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@RandomRanger made the following observation last week:
As this was posted in the context of Scott’s recent article on the Vibecession and I’d say that is an issue largely unrelated to the porn industry I decided to post a separate reply.
Assuming that 800,000 figure is correct in the first place (there’s probably room for doubt but that is beside the point) I think the simple explanation is that society generally condones or at least tolerates porn “actresses” making large amounts of money because people generally understand that such women are condemning themselves to social damnation with assumptions about their reputations that may very easily turn out to be naïve and thus deserve to be at least financially well-compensated by simps whom society considers to be loser chumps anyway.
Warehouse workers and information security officers have a certain level of respectable standing within their social circles. The likes of Bonnie Blue don’t. Women understand that she condemned herself to the equivalent of crack whore Hell. It’s very obvious that she’ll never find any sort of respectable job. She’ll never be a secretary, a nurse, a teacher, an HR manager, an accountant etc. She’ll very likely stay in the porn business or become a “sex worker” or be unemployed. Maybe she’ll become a porn director and people will pretend like she has talent for it. Either way, everybody knows she’ll age out rapidly. She’ll very probably never marry or if she does, it’ll be to a man who’s a laughingstock. She’ll never have children or if she does, they’ll turn out to be screw-ups. Society basically throws money at her because she was willing to turn into a social pariah without status for their amusement.
Now you might make the argument that she brought it all upon herself and thus should not be getting any sympathy and deserves poverty. But society doesn’t apply such norms to young women because they are seen as possessing innate biological value and also as naïve and easily misled. We’re aware that most young women who get drawn to porning probably don’t fully understand the long-term consequences of their actions, with the explanation being that they were fed modern feminism their entire lives and thus assume that women no longer live in sexual shame and that selling access to your orifices in camera is empowering. We’re also aware that this is a lie but modern feminism benefits well-off middle-class women so we’re not prepared to just jettison it for this reason.
Bonnie Blue has an entire team behind her (no pun intended) and they are world class at creating publicity. They manage to engineer her into relavence by getting her into lega trouble, e-drama and on interviews with legacy media. Far more people follow her e-drama than actually watch her porn. Her latest antics gets tens of millions of views on social media without containing any nudity.
Showing pictures of your privates on only fans isn't going to get you rich. In order to get rich you need a massive following and marketing. If Aella was just posting ass pics should would be making 500 dollars a month. She has turned herself into an influencer within a space with a lot of well paid nerdy men.
The problem is all the women who don't understand this and start an OF, make 300 dollars a month yet every one around them will eventually find their nudes.
The attention economy is just brutal since it is genuinely zero sum in nature and almost all rewards occur on a power law distribution.
Ain't nobody manufacturing more 'attention' in a factory somewhere, you've got to fight to draw from the same limited well as everyone else.
So you get the Red Queen's race as personified by Bonnie Blue (you have to do increasingly extreme and controversial acts, or pretend to, just to stay relevant), and the crab bucket effect where EVERYONE else you're competing with is looking for the smallest opportunity rip you down to give themselves a chance to ascend.
Does anyone remember Hawk Tuah girl in this the year of our Lord two-thousand-and-twenty-five?
Now... we're adding AI into this mix and expect the top performers in this space to get absolutely CUTTHROAT to stay on top. Although a few of them might decide to gracefully retire with their millions.
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