the agency fees, she would have gotten about $25 while still being taxed on the full amount, essentially meaning she would net absolutely nothing. Another creator was told to pay a collaborator out of her own pocket for a custom because they wouldn’t direct a fan to someone else’s page to pay that model directly. After commissions, fees, and paying out the other creator, she wound up owing money from that video when tax time came. These are only a few examples of the dozens of horror stories I was told during my investigation, and even though they don’t sound like action movie plots, they are all examples of online sex trafficking.
You’re not the only one who is being victimised in this scene. If you dig around on Reddit or Telegram, you can find some subreddits created to post jobs for chatters. What you’ll see are ads looking to hire people for $2-3/hr base pay, sometimes mentioning commissions but never giving an amount, often requiring 8-12 hour days 6-7 days a week. These obviously prey on folks in developing countries and those in dire financial situations. Before anyone says that the cost of living or average income makes those kinds of numbers fair, imagine if people told you it was fair to pay a small-town creator a fraction of what a big-city creator charges for the same content; you’d be livid. Chatters were much more reluctant to talk to me than creators, but the few I was able to speak to described abusive treatment from managers, insanely high turnover, and literally no recourse when an agency decides to dock or withhold their earnings. It’s not hyperbolic to say that it is on the same level as sweatshop labor, and knowingly using a service that employs such tactics makes one complicit in it.
It’s not just you and exploited chatters that are being hurt by agencies; it’s also your fans. The reason they subscribe to you rather than cruise tube sites is because they’re looking for and willing to pay for a more personal connection with their favorite creators. Yes, what we offer to them is a parasocial fantasy, but it’s based on who we are and the characters we play. But that’s the service we’re selling, and to try and pass it off with pre-made content through a third party is not only deceptive but also plain bad business. Our job as entertainers is to do just that: entertain. When these fans pay for custom content your agency doesn’t have on hand, they’ll just string them along with promises until their payment has cleared and ghost them. After these agencies squeeze every possible dollar out of these people, you’re going to lose that fan, get reported, have a mountain of chargebacks, or make someone angry enough to doxx you. Using these services not only hurts your reputation and risks alienating your fan base but also puts you in a position where you could lose your accounts and have nobody to fall back on.
Last but not least, if you’re using an agency, you’re hurting other creators. It doesn’t matter what niche we cater to; negative sentiment from fans looks bad for the entire community. Conditioning fans into thinking they can get a pile of content for a few dollars makes it harder for the rest of us to sell our work for the value we’ve assigned to it. Fans getting burned and leaving platforms to go back to free sites shrinks the market for all of us. This industry is difficult enough to navigate with the vitriol, stigma, and terms of service changing to make money off our backs and boot us at the earliest convenience without adding pools of rot filled by opportunistic grifters into the mix. And now that agencies have been around long enough, even more are popping up with even less concern for the well-being of the creators or the fans. Never trust anyone who tells you sex work is a fast and easy way for you to make money because those people are looking to make some quick cash at your expense.
Riley Cyriis is a New England-based indie content creator and mortician. She owns Cyriis Studios with her partner, Ryan Cyriis. She’s a cult survivor, a heavily-armed liberal, and the enemy of corruption and greed.
