Covid-19 lockdown has been good for OnlyFans and YouTube creators

Lindiwe Rasekoala is a Johannesburg-based digital creator who makes a dual-income as a monetised YouTuber and OnlyFans content creator and coach.

While everyone else is panicking about what the lockdown would mean for their job security and budgets, Rasekoala – who is also a certified sexual wellness coach – is raking in the bucks.

Not only has the 30-year-old been able to pay her rent and put food on the table without a traditional nine to five, she has also been able to help others do the same.

Thanks to the lockdown, the world of work has finally gotten the change many have been pushing towards for years – decentralisation.

While being confined to one’s home with nothing but screens for entertainment has had a negative impact on most people’s mental health, it has boded well for online platforms, which have seen a spike in activity across the board.

“I guess people need the entertainment and they’re very interested in certain topics, because they want something new. But at the same time for me as a creative, I’m also stifled because I’m human,” said Rasekoala, in reference to the anxiety she feels about the coronavirus and the uncertainty she feels about where to take her brand next.

Lindiwe Rasekoala. Picture supplied

She has been a YouTuber for over a year and an OnlyFans creator for about six months. However, she recently went into coaching those who wished to become creators after a tweet about her earnings went viral last month.

“How much are SA girls making on OnlyFans a month?” asked actress and influencer Kamo Modisakeng to which Rasekoala responded: “I have made R66k since December when I started.”

She was immediately inundated with queries about the platform and decided to turn that into yet another earning opportunity.

OnlyFans is a subscription-based social media platform owned by London’s Fenix International Ltd.

Content creators who are registered on the platform can earn money from users who subscribe to their content – their “fans”. This functionality has made the platform extremely popular among professional and amateur adult entertainers looking to earn some extra money.

While the platform gained some popularity in South Africa late last year when influencer Oddete Mashego became the first local creator to make her earnings public, it has since become ubiquitous all over the world. Numerous American celebrities have opened creator profiles on the platform in the last six weeks and are reportedly making six-figure incomes.

As of 5 May 2020 and by its own count, the platform had close to 500,000 registered creators, over 30 million users and had paid out a mind-blowing R12.6 billion to creators all over the world.

Rasekoala now focuses all her energy and most of her time on coaching potential creators but said that she was not looking to make that her primary source of income.

She’d like her Touch My Yoni brand and YouTube channel to be her primary source of income through brand endorsements and other types of educational projects.

“I have gone back to the drawing board, I have relooked things. It’s just not something I’ve sat down and mapped out.

“I have thought about ways to make money moving forward and it definitely has to be digital. It can’t be any other means because clearly coronavirus is a real thing.”

Barbie*, on the other hand, is a student who is also a full-time OnlyFans creator. She has been on the platform for less than a year and by her estimation, she currently earns about R30,000 per month (factoring in the current exchange rate).

While the lockdown has been nothing but bad news for other types of businesses, it has been quite the Godsend to Barbie and her fellow creators.

“It has doubled my earnings and I actually opened a new OnlyFans page which, in the first month, made more than my first account made in my first month. I’d give credit to the lockdown and also the impact of how much more aware people are of OnlyFans due to the lockdown.”

This is in reference to the multiple times the platform has trended on social media during the lockdown. Most recently after Rasekoala shocked Twitter users by proclaiming her earnings.

Perhaps that is why Barbie said her first thought when the lockdown was announced was: “More content, more money. Really, I felt like I’m going to take full advantage of this and monetise on this through more promo, more content and planning, since I have time now.”

She has also spent most of her time thinking about how to brand herself and her content and has even signed up for sites dedicated primarily to adult entertainment as she plans to become the first South African adult entertainment millionaire.

“In terms of tax, it is something I decided to take very seriously after learning not paying tax could land me in jail. I have registered with Sars, but for my case, I think I need to visit the office and figure out exactly how I’d be paying tax. OnlyFans is my only source of income currently and it varies each month, so what amount would I be paying?

“After hearing YouTubers pay tax, I was a little shaken up and needed to wake up and take this seriously.”

