I wanted to see myself. I wanted to know how
far I would go too. For a stretch during the winter,
obsessively following these influencers dangerously
obstructed personal and professional obligations.
I craved them more and more. I procrastinated by
browsing OnlyFans, paying for yet another subscrip-
tion. I was late to meetings or dinners or doctor’s
appointments because I hungered for the satisfac-
tion of one more video. Maybe there was a new influ-
encer on the platform I could check out?
Influencers are now obtainable in a new sort of
way. “This affords people a way to go deeper than
just fantasizing,” one friend tells me. He’s a marketing
executive at a major media company who originally
signed up for OnlyFans because there were people on
“Twitter and Instagram that I wanted to see with no
clothes on,” both straight and “gayfamous.” For him,
what’s happening is simple: It’s an innate evolution
of influencer fame. “It’s an extension of what people
really want,” he says. “Sex.”
The thrall of OnlyFans, then, does away with pre-
tense. This was the allure for me. The manufactured-
as-real performance of influencers, the occasional
manicured artifice of their work, was gone. Even if
what I watched was yet another performance, there
was an air of vulnerability on both ends—the par-
titions felt less tangible. The avatar was shattered,
its jagged pieces irreparable. The dynamics even
seemed to tilt in my favor. We’d both sacrificed a
form of power, but here, cloaked in anonymity, I held
control. I knew who they were, but they didn’t know
who I was.
Maybe the body was the final barrier. My iden-
tities had collapsed onto one another, too, in these
moments of private ecstasy. I wasn’t just a book-loving
taco obsessive from Los Angeles who listens to DJ Quik
and Frank Ocean—the person my family and friends
knew. I was someone who liked to watch women plea-
sure themselves, alone and together, someone who
watched gay couples have sex, someone who, at times,
found arousal through intercourse between a man and
a transwoman. I was also someone who just liked to
look, I found out, stimulated at the possibility of what
might unfold, of not knowing what would happen next.
These were things I never shared with others. Behind
my I was also a chorus of wes.
Not long ago, I ran into an influencer from JustFor
.Fans at the gym. He had ignored multiple email
requests for an interview. Now, detached from the
glow of my laptop screen, I momentarily lingered,
stuck. I’d never seen him in person before, yet here he
was; one of his many selves, one that I didn’t quite
know. A distance seemed to stretch between us. He
felt a world apart. We’ve crossed paths many times
since, occasionally trading glances on the way to dif-
ferent workout machines. I’ve never introduced
myself. I probably never will.
darren dugan
(Darren Dugan)
#1