OnlyFans
The subscription site where creators sell their own content to fans; in gay slang, shorthand for selling your own porn without a studio.
OnlyFans is the London-based subscription site where creators sell their own content directly to fans, and in gay life it is mostly shorthand for selling your own porn. Fans pay a monthly fee to see a creator's feed, then extra for messages, custom videos and pay-per-view clips. The platform takes its cut, the creator keeps the rest, and nobody in the middle decides who is hot enough to be filmed.
The name works as a noun, a verb and a whole lifestyle. "He has an OnlyFans", "he does OnlyFans", "link in bio": everyone knows what is meant. Not everything on it is explicit, and some people use it for fitness or cooking, but that is not why the word comes up at the bar.
Where it comes from
OnlyFans was founded in 2016 and boomed when the pandemic shut everyone indoors, reaching 130 million users by 2021. For gay porn it changed the economics overnight. A good-looking guy with a phone, a ring light and a gym membership no longer needed a studio: he could build his own audience, set his own prices and keep his own clips. Many studio stars moved there too, or used it to sell the scenes the studios would not shoot.
In August 2021 the company announced it would ban sexually explicit content from October, citing pressure from banks and payment providers. After a furious outcry from creators it reversed the decision less than a week later. Everyone understood that day what the site was really for.
How it is used today
On the apps, an OnlyFans link in a profile tells you two things: this man is selling, and he will probably not meet you for free. Among creators, OnlyFans culture has its own vocabulary: collabs with other creators to cross-promote, "PPV" for pay-per-view messages, "subs" for subscribers, "free page" and "paid page" for the teaser and the real thing. It also boosted the market for amateur looks and POV filming, because that is what a phone does best.
The word has slipped into general slang too. Friends tease each other with "start an OnlyFans" after a good gym selfie, and "OnlyFans money" means a suspiciously nice apartment.
For every creator buying a new car there are plenty making pocket money. Behind every confident feed there is a lot of scheduling, messaging and promoting. It is a job, and a content creator will tell you so.
Close relatives
OnlyFans is the best-known platform, but the same model runs on several rival sites, and people often say "OnlyFans" for all of them. The man behind the account is a content creator; if he performs live instead, he is a cam boy.
Related terms
Sources 1
- Dang, Sheila, and Subrat Patnaik. "OnlyFans reverses ban on posting 'sexually explicit' content." Reuters, via Euronews, 25 August 2021. https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/08/25/us-social-media-onlyfans