Undercover as a secret OnlyFans chatter
Hello, and welcome to WIRED Start: your weekly roundup of the most important stories, landing in your inbox every Monday. Don’t forget, you can get the very latest from WIRED with our daily newsletter. Sign up to receive it for free here.
This week, WIRED Start goes undercover as a secret OnlyFans chat specialist. Contributing editor Brendan I. Koerner joined a rotating cast of low-wage workers pretending to be online influencer girlfriends.?
OnlyFans has thrived by promising its reported 190 million users that they can have direct access to an estimated 2.1 million creators. It’s impossible for creators to cope with the avalanche of messages they receive each day. The $5.6 billion industry has solved this conundrum by entrusting its chat duties to a mass of freelancers who sustain the illusion.
“We first had to check on the subscriber’s emotional state—then find a way to assess how much money they might be willing to spend."
True to the OnlyFans stereotype, most of the chats were overtly sexual, with the supervisor occasionally chiming in to remind Koerner to push pay-per-view content on the customers who seemed most aroused. He was able to persuade one man to unlock a series of short videos priced between $20 and $35, which he had to swear they had been recorded solely for his benefit just minutes before. (The content was actually a year old.)
“I couldn’t help but ponder how disappointed these men would be if they could see me sitting in my office, sipping hibiscus tea as I typed.”
Yet not every chat was centered solely on sexual gratification. There were some subscribers who, it seemed, wanted merely to feel a little less adrift in the cosmos.
Get ahead with these recommended reads
The entire OpenAI team focused on the existential dangers of AI has either resigned or been absorbed into other research groups, Will Knight confirmed.
领英推荐
Google is rethinking its most iconic and lucrative product by adding new AI features to search. One expert tells Lauren Goode it’s “a change in the world order.”
Twitter cofounder Ev Williams is backing a new social network called Maven, which trades likes and follows for algorithms designed to foster serendipity and deep discussion, writes Matthew Hutson .?
A UK judge has determined that Craig Wright forged evidence in a campaign to prove he is Satoshi Nakamoto, creator of Bitcoin, in a move that prevents him from bringing further lawsuits in the country, writes Joel Khalili .?
Until next time
Thank you for reading! Due to the holiday next week, we'll be back on Tuesday with another WIRED Start. To stay up to date with the latest from WIRED, you can sign up to receive our Daily newsletter here.?
And don’t forget, if you enjoyed reading this week’s edition, you can unlock unlimited access to WIRED’s content with a subscription.
Education Professional at SUPERCOMPUTING CHALLENGE
6 个月Calling all science enthusiasts! The non-profit Supercomputing Challenge is an annual math and scientific modeling competition for students in grades 4 through 12 across New Mexico's middle and high schools. We're currently fundraising to support this exciting program and we'd love your help! Here's how you can get involved: Join our silent auction! Bid on fantastic items and experiences: https://www.32auctions.com/organizations/119250/auctions/162968 Learn more about us! Visit our website to see how the Supercomputing Challenge ignites a passion for STEM in young minds: https://supercomputingchallenge.org/
VP Marketing at Yonder
6 个月This is a Black Mirror episode
Machine Learning at Google Cloud
6 个月Sounds like Ashley Madison
Physician-Scientist developed/provided proof of concept for the hypothesis that cancer is a disease of hypermosaicism, not clonality.
6 个月A virtual profiteering market built on loneliness and isolation…….