Why would a musician be a part of OnlyFans? : NPR

Final fall, English singer-songwriter Kate Nash was crunching numbers in between her North American and European excursions when she realized she was “basically going into debt” touring her newest album, 9 Unhappy Symphonies, as she instructed NPR. For somebody who has been making music and promoting out reveals for practically twenty years, that was regarding.

Nash first broke out in 2007 together with her indie pop album Made from Bricks, which earned her widespread industrial and important acclaim. Throughout a number of extra data and a transfer into performing together with a job on Netflix’s GLOW, Nash established herself as a multihyphenate, unafraid of elevating some eyebrows. And in November, when she discovered herself with a pile of unpaid invoices, she got here up with a solution to make some fast money: she joined OnlyFans.

OnlyFans was created practically a decade in the past as a social media platform the place “creators” add content material that “followers” pay to entry, both by means of a subscription or on a pay-per-view foundation. Creators can set their very own subscription tiers, a few of which can embody personalised messages and content material; followers may tip creators.

It rapidly garnered a popularity as a hub for sexual content material, on condition that it gave grownup performers and intercourse staff the flexibility to create and add content material on their very own phrases, or not less than with no manufacturing studio because the intermediary. The platform takes a 20% reduce and the remaining goes to the creator. In 2021, the web site briefly thought of banning express content material however then reversed course. In an announcement shared with NPR, an OnlyFans spokesperson famous that the platform has amassed greater than 4 million creator accounts and 305 million fan accounts since its inception.

When Nash opened her account, she joined the ranks of celebrities like Lily Allen, yeule and Tyga, who’ve all at one level or one other dabbled within the web site — although not all of them shared sexual content material. Many artists, together with Cardi B, Rico Nasty and Kash Doll, have additionally used OnlyFans to advertise their music or launch unique content material. In 2022, rapper and DJ Shygirl turned the primary artist to premiere a music video on the platform.

Nash — who sang the road “Do not inform me that you simply did not strive and take a look at my bum / Trigger I do know that you simply did,” on 2007’s “Merry Comfortable” —- began off principally sharing pictures of her butt, although she additionally has pay-per-view toes content material and lately ventured into erotic meals comedy movies (one is aptly titled “Cake Nash”). She says promoting horny pics to repay her tour invoices was like killing two birds with one stone. She named the marketing campaign “Butts 4 Tour Buses,” and inside six days, all her payments have been paid. “I simply thought it was humorous,” she says. “My arse is at all times out anyway.”

Not everybody acquired the joke. On Reddit and Instagram, folks have been fast to criticize her resolution.

“The one precedent you are setting [is] telling younger women and girls that it does not matter how gifted you’re — that you will discover extra success in promoting your self as a commodity,” reads one touch upon an Instagram publish the place Nash mentioned her alternative. “Your decisions do not exist in a vacuum. Selection feminism is insidious.”

Nash says she thinks most critics are threatened by her private company. However she additionally hopes the outcry over her OnlyFans helps shine a highlight on the dialog she actually needs to have: why making a residing as a musician has gotten so exhausting.

The streaming and touring disaster

The primary drawback, she says, is the decreased worth positioned on recorded music by streaming websites like Spotify, which pays $.003 to $.005 per stream on common. In October, Lily Allen shared on X that she makes extra money from 1,000 subscribers on OnlyFans than she does from her practically 8 million month-to-month listeners on Spotify.

“It has been structured actually poorly for artists, however very nicely for millionaires that wish to simply deal with music as content material after which revenue from it and transfer on to the following factor when music ultimately collapses,” says Nash. “Which it can, as a result of venues are closing and bands can’t afford to go on tour anymore.”

That results in the following drawback: dwell music just isn’t making up for the loss in streaming income. Nash emphasizes that her present on the street is nothing flashy, however there’s numerous work behind the scenes: hiring a band, a crew, a tour supervisor, a backline tech, mild and sound engineers. And she or he refuses to chop corners with regards to paying her band and crew a residing wage, which implies she’s continuously at a loss on the finish of the day. Though she’s nonetheless promoting out the identical venues she was seven years in the past, Nash says the charge she’s getting paid now could be near what it was again then, however the price of all the pieces else it takes to tour has gone up.

Nash just isn’t the one artist grappling with the monetary toll of occurring the street. The previous couple of years have seen various artists compelled to completely or partially cancel excursions, together with The Black Keys, Animal Collective and Santigold, who wrote a letter to her followers explaining how the rising value of touring — paired with the dangers and uncertainty of taking part in reveals because the pandemic waned —- has pushed many artists to their restrict. And even festivals like Coachella, New Orleans’ Jazz Fest and Governors Ball in New York Metropolis noticed slower ticket gross sales than normal final 12 months.

