Lonely Fans
Loneliness is lucrative. Leonid Radvinsky, the secretive owner of OnlyFans, received a $700 million windfall last year, while the platform’s top tier of content creators — mostly women — earn millions annually. With $7.2 billion in annual gross revenue and just 46 employees, OnlyFans may be one of the most profitable companies on the planet. The site is viewed as a porn-centric hub where men pay women for sexual content. The company claims it’s giving creators and their 378 million fans (greater than the population of the U.S.) something more: an opportunity to forge “authentic connections.”
Some crazy stats:
- The top 0.1% of creators capture 76% of revenue and earn an average of $146,881 per month. The average creator earns just $150 to $180 per month.
- Private messages drive about 70% of revenue vs. only 4% from actual subscriptions. Seventy-one percent of users are male, but 84% of creators are female. About 0.01% of subscribers are “whales,” who generate more than 20% of all revenue.
- Eighty-five percent of users access the site via mobile.
We’ve created a platform where 95.8% of men pay nothing but still consume content, while a tiny fraction of “whales” subsidize an entire economy built on loneliness. It’s digital feudalism with OnlyFans as the landlord collecting rent on human connection.
The pitch resonates with millions of men retreating from the high-risk but high-reward activity of forming real-world relationships. It also appeals to women. OnlyFans has paid more than $20 billion to creators since 2016. Women are flocking to the site, with an estimated one million-plus in the U.S. alone. The success of OnlyFans is making some people rich. However, it’s also a symptom of a loneliness epidemic with devastating second-order effects.
Social Creatures
Humans are hard-wired to connect. Interacting with families and friends is as essential as food, water, and shelter. Through the 1970s, Americans seemed adept at forming social groups: political associations, labor unions, local memberships. Those bonds have faded. Weekly religious service attendance has fallen to 30% from 42% two decades ago. Marriage rates have plunged. “Third places” — public gathering spots outside home and work — are disappearing.
The driving factor is technology. Addicted to YouTube and TikTok, nearly half of American teens report being online almost constantly. Jonathan Haidt, my NYU colleague, estimates kids’ time with friends has been cut in half. We’ve literally taken childhood and poured it into a screen.
This isn’t just an epidemic. It’s a pandemic.
Loneliness affects nearly one in six people globally, contributing to 100 deaths an hour. The health impact is massive — loneliness is about as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes daily. Social isolation reduces productivity, boosts job turnover, and drives up healthcare costs. The economic toll in the U.S. exceeds $400 billion annually.
Hermits
Men are especially vulnerable. The most unstable, violent societies have one thing in common: a plethora of lonely young men. We are producing millions of them.
In Japan, 1.5 million people are hikikomori — modern-day recluses who withdraw for more than six months. In Britain, the loneliness crisis costs employers more than $3 billion annually. In Spain, the economic impact equals 1.2% of GDP. Millions of Chinese women seeking companionship are downloading AI boyfriends.
We’re in the midst of a “sex recession,” with rates at record lows. Participation in clubs is waning. Nearly three out of four restaurant orders in the U.S. aren’t eaten in the restaurant. As Esther Perel told me on the Prof G Pod, we’re in an age of artificial intimacy, where “we’re planning our extinction.” At current fertility rates in South Korea, you need to pass 20 people to find one who will have grandchildren.
In Britain, pubs are closing at a rate of one per day — faster than Nazi bombs destroyed them during WWII. Today’s owners blame taxes and costs, but young people increasingly choose online gaming, porn, drugs, Netflix, and OnlyFans over nightlife. I’ve gotten shit for suggesting young people should drink more. So be it. I believe the risks of alcohol to a 25-year-old liver are dwarfed by those of social isolation. When I go out to bars/clubs, I don’t see drunkenness … but togetherness.
Fostering Connection
My household had little money, but my mom made exceptions. She bought me Izod shirts, Sperry Top-Siders, and Vuarnets because she’d heard they were what cool kids wore, and she wanted me to have social capital. My college girlfriend threatened to stop having sex with me if I didn’t quit smoking weed. My first boss consistently pulled me into conference rooms for brutal feedback. These connections keep us on track and challenge our worldviews. Without them, citizens become vulnerable to radical ideas. A German study linked loneliness to authoritarian political views and conspiracy theories. As Hannah Arendt wrote, isolation and loneliness are preconditions for tyranny. A preview of what’s to come is to witness the behavior of orcas when they are put in isolation tanks. Simply put, they go crazy.
Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts is pushing investment in community infrastructure: centers, pools, green spaces, pedestrian malls. You cannot overfund these projects. Taxpayer-funded Westwood Park gave me a place to play sports and meet kids when I hit a growth spurt and was cut from my high school baseball team.
The best solution? Mandatory national service after high school, uniting young people from different backgrounds in service to something bigger than themselves.
From Tinder to OnlyFans
There are glimmers of hope. The movement to ban smartphones in schools is gaining momentum. Independent bookstores are staging a comeback.
But as women flock to OnlyFans, many will ditch education and careers for webcams. There’s likely a one in three chance that an attractive young woman without a college degree outside a major city is on OnlyFans. Meanwhile, men choose frictionless digital connections over challenging but rewarding real ones, forgoing opportunities to find mates, friends, mentors, and business partners. As millennials and Gen Z tire of dating apps, we’re transitioning from a Tinder economy to an OnlyFans economy. The next frontier: AI startups like OhChat, building lifelike digital doubles for “spicy fantasies.”
Life Should Be Lived
I think about my sons — 15 and 18 — and the world we’re handing them. A world where human connection has been commoditized, where intimacy is artificial, where young people retreat into digital caves instead of stepping into the messy, and rewarding, complexity of real relationships. Being human is not a solo sport.
The loneliness epidemic isn’t just killing people at 100 deaths per hour. It’s killing our capacity for joy, for surprise, for the random encounters that make life worth living. Every swipe right, every OnlyFans subscription, every AI boyfriend is another step away from the fundamental truth: We not only need each other to survive, but to really live.
We can keep feeding, and ignoring, the machine that profits from our isolation, or we can remember what it means to be gloriously, beautifully human — together. The most subversive act in the 21st century may not be starting a unicorn … but showing up, approaching strangers, asking someone out, grasping for their hand. It’s not OnlyFans that will save us. It’s only us.
Life is so rich,
P.S. Prof G Markets recently unpacked the latest annual report from OnlyFans and the dark side of its growth. Listen here on Apple or Spotify, or watch it here on YouTube.
26 Comments
Need more Scott in your life?
The Prof G Markets Pod now has a newsletter edition. Sign up here to receive it every Monday. What a thrill.
I’m a regular at my gym. An old guy. I notice and appreciate how considerate everyone is. Hello, a nod, holding a door, are you done with the machine. Actually quite nice. And a hopeful sign. In person people may be naturally nice to each other. Online, on social media, we show our worst selves. You’re the enemy. Just saying.
Your post powerfully links the rise of platforms like OnlyFans to a loneliness epidemic, arguing technology has replaced genuine human connection. Probably all of your readers agree with that statement, and will cite the statistics on loneliness are alarming, equating its deadliness to smoking. To help youth cut down on screen time, communities could popularize “third places” like parks and community centers, fostering in-person interaction. Ironically, my millenials recommend using platforms like TikTok or Instagram to show youth having lengthy, enjoyable social interactions away from screens. Maybe they were pulling the leg of their baby boomer father.
Some good points raised in the column. And some very good snappy comments as well.
NYC school system for the first time has banned students using cell phones during school hours. This has the potential to improve F2F social interaction and developing better people skills. Not to mention scholastic levels and classroom participation.
Let’s see if it works. I am realistically and cautiously optimistic. We are talking about approx 1 million school kids existing for 8 hours together like us old parents used to: F2F in the real school world. Imagine if this experiment makes things better. Might catch on across the country.
Not bad for a city many Americans think is Sodom and Gomorrah.
Compulsory service may be the ticket. Was drafted after college but was lucky to serve stateside. Not fun but not bad. Made friends and matured. Used veterans benefits to attend school where I made 2 lifelong friends. Even purchased my first house on VA. Good for me and good for society.
I see this in real time with my adult kids.
There are wonderful insights in this piece: the Izods, the first boss, and the self-isolation trend. I’ve been an NM/NM reader since 2017, but have never commented until now.
Thanks for the inspiration and CTA, Scott.
