OnlyFans is the star of TV’s hottest shows thanks to a messy economy

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — On “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” Elle Fanning’s Margo paints her entire body a metallic green. Her aim? To fully embody her OnlyFans persona, an earthside alien named The Hungry Ghost, who offers mild nudity and harsh criticism of her willing subscribers’ genitalia.

The earnings that Margo, a single mom, collects from this line of work go directly toward supporting her infant son after she loses her restaurant job, which didn’t involve horny people on the internet.

Like Margo, more than 4.6 million people worldwide have become creators on OnlyFans — the subscriber-based platform known for featuring everything from foot fetish photos to explicit adult content. A decade after it was founded, OnlyFans is now also all over mainstream TV, including on “Euphoria,” where Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie ascends to stardom on the platform.

It also plays a role in a storyline on HBO’s “Industry” and was even parodied on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” the most wholesome show on television. A sign that American culture is going through a phase of hyper-sexualization? More like: people are struggling through a fraught and ever-changing US economy. The characters’ motivations for joining (or thinking about joining) OnlyFans may vary, but the reason is inherently the same: The traditional job market isn’t working for them.

Rufi Thorpe, the author of the novel on which AppleTV’s “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is based, believes the “increasing financial hardship in this country” has something to do with the rising cultural relevance of a platform like OnlyFans.

“You see the rise of hustle culture, and it could look like driving for DoorDash or driving for Uber, or it could look like OnlyFans,” she said. “But people are trying desperately to afford their rent.”

However fictional the storylines are, they’re rooted in some of the realities that millions of people are facing today.

A new CNN poll has found most Americans are pessimistic about the economy, with high prices and the cost of living prompting them to cut back on spending, including on groceries. Inflation is also rising, cutting into Americans’ wages, while job seekers in most industries have in recent years been facing big challenges in the labor market. Unless you’re looking for a job in health care — one of the only industries that is actually hiring right now and a field none of the characters in these TV shows work in — it’s pretty bleak.

That economic reality is changing the way sex work is being portrayed on TV. For so long, sex workers have largely been portrayed as victims on police procedurals. This season, they’re being shown turning to OnlyFans to do the banal, but crucial, thing of putting money in their pockets.

Legitimization vs stigmatization

Thorpe was inspired to write her 2024 novel after seeing OnlyFans explode during the pandemic.

The platform allows creators to post videos and photos and interact directly with subscribers — and keep 80% of their earnings, according to OnlyFans’ creator policy.

Those who earn more than $600 per year get a 1099 tax form, which in the eyes of many creators legitimizes their work, said Bridget Crawford, a law professor at Pace University who has published studies on the economics behind OnlyFans. Their goal, she said, is to feel “like any other worker.”

Paying taxes on earnings also helps creators have a record so they can get an apartment or a loan, a mindset similar to that of Fanning’s Margo.

The platform’s broader appeal has a lot to do with the fact that it offers sex work without any physical contact, said Thorpe, adding that every model she spoke with while researching “Margo” had joined the platform “for the money.”

“I think that’s the predominant reason why anyone does sex work,” she said.

Gracie Canaan, a comedian and OnlyFans creator who cohosts Audible’s “OnlyFantasy” podcast, told CNN she made $4,000 in her first month by offering “the girlfriend experience” (which included “bikini level nudity,” “some nudes” and character role play). Last year, Canaan earned over $100,000 on the platform.

The money she makes from being on OnlyFans is her main driver for being on the platform while she continues to pursue a comedy career, but she also chooses to create content in a way that makes her “creatively fulfilled,” she said.

“This is something I want to keep doing,” she said. “And I know from having jobs that I hate, that in order for me to keep doing it, I have to really enjoy it and the way I find joy from it is being creative.”

Canaan thinks fictional storylines about the platform are culturally resonant right now not just because of a “collective uncertainty” in the economy, but also because there is this understanding now of why “so many people turn to OnlyFans.”

“That stigma has been chipped away over time,” Canaan said. “It’s now the point where it’s interesting enough without being as taboo as it used to be.”

Dysphoria

Chloe Cherry, a former adult film star and OnlyFans model who plays Faye on “Euphoria,” believes OnlyFans has become more accepted in today’s culture because of “capitalism and the economy getting worse.”

“It has nothing to do with empowerment or power or anything,” Cherry said in a recent interview with Refinery29, adding that she thinks the platform is a “weird phenomenon of the 2020s that we will look back on and be very confused by.”

OnlyFans features heavily on the current season of “Euphoria,” with Cassie initially joining the platform in hopes of making an extra $50,000 for flowers for her wedding. In one scene, she poses as an adult baby, drawing significant backlash from OnlyFans creators, who have called it “troublesome” and said that portraying the platform as a place that would find that content acceptable was a “serious problem.”

“Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson previously told The Daily Beast that the the show aimed to find a “layer of absurdity” in Cassie’s OnlyFans journey, given that in one scene, for example, her housekeeper helped her film content.

CNN has reached out to HBO and a representative for Sweeney for comment in response to criticism surrounding the scene.

A representative for OnlyFans declined to comment for this story and pointed to its terms of service and acceptable use policy. OnlyFans prohibits any content involving under 18 years or age-related role-play, according to the company’s policy.

The myth of easy money

OnlyFans is so ubiquitous that even Janine Teagues, the optimistic second-grade teacher played by Quinta Brunson on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” toys with the idea of joining a site called “MostlyFans” when she learns she might be out of a job. She ultimately learns that her job at the school is safe, much to her relief.

In reality, Janine may have needed a backup plan to her backup plan. OnlyFans is not easy money.

It’s hard to know how much most creators make, as OnlyFans does not release that data. The site’s top creators can bring in millions a month, but that’s not the case for most.

Canaan, the OnlyFans creator and podcast host, said that even though she’s not among the highest earners, she is making more money through the platform than she did at her previous corporate job.

“Being in corporate America and seeing that crumble, and then being like — OnlyFans is actually more stable than this thing that I was taught to believe was this smart, safe thing to do — is wild,” she said.

Just because a small percentage of creators become top earners doesn’t mean it’s impossible, which is perhaps why so many people have turned, or considered turning, to OnlyFans after attempting to navigate an economy that doesn’t support them, like Margo or Cassie or Janine.

After all, as Cassie said during a recent episode, “this is the business world of today.”

HBO, like CNN, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

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CNN’s Alicia Wallace contributed to this report.