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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   24002 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025

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As a little bit of a palate cleanser for the Annunciation shooting and Scotland All Female Braveheart Remake children-with-knives fracas, I thought we could talk about the financial state of internet whoredom:

Matthew Ball Xwitter Thread on OnlyFans Financials

(Mod question: If linking to a Xwitter thread, are there any standard operating procedures considering some people don't have it?)

Big 3 Takeaways:

  • Subscription revenue is down, but transactional revenue is up 95%. This means that OF "creators" are making their money, now, on actually bartering pseduo-social-sexual relationships with buyers. You can't just blast out nudes and collect rent, you have to engage with the audience. This, to me, seems like an actually defensible moat vis-a-vis AI OF alternatives.
  • Gross creator revenue surpasses the total league payroll of ALL SPORTS LEAGUES EXCEPT THE NFL. Culture War angle: The market value of female sexuality is greater than everything except the most intensively financialized male performance sport.
  • One creator (read: one single internet girl) has certified gross earnings in 2024 of $82 million. This puts her at the same level as the highest paid pro athletes, the managers of the largest hedge funds, banks, and private equity firms. The only people out earning her are founder-shareholders of giant public behemoths (Zuckerburg etc.) and this is through wealth appreciation rather than "straight cash homie!" income.

What actually got me to take the time to write this up was seeing this article on sports betting.

Sports betting, OnlyFans (etc.), and addiction level of marijuana use are, to me, the three horsemen of tolerated social degeneration. That these all disproportionately impact (there, I said it!) young males is all the more revealing -- society is still okay with disposing the disposables and is now more than happy to turn it into a multi-billion dollar industry.

addiction level of marijuana use

If we could 1:1 swap every alcoholic for a marijuana addict, would that be better? I find weed a little more distasteful for some reason but it's hard for me to see it as more harmful than alcohol.

Talk to (literally- no, I am not misusing figuratively)any blue collar boss. Ask if he'd rather an alcoholic or a pot user for a new lower level hire. 100%(I am not exaggerating) will choose the alcoholic.

Talk to any cop- all of them will tell you, marijuana is a bad drug, alcoholics can continue to be functional but potheads? No way.

Pot also has mental health consequences absent from alcohol, particularly for teens.

alcoholics can continue to be functional but potheads? No way.

What?!?!? This is silly

There are very few non-functional alcoholics or potheads.

Also on the scale of shitty behaviors alcoholics have worse outcomes for others and health outcomes for themselves.

I also doubt police opinions on weed smokers is anything more than "I don't care" given the actual drug users they have to interact with. But you're also American so you folk still have ridiculous takes on weed.

I am not blatantly pro weed either, I'm very against teenagers having access to cheap distillate weed pens, etc

But you're also American so you folk still have ridiculous takes on weed.

My vibe is Europe struggles more with alcoholism and public drunken disorder since drinking is so much more normalized.

Just from a sanitation perspective there were so many more drunken buffoons peeing on the streets around me compared to the US, including women.

I could see that tempering attitudes a bit as well.

San Francisco streetshitters notwithstanding, I suspect America is far ahead of the rest of the Anglosphere in terms of disorderly conduct by regular taxpaying individuals. I've known Australians, educated women, with college degrees, holding down jobs, just piss freely in an alley rather than find a bathroom. It's insane.

Depends on how you define ‘regular tax paying’. There’s definitely a social class which works and also just pees in an alley.

That social class typically does not hold college degrees.

That could simply be a particular American hangup about public urination. It shocks my tiny European mind when I see guys in the US getting literally arrested and charged for pissing in an alleyway, as if that is an actual crime. Similar to jaywalking, I suppose.

It shocks my tiny European mind when I see guys in the US getting literally arrested and charged for pissing in an alleyway, as if that is an actual crime.

Not only that, in most (all?) of the US, getting caught for public urination can land you on the sex offender registry.

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