This phenom is not happening in a silo. Dates cost money. Young women don’t want to go out with a man who lives with his parents. A decent young woman wouldn’t want to go on a date with a guy who lives with too many roommates in the ghetto style of crammed housing. There are real economic reasons behind the dating slump. Scott knows this, he says it all the time. Older generations have continually used voting power and institutional power to steal wealth from the youth. A woman won’t want to date a guy who is struggling, and young men are struggling economically because of the way older generations keep screwing them over. And Esther Perel is off her rocker for saying we are facing our own extinction due to a lack of reproducing. Stupidly extreme. Let’s not forget there are billions of humans alive today. With that many people a strength in numbers style of phenomena insulates humanity from a mass dying caused by the forcing out of certain oppressed subsets from of the dating pool, which IS caused by the elder generations selfish mishandling of the economy.
Great article that hopefully will make your younger audience think and reflect…..I am a father of a 26 and 23 year olds and must say every week worry about some topic related to your article. On spot, very lucid ! Congratulations!
65% obese- 10% morbidly obese– the rest hate their bodies and are eating disordered or have one of SEVEN actual eating disorders we created in the past 15 years. Sex is too hard when your body can’t move or your head is messed up. Wake up.
Thank you, Professor! I truly enjoy reading your newsletters. They have not only been a big source of inspiration and motivation but also served as a kind of research for me as I develop a photography project about masculinity, friendship, and loneliness. Your writing has helped me think about these ideas in new ways, and it’s been really meaningful as I shape both my photobook and photographs.
Thank you!! Again!
There is another movement coming to America. It is live companionship bars similar to Hostess bars or Karaoke TV (ktv) bars in Asia. Here women are hired to basically just talk to men. Men show up and drink, eat, sing but are willing to pay or tip a beautiful companion.
Amazing article shows the fatality of addiction ,when allowed to go unchecked it will destroy you!
Wow! This is both SUPER scary, but also SUPER enlightening that we need to re-invigorate an “in person”-centric society.
As always, an excellent description of the problem. Still, as always, no pointing out the causes.
It’s not just 3rd places. It’s second places (I.E. WFH).
That’s incredibly damaging.
To your point on Social Capital – Covid devastated the last remnants of bonding capital.
It’s hard to blame Onlyfans. Pornhub could easily be worse for addiction.
Scott…I am from Eastern part of the globe from fastest growing large Economy of the planet,INDIA…what is really alarming is what we are placing to our next generation that has been lucidly explained…And when this trend will reach this part of the globe very soon it will have immense effect on the Social fabric of the countries…What is the way out?
This hits hard. Single mom raising 3 teenage boys. Two are online too much. But I have one (of course, the middle) who craves connection and finds the tail end of this problem – there is no one to hang with because they are all online. He found a friend this summer to drive 4 hours overnight to Great Sand Dunes National Park to see the sun rise. When he told me the next day, I probably should have punished him for not getting permission (and I would have probably said no) but instead I was so proud of him knowing he will NEVER regret that ballsy move. More nature, more risk please.
Replying to my own comment, lol. The more I think about it, maybe the precursor was a generation or two of fear where parents did not allow their kids to take risks, go out with friends, do risky things – and now we have Life 360 and crazy shit. I have friends monitoring their adult children on an app. If that had been my life, I would have turned out completely different. Teenagers learn by making mistakes and we have created a world where they mistakes are not tolerated and parents can assure that.
Loneliness is the drug addiction….the recovery is talking to people and trying to connect. Failure is acceptable, giving up is unacceptable.
Universal Exports LTD.
NYC-London-Tokyo-LA
OnlyFans just a money laundering scheme – easiest way to clean £££.
Thanks for this article. I had no idea of the size of this problem.
And yet you tout AI, surely the next iteration of this disaster
Is there any realistic chance of making society better… AI will only make things far worse. ( Dr Galloway the advertise here link at the bottom of the page does not work)
The Internet and cable TV have become the foundation of our undoing. Both offered choice, which we thought was a good thing. Watch what you want… interact with who you want. We did not anticipate that it would backfire into silos of self-conferring ignorance creating in groups and out groups.
Totally. The seeds where sown when we had massive amounts of choice and could choose our own adventures. Cable spawned the need for a TV in every room so everyone could watch what they wanted. MTV is one room, news in the other, sitcom in a third. Music suffered the same balkanization as more channels offered specific content and listeners were exposed to fewer and fewer genres.
Once everyone had a smartphone, you could tailor everything based on your interests and only interact with the content that met your interests. We all live in silos now, of our creation.
So legislation, lawfare, shame, ridicule, all of the above to ratchet this in?