We all want easy money, especially teenagers. The website OnlyFans.com promises huge profit just by selling their uncovered bodies to men and women prowlers of the internet. This has become a phenomenon to young people all across every social media platform with advertisements to their personal accounts.
What is “OnlyFans.com?”
Onlyfans.com is a social media platform built for sharing nudes, displaying
Why create an OnlyFans account?
Money
Social media culture caters to the wealth addicted. We want to show off our nice shoes and fancy cars to prove we are somebody important. Everyone wants to get the next best thing as easy and fast as possible. The way OnlyFans has been marketed makes aspiring users believe they will become wealthy over night.
Fame
Social media influencers have become bigger than many movie stars to the younger generation. Young people crave the idea of becoming an influencer, trying to gain fame any way possible. OnlyFans offers this opportunity to users for their chance to go viral.
Sense of Empowerment
On OnlyFans, account owners charge consumers for services such as sexual actions performed, speaking sexual, and even taking nude photos of themselves to later sell all while being broadcasted live on the webcam. He/she will have to pay a fee according to the account owner’s expense. People who also own an OnlyFans account can gain a false sense of reassurance from other people by getting sucked into this idea that they are better undressed which can be harmful to a young teen who is barely developing their idea of what makes them feel confident.
Is OnlyFans.com safe?
Leaked Information
Many young girls have gotten their what was said to be confidential content leaked to the outside world by hackers who were able to get into their profiles and leak their videos [ii].
This can also help the viewers find out more information about OnlyFans webstars.
Stalking
OnlyFans.com is marketed as a safe pornographic website that has a lot of unsafe precautions when using it. There has been many cases where consumers have obsessively stalked OnlyFans account owners by directly messaging them abusive sexual content, as well as finding out where they live by stalking the specific user, searching their Twitter and Instagram to pin point exactly where they live.
Dangerous
Not only could this be a dangerous website for the user to use it could also be dangerous for the users family. There is a possibility your whole family could be put at risk if a viewer were to reveal where you lived,
Job at Risk
By using OnlyFans you could also be putting your job at risk. If your employer finds out about your use of this website they may not want their company to be represented in such way.
Family Separation
Your family may not be fond of the actions you take when using this website. This can cause there to be tension within the family which can lead to family separation.
While conducting my research on the web, I attempted to start a profile and it did not ask me for much verification regarding my age just a simple email, name, and password to create your account. I navigated through the website to get an insight on what the website looks like.
Why should parents be afraid of this website if typically its an 18+ user website?
Teens are especially prone to the appeal of looking sexy, sophisticated, and in control. OnlyFans preys on this vulnerability by glorifying this type of sex appeal which later down the line this can have a negative affect on a young teens well being by having these videos be linked to them for the rest of their time.
An eighteen year-old OnlyFan member, @xgabyv on twitter whose account is now suspended, reportedly earned $3,000 after having a profile live for only two days. Comments praising her photos included how “sexy she looked with her clothes off.”
While browsing around some more I came across a young girl, Alyssa Scott, age 18 charging for “1 on 1 screen time.” This 1 on 1 screen time meant that Alyssa Scott would be giving her services to one singular customer. She priced this at a much higher rate than her monthly subscription services doubling what she would gain from one monthly subscription.
How do I block sites like OnlyFans.com?
Our GKIS Screen Safety Toolkit [iii] offers easy navigation to parental control settings. It explains how to set up screen time management, filtering and blocking so that way your teen won’t have the ability to come across these when navigating through the web. You’ll be able to learn how to block certain social media platforms and set up alerts just in case your child does venture off into these unwanted websites. You can gain this knowledge and more all for the low cost of $37.
I would like young teens and parents to be more aware of this website and its purpose. I do not in any way have any judgement towards users who are on OnlyFans, but I do want to bring it to the attention of parents and their teenagers that this is not the only way to make money, feel confident, and have stardom. There are more teen friendly ways of doing so and I would hope that this article was able to help guide you into that direction.
A special thank you to Danielle Rivera for researching and co-writing this article. If you liked the article and you’re interested in learning more tips on how to be more aware of new websites developing that your child may be tapping into, check out our Screen Safety Toolkit on GKIS where you can learn what to look out for.
Onward to More Awesome Parenting,
Tracy S. Bennett, Ph.D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe
Photo Credits
Photo by Shawn Stutzman on Pexels
Photo by Tim Rogers on Flickr
Photo by Andrea Piacquiadio on Pexels
Photo by Jonatas Domingos on Unsplash
Works Cited
[i] Leigh Willis, Ashlyn (2018) Only Fans Is The Only Social Media Site Built Exclusively For Sharing Nudes [ii] Harris, Margot (2020) Terabytes of Stolen Porn from ‘OnlyFans’ Was Leaked Online, and Creators Say It Represents a Larger Problem That Could Put Them in Dangerwww.insider.com/onlyfans-porn-leak-has-serious-safety-implications-say-creators-2020-3
[iii] Bennett, Tracy Screen SafetyToolkitgetkidsinternetsafe.com/product/screen-safety-toolkit/3
