Long Reads

[rass]

[DaveInSeattle]

Inside an OnlyFans empire: Sex, influence and the new American Dream (gift link)

The attraction of financial freedom and the challenge of standing out have led many OnlyFans creators to run themselves like tech start-ups. Adams’s operation is registered in state business records as a limited liability company and offers quarterly employee performance reviews and catered lunch. It also runs with factory-like efficiency, thanks largely to a system designed in-house to track millions of data points on customers and content and ensure every video is rigorously planned and optimized.

The strategy is working: Adams and her employees, who spoke with The Washington Post on the condition that their real names and location be concealed and stage names be used to reduce the risk of harassment, have ascended to OnlyFans’s highest echelon of earners, which the platform calls its “top 0.01 percent.”

Since sending her first photo in 2021, Adams’s OnlyFans accounts have earned $16.5 million in sales, more than 1.4 million fans and more than 11 million “likes.” She now makes about $30,000 a day — more than most American small businesses — from subscriptions, video sales, messages and tips, half of which is pure profit.

They've industrialized OnlyFans...and turned it into a multi-level-marketing scheme.

[DaveInSeattle]

Long article/interview with Stephanie Courtney...aka "Flo" from the Progressive Ads

(Gift Link) Everybody Knows Flo From Progressive. Who Is Stephanie Courtney?

The year the ads premiered, the company’s chief marketing officer, Remi Kent, told me, Progressive’s stock price was under $15. It recently closed at $157.67. “While I can’t give Flo all of the credit,” Kent said, “I think she has really become synonymous with the brand.”

In fact, the human face, voice and bearing that constitute “Flo” are associated far more strongly with Progressive than with the 53-year-old woman who provides them: Stephanie Courtney. Courtney did not intend to sell insurance. She meant to star on Broadway and then, following wish revision, to support herself as a comedic actress. Instead, she has starred in the same role for 15 years and counting, becoming in the process a character recognizable to nearly every American — a feat so rare her peers in this category are mostly cartoon animals.

[rass]

Been a decent amount of Flo content on this board. Including this:

Flo did some weird shit before she got the progressive gig.

[DaveInSeattle]

Heart-breaking story about a mom in Colorado Springs who fell down the FoxNews/QAnon rabbit hole, and moved "off the grid" with her sister and her 13 year old son...

“Please I Will Give Anything for You to Come Back”

Talon Vance, 13, lived in an apartment complex in suburban Colorado Springs with his mom and Aunt. Other relatives lived nearby. Typically, he spent much of the week with his father, half brother, half sister, and grandparents, all of whom lived together not far away in a different town. All of that would change in August 2022: Talon’s mother, Rebecca Vance, had hatched a plan to disappear from Colorado Springs and go permanently off-grid.

[Nonlinear FC]

Inside an OnlyFans empire: Sex, influence and the new American Dream (gift link)

The attraction of financial freedom and the challenge of standing out have led many OnlyFans creators to run themselves like tech start-ups. Adams’s operation is registered in state business records as a limited liability company and offers quarterly employee performance reviews and catered lunch. It also runs with factory-like efficiency, thanks largely to a system designed in-house to track millions of data points on customers and content and ensure every video is rigorously planned and optimized.

The strategy is working: Adams and her employees, who spoke with The Washington Post on the condition that their real names and location be concealed and stage names be used to reduce the risk of harassment, have ascended to OnlyFans’s highest echelon of earners, which the platform calls its “top 0.01 percent.”

Since sending her first photo in 2021, Adams’s OnlyFans accounts have earned $16.5 million in sales, more than 1.4 million fans and more than 11 million “likes.” She now makes about $30,000 a day — more than most American small businesses — from subscriptions, video sales, messages and tips, half of which is pure profit.

They've industrialized OnlyFans...and turned it into a multi-level-marketing scheme.

I will never understand why people pay money for porn.

[Shirley]

Heart-breaking story about a mom in Colorado Springs who fell down the FoxNews/QAnon rabbit hole, and moved "off the grid" with her sister and her 13 year old son...

“Please I Will Give Anything for You to Come Back”

Talon Vance, 13, lived in an apartment complex in suburban Colorado Springs with his mom and Aunt. Other relatives lived nearby. Typically, he spent much of the week with his father, half brother, half sister, and grandparents, all of whom lived together not far away in a different town. All of that would change in August 2022: Talon’s mother, Rebecca Vance, had hatched a plan to disappear from Colorado Springs and go permanently off-grid.

Damn. The depth of people's stupidity never fails to amaze me.