Fandomination

Sign up. Log in. Cash out. Repeat. Why so many people are buying into free porn’s biggest competitors

- LINA ABASCAL

When Elsa Jean flounces into the studio in full hair and makeup, one has to wonder why she’s here. Every moment she spends on set, she’s losing money. “I make about $30,000 to $40,000 a month from my OnlyFans account,” says Jean (pictured), whose platinum blonde waves and wide eyes leave no question as to which animated phenomenon inspired her stage name. “I’ve cut my studio work way back because I really don’t need to do it anymore. It takes me 30 minutes to film something. On set, it takes hours.”

Although only 23 years old, Jean is a five-year veteran of the adult business — a porn superstar (1.5 million Instagram followers and counting) and now a proselytizer for OnlyFans, a membership-based social platform that hosts the content of more than 100,000 creators for more than 8 million subscribers (or “fans”). Launched in 2016, Only-Fans, while not exclusively for adult performers, has disrupted the porn industry by making it easier for sex workers to generate income off their content, shifting them away from major studios for casting, production, distribution, and payment. Increasingly influential in a time when consumer demand for amateur content is trending up (videos filed in Pornhub’s Amateur category boast the site’s longest average view time: 15 minutes, 25 seconds), subscription sites including OnlyFans, FanCentro, and JustFor.Fans are grooming a new generation of self-made men and women. And many of them are adult performers working from home.