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Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer, and researcher Nicholas Pell. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker, and during the week we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, though, we do skeptical Sunday. We're a rotating guest co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as fast fashion, the death industry, homeopathy, hypnosis, targeted advertising, and self-help

cults. If you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, and I always

appreciate it when you do, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our

favorite episodes on persuasion and negotiation, psychology, disinformation, junk science, crime

and cults, and more. That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. I'm sure most of you have heard of OnlyFans, the creator platform where you can put up videos of yourself cooking, doing fitness, or, as the case happens to be most of the time, engaging in some kind of pornographic or otherwise adult activity.

I'm sure you've seen the headlines, women quits her job, makes $100 grand a month on OnlyFans.

And while you might have opinions on the morality of that, it's hard to argue with that sheer amount of cold, hard cash.

But hey, there are also guys making a killing and podcasting. Most podcasters,

however, are languishing on under $100 a month in fan support. So how similar is this

seedy world of only fans? Are people really making money selling their nudes online? What's

the profile of a creator who's crushing it and who is just out there begging for a few bucks?

Maybe, most importantly,

are there hidden costs of selling sex online, and is this empowerment or just digital

exploitation? Here today, to help me separate the naked truth from the dressed up hype,

is writer and researcher Nick Pell. So, Nick, how much are you dropping every month on OnlyFans?

Precisely $0. Really?

Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna stick to the facts here, but people should probably know that I'm a giant stick in the mud about this kind of thing. So expect me to be throwing ice water on your boner, and that's gonna be a recurring theme throughout the episode. That's fair enough. I try to be way less judgy about this stuff,

and I'll talk a little bit more about that later.

But Only fans is really kind of weird

because... recurring themed throughout the episode. That's fair enough. I try to be way less judgy about this stuff, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. But OnlyFans is really kind of weird because, look, I remember when it was first launched in 2016, I think it was. It wasn't supposed to be this self-produced porn site, really. It was for content creators. And most of the ones that I saw back then, I remember show fans being like, hey, I got an only fan. And it was like for cooking, you know? Like, uh, okay. And it was lifestyle or fitness stuff. It was not sex acts ranging from the mundane to the unusual. There were show fans that were like, I've got a cooking one, a fitness one. And then I remember a guy and a gal sent me theirs.

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