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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

This is seriously tame and hardly an affront to anyone’s dignity. (Edit: For clarity these people are typing in a chat app pretending to be someone else not sharing pictures of themselves online.)

I really don’t see the difference between this and being an Actor, social media intern, character at Disneyland, Mall Santa etc. An actual 3 year old may be fooled, but sometimes adults want to play pretend as well.

You don’t think you were actually watching Frodo carry the burden of the one ring did you?

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Actors generally don't claim that they are actually the person they are portraying.

Unless I misunderstood the article, models with OnlyFans account often offer the service of personally chatting with their paying fans, and then essentially hire improv actors to do the actual chatting.

That sounds fraudulent to me.

Actors, politicians, etc have paid people to pretend to be themselves on social media for years at this point.

The degree to which Twitter followers or OnlyFans users actually believe they are talking to the real person is debatable, but they definitely prefer to believe the illusion.

I mean maybe you should experience firsthand what it would be like if someone in your family was involved in this? I do think that if you can’t think at least a few steps ahead of my point of view maybe you shouldn’t try and justify it on their behalf?

I am not being hostile by the way, just saying it how it is.

This is not some “I accidentally scraped your car” issue. Real people are making extremely unhealthy choices that lead to a lot of trauma and mental disorders. In the name of money (women) and false pleasure (men).

None of these girls give a flying fuck of who these guys are. And according to this article, how could they?

Uhh, this is a guy or girl pretending to be a hot girl online. That’s some on thing millions of people do everyday for the lulz without being paid for it.

I really don’t see why there would be any mental health issues involved?

I believe they're making an allusion to the commonality of loneliness among many of today's young men. Such loneliness is likely only to be exacerbated by habits that are enabled by this work.

Parasitical relationships are common enough I don’t think such spending represents mental illness anymore than other types of frivolous spending like buying action figures. Rather, people taking things to extremes is a general symptom of mental illness and shows up wherever that’s possible.

I know a Hoarder which may be coloring my perception, but underlying mental health issues show up in many different ways.

Or like psychics and palm readers, or even stage magicians. There doesn't seem to be any coercion involved here, one side is paying for entertainment, and in return they are getting entertainment.

Honestly, good for these women who figured out a legal, safe way to profit from thirsty men, that is so risk-free it doesn't even involve physical proximity to those men. They seem to have cracked the "scaling" problem too, by hiring help. I'm impressed.

> Or like psychics and palm readers

Yes, I agree they are like psychics and palm readers, in that they are mostly emotionally manipulating sad marks for profit (or occasionally just doing harmless entertainment... but often not).

> stage magicians

I've met one person in my entire life who thought magic was real. Granted I try not to hang out with morons, but I have to imagine the percentage is low.

> I really don’t see the difference between this and being an Actor, character at Disneyland, Mall Santa etc.

Would you support your 18 year old child doing onlyfans like you might them working at Disneyland?

Im not personally against Onlyfans but I won't pretend like I wouldn't have serious concerns with a loved one doing this. If for no other reason then the content being scrapped and published for future coworkers, neighbors, etc., to view.

> Would you support your 18 year old child doing onlyfans like you might them working at Disneyland?

What reason would I have to be less supportive?

The serious potential for emotional and reputational harm resulting from having publicly searchable nude images of them on the internet (assuming they're doing OnlyFans content, not roleplaying someone elses content).

Is the reputational harm any greater than the reputational harm in being openly gay? The 'reputational harm' is that bigots will judge you.

> Would you support your 18 year old child doing onlyfans like you might them working at Disneyland?

I would support them the same way I would support them becoming a stunt actor or performing any other job that comes with significant risks - very hesitantly, while having a conversation about potential downsides and not being super happy about their choice (again, mostly due to risk to themselves), but without thinking that it is inherently some moral crime.

To be clear, this isn’t someone showing nude pictures on only fans. This is a guy or girl typing in a chat pretending to be a female model.

If my 18 kid was pulling in 120k working 6 hours a day like this, I would personally respect the hustle. If nothing else it’s a solid foundation to get a job pretending to be a politician/CEO/actor on social media etc. So there’s both better pay and more upwards mobility than most jobs available at 18.

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