In just over a decade, the world has been transformed as smartphones put the internet at our fingertips. This digital revolution didn't just change how we surf the web or chat with our friends, but reshaped our entire relationship with the economy.
Among the most drastic changes in the smartphone era is the rise of the "creator economy," a precarious marketplace of creative and artisan producers who earn money through app platforms like YouTube, OnlyFans, Etsy, and Twitch. Between 2010 and 2020, global exports of creative services skyrocketed from $487 billion to $1.1 trillion, representing 21 percent of worldwide service exports, according to the United Nations.
During the 2020s, one of the fastest-rising creative platforms has been Fansly, an app that lets users monetize their content behind a paywall. Fansly is something of a Lyft to OnlyFans' Uber, growing from a relatively unknown startup in 2020 to a massive content marketplace boasting some 130 million users.
Arguably the dominant — and certainly the most profitable — use of these platforms is the sale of adult content, which has exploded into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Among the more niche but fiercely loved corners of this world is furry content, a genre defined by hand-drawn anthropomorphic characters, which had found a haven on Fansly, at least until recently.
Now, a major overhaul to the platform's terms of service means that furry content is effectively banned, leaving many creators scrambling. Among the policy changes are a ban on "anthropomorphic content," which Fanly’s "payment processing partners" classify as "simulated bestiality."
A statement to Fansly users explaining the ban got pretty descriptive, saying that hand-drawn "kemonomimi" content — the Japanese term for humanoid cartoons with some animal features, like tails or cat ears — is still permitted. Full furry personas known as "kemono," and "scalie" content of anthropomorphic reptiles and amphibians are no longer acceptable, however.
The policy overhaul also includes a crackdown on content featuring alcohol, cannabis, and "other intoxicating substances," adult content filmed in public, hypnosis or mind control fetish content — "regardless of context," it stipulated — and homemade wrestling material.
Content creators and consumers aren’t thrilled, to say the least. (As many pointed out, anthropomorphic furry content might not be to everybody's taste, but the fuzzy human-shaped characters depicted in it have virtually nothing to do with actual bestiality.)
"Way to go Fansly! Good job shooting yourself in the foot," wrote one user on Bluesky, echoing broader feelings from the furry community. "Hope your 'payment processing partners' choke on sh*t."
Beyond the world of furry porn and backyard wrestling videos, the ban illustrates an insidious issue within the creative economy: the precarity built into the self-employed structure of Fansly and other platforms like it. The artists, actors, musicians, and sex workers who've come to rely on these platforms to put food on the table — freelancers, in other words — are subject to the whims of undemocratic, profit-motivated corporations.
Regardless of how you feel about the rise of adult sexual content, there’s no denying that it’s become a crucial source of income for many — and on the flipside, a massive reserve of labor.
If an app like Fansly were to disappear overnight — which isn’t exactly unheard of — the labor market would have to contend with an influx of freelancers who are now effectively jobless. While not all of the 2.1 million content creators on Fansly make a full-time living on it, the rapid explosion of the app-based creative and gig economies has come to act as the last bulwark against a drastic rise in unemployment.
High unemployment, in turn, causes verifiable, long lasting damage to wages, job benefits, savings, and workplace rights for the rest of us.
So whether you like it or not, the economics are clear: we need to let the furries cook.
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