She also has hopes of making major purchases and funding her other business ideas in the same way American and European creators have done with their OnlyFans earnings. It is for this reason that she hopes her family will understand why she chose to do this if they ever find out.

“I honestly believe if my family finds out, it won’t be easy to accept and I won’t receive any support but honestly I am an individual and I do have a plan with what I’m doing. My family won’t understand, but I do.”

Although online pornography originating in South Africa is technically illegal, Barbie believes the laws should be amended in a way that no longer criminalises the act since the content is “already circulating in various ways”.

What makeup artist and content creator Foyin Ogunrombi misses about pre-Covid life are the content and networking opportunities that came with being able to attend events.

“Events are a critical touchpoint between a brand and those who run it and an influencer, and many relationships can be created or strengthened during those moments. And events help you break up your feed with more lifestyle content,” said Ogunrombi.

“The lockdown has definitely limited peoples budgets and prioritisation of influencer marketing, but at the same time it’s given brands the time to pivot and re-strategise lockdown content,” observed Ogunrombi.

She admits that she was initially incredibly stressed about what the lockdown might mean for influencers like herself, but she has come to find that it’s not as bad as she had imagined.

Unlike the aforementioned creators, Ogunrombi has found it hard to create and be positive during a pandemic.

“Luckily beauty content can be created from the comfort of my own home. I’ve had to find new ways to motivate and inspire myself so that I would have valuable content to post.”

When asked if she has thought about what post-lockdown life will look like in a time of coronavirus, Ogunrombi enthusiastically shares that she spends most of her time thinking about what life and the world will look like moving forward.

“I think about this all the time! When will it be safe to host an event again? Will we all be wearing masks? Will they serve food and drinks because we’re wearing masks? Are we able to interact with each other anymore? If it’s at night or a party, will that even be feasible? These are all questions I think about. We’ll definitely have to revisit how events work but I hope we manage to find a solution that still keeps physical events around. Having every aspect of this work move to an online-only mechanism loses a lot of personal connection.”

She has also applied this thinking to her career.

“I’ve had to rely on my other monetisable skills quite a lot, such as freelance social media management – but even those hours have taken a cut due to Covid-19. But I’ve definitely had to think about other ways I can make money besides makeup artistry, since events, weddings, parties and photoshoots aren’t a thing anymore.”

Ogunrombi’s sentiments are shared by fellow creator, Melissa ‘Missy’ Roberts.

Missy Roberts. Picture: Supplied

In addition to networking, Roberts relied primarily on events as an additional source of content for her YouTube channel.

“One of my favourite things to produce was event vlogs so that’s all pretty much on hold for now. I don’t think it’s affected my brand however, I do think it will pose a new challenge for brands and creatives to find innovative ways to collaborate.”

According to Roberts, physically being in the presence of other creators and feeding off of their energy is part of her creative process and now that she can longer do that, she has had to look elsewhere for inspiration.

“Being stuck indoors all the time with the added stress of the pandemic can make it difficult to focus on work. And now we have to live stream or video chat to try to connect.”

Although her peers seem to have found it easier to make money during this time, Roberts says she now feels more pressure to secure additional revenue streams.

“Many of my campaigns got halted and some even cancelled so that meant I lost out on quite a bit of work. Also, some payments were very delayed and it seemed that as a freelancer my needs were not necessarily taken into consideration,” said Roberts on the financial implications of the lockdown on her finances.

“But I am also quite grateful that I work in digital media in a time where everyone is glued to their phones,” she concluded.

Similarly, Rhythm City actress and IGtv vlogger Kamo Molatlhoe believes that post lockdown life will bode well for creatives who know how to make use of social media.

Molatlhoe says she was grateful for the lockdown side benefit of being able to slow down and adds that came at a time when she desperately needed a break. She is convinced that being able to recharge has been good for her creative process.

“I was juggling two productions. Double shifts every day and I was starting to get very moody, tired and cranky and almost demotivated to a certain extent due to the fatigue.”

The lockdown has also enabled the actress to reinvest the money she has saved by being at home into improving the quality of her content which might soon become her biggest income stream.

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