Within the band’s first interview because the tour cancellation, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney instructed Rolling Stone they largely blame a consolidation of energy within the dwell music trade for his or her cancellations. Stephen Parker, Government Director of the Nationwide Unbiased Venue Affiliation (NIVA), is a bit more particular.

“The largest risk to dwell touring in america is Stay Nation, their monopoly,” Parker tells NPR. “They proceed to take anti-competitive practices and make it more durable for up-and-coming artists to have the ability to survive on tour, and make it more durable for impartial venues to e book reveals that may in the end permit them to maintain themselves open.”

In an announcement to NPR, Stay Nation Leisure stated it’s invested in the way forward for impartial venues. “Stay Nation operates simply 4% of music venues within the U.S., and the vast majority of reveals we promote happen in venues we do not personal. In 2024 alone, we promoted practically 6,000 reveals in impartial theaters and golf equipment throughout the nation — greater than 3x the quantity from a decade in the past, so we’ve each purpose to see these venues thrive,” reads the assertion. “It is true that small venues, together with our personal, typically function on slim margins, however that is largely as a consequence of broader financial pressures confronted by companies throughout all sectors of the financial system — rising prices for lease, insurance coverage, labor, and operations.”

In terms of artists’ pay, Stay Nation additionally says its “payouts to membership and theater acts have been up 25% final 12 months in comparison with 2019. And, on high of that, our On The Highway Once more program, which incorporates artists preserving 100% of their merchandise earnings, delivered tens of hundreds of thousands of income.”

Final Could, the Justice Division and 30 states filed an antitrust lawsuit to interrupt up Ticketmaster and its father or mother firm, Stay Nation, citing considerations of an unlawful monopoly that controls ticketing, promotion, venue possession and artist administration, all of which might trigger a regarding rise in ticket costs. Then in August, the UK’s Competitors and Market Authority launched an investigation into Ticketmaster’s use of dynamic pricing for Oasis reunion ticket gross sales. Although the 2 authorized instances in opposition to the corporate will not be associated, they arrive right down to the identical accusation: Ticketmaster could possibly be abusing its market energy to reap the benefits of its customers.

“The DOJ’s lawsuit will not decrease ticket costs for followers or deal with the problems they care about—service charges and entry to in-demand reveals,” Stay Nation stated in an announcement to NPR. “The actual drawback is the secondary market the place resellers drive up costs and siphon billions out of the trade, hurting each artists and followers.”

Parker says the present system does not solely damage followers and artists; it hurts everybody concerned in placing on a present.

“The prices of placing on a tour are borne by the venue and the promoter and the artists and their groups,” he says. “I believe it is essential that so many individuals are profiting off of excursions proper now who put no pores and skin within the sport to be able to guarantee that these venues and people artists can proceed to maintain their doorways open and proceed to tour.”

Liberation behind a paywall

People singer and impartial artist Lizzie No is among the many artists feeling that value. She spent most of 2024 touring her third full-length album Halfsies, which landed them considered one of 25 coveted spots on Rolling Stone‘s “Way forward for Music” concern final 12 months. However good opinions do not pay the payments.

“I hadn’t actually made any cash after working continuous for 10 and a half months, not every week off. I missed the start of my nephew as a result of I used to be in England taking part in a pageant, and that is the job to a point,” No says. “However on the similar time, we put within the work as a band and I got here dwelling with nothing in my pocket and numerous good press about me.”

In November, No — who additionally co-hosts the podcast Fundamental People — opened an OnlyFans account. They’re nonetheless constructing a subscriber base on the platform, which they are saying is a combined bag of people that comply with them due to their music and individuals who found their music by means of their OnlyFans. What No posts is a piece in progress too; lately, she carried out an off-the-cuff survey to see what sort of content material persons are prepared to tip for. The outcomes vary from movies of No placing on lotion to horny voice memos to recordings of her studying poetry out loud.

“I am studying loads about what persons are prepared to pay for and what folks take into account to be useful, which is definitely actually lovely,” they are saying. “It is about like, ‘I’ll pay a month-to-month charge to have entry to you as a Black lady,’ the place folks virtually at all times suppose they’ve entry to me. It has been extremely empowering to have the ability to monetize that digital intimacy that folks have been taking without spending a dime for a very long time.”

One other advantage of OnlyFans has been the liberty of speech. As a people and Americana musician, No says political protest is vital to her artwork. She’s continuously determining how she will use her attain on and off tour to advertise reproductive, social and environmental justice — however her concepts aren’t at all times welcomed by folks on-line or within the music trade. OnlyFans, she says, supplies an area the place she will share with out filters, and its popularity helps her cost greater than she would on a website like Patreon. “If persons are afraid of what I’ve to say, then I’ve a censored adults-only website the place I can put all of that stuff that no person actually wished to listen to from me,” she says.

A few of that now consists of unreleased music they’re engaged on, and No is way from being the one musician who finds liberation behind the paywall. Dembow provocateur Tokischa did intercourse work earlier than her music took off, and he or she’s spoken in interviews about how OnlyFans gave her the funds to spend money on her profession. However she instructed the outlet hypebae the true purpose she opened an account is as a result of she acquired banned from Instagram for posting the form of sexual content material she enjoys making.

No says it isn’t a coincidence that artists who’ve endured objectification within the music trade — significantly Black ladies and girls of shade — are discovering monetary and bodily autonomy in utilizing those self same instruments in opposition to a system that doesn’t compensate them pretty. Which isn’t to say it does not include backlash; No says they have been shocked by how even people who find themselves near them have responded to their OnlyFans with pity or condescension.

“I do not care about what’s acceptable in American society. Slavery was acceptable in American society,” No says. “I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. I am making an attempt to arrange the financial situations below which I can create radical, visionary Black artwork. In fact it’ll ruffle some folks’s feathers. That is what we’re up in opposition to as ladies on this trade.”

Gig work and the creator financial system

Lots of the work that goes into turning a revenue on OnlyFans — curating a social media presence, charming an internet viewers’s consideration and continuously churning out content material — can already be a not-so-unspoken requirement of being a musician as we speak.

Aryana Safaee is a sociology PhD scholar at SUNY Albany specializing in labor rights and the commodification of private connections. Her grasp’s thesis, titled Intercourse, Love, and OnlyFans, explored digital intercourse work as a labor concern. She says OnlyFans is uniquely positioned on the intersection of gig work and the creator financial system.

“OnlyFans is completely different from different gig work as a result of if you happen to’re a DoorDash driver, you get despatched prospects to do deliveries for,” she says. “On OnlyFans, you’re chargeable for discovering your individual subscribers. That is one of many greatest parts of unpaid labor that does not get mentioned: it’s important to have a preexisting platform for it to be economically viable for you.”

That is one purpose musicians typically discover success on the platform; OnlyFans offers them a solution to immediately money in on the fan base and social media following they’ve already labored to construct. However Safaee says the presence of celebrities on OnlyFans comes with its personal problems.

When former Disney star and singer Bella Thorne joined the platform in 2020, she instantly set a document by turning into the primary creator to earn $1 million in sooner or later. However after disillusioned prospects complained for refunds, OnlyFans introduced modifications to fee buildings, together with a $50 charging restrict for unique content material, a $100 cap on ideas and month-to-month fairly than weekly funds. Different OnlyFans creators took to social media to criticize Thorne for hurting their backside line, although the corporate has denied that the brand new guidelines have been attributable to one person. Nonetheless, the singer issued an apology on social media and stated she was assembly with the platform to debate the reasoning behind the brand new insurance policies. Thorne’s group and OnlyFans didn’t reply to NPR’s requests for remark.

Safee says sudden modifications to OnlyFans’ insurance policies can have main impacts on the intercourse staff who depend upon it as a major supply of revenue. “So getting abruptly banned or having their account frozen or they don’t seem to be in a position to withdraw — which may actually be a matter of having the ability to eat that day, which is not essentially the place that a few of these musicians could be in,” she says.

Safaee says digital intercourse work is flawed, however that artists who be a part of OnlyFans ought to take heed to how they’ll use their platforms to destigmatize intercourse work and advocate for higher working situations for all creators. Kate Nash says she hopes her time on OnlyFans can assist increase visibility for intercourse work as a labor concern.

“I believe the extra you can empower the intercourse employee, the higher. Individuals are exploited in intercourse work as they’re exploited in nail salons,” says Nash. “I do not suppose the reply is like, do not ever get your nails carried out or do not ever do intercourse work. I believe it is: empower staff as a lot as doable.”

And Nash additionally needs to see working situations enhance within the music trade. She’s been a vocal supporter of a voluntary levy backed by the British authorities that may make investments £1 of each stadium or area tour ticket offered into grassroots venues. Each No and Nash, who come from working class backgrounds, additionally emphasize how essential it’s for artists with no monetary security web or household cash to have the ability to see a future for themselves within the trade — particularly ladies. Nash says it doesn’t matter what her Instagram haters say, she’s proud to be utilizing this second in her profession to talk up for them.

“I believe I am an incredible instance to younger ladies as a result of my whole profession, I’ve put ladies and women first and fought for them to have a spot within the music trade,” she says. “I would like them to be paid pretty for his or her work. I would like them to see a future. I would like them to not be signed to a label after which simply instructed to make TikToks all day. I would like there to be sustainability and longevity.”