The Kids Are Not Alright, and They’ve Got an OnlyFans Link to Prove It
Monday, August 4, 2025.
Welcome to the Hustle-Halo Economy
There was a time when selling your soul was a dark metaphor. Now it’s monetized.
I coined the term“Hustle halo” in the hopes of capturing the cultural glamorization of relentless self-promotion and commodification—especially when it’s framed as virtuous, empowering, or even spiritual, as a concrete idea.
Think of it as the invisible glow we place over hustle culture to make it feel not just productive, but moral.
A new study out of Spain reveals that adolescents—some as young as 12—are not only aware of OnlyFans, but see it as a realistic, even admirable path to financial independence.
The research, published in Sexuality & Culture (Anciones-Anguita & Checa Romero, 2024), documents how some teens nowadays frame erotic content creation as authentic agency, self-expression, and rational career planning.
They speak the language of entrepreneurship and empowerment.
They cite subscriber tiers and content algorithms like they’re prepping for Shark Tank. But something’s missing.
Not just parental oversight, not just regulation. Something deeper.
Something spiritual.
From Pocket Money to Personal Branding
These kids aren’t just experimenting with adult content—they’re modeling its economics.
They know how the subscription model works. They understand that success depends on beauty, frequency, and boundary-blurring. They talk about engagement metrics like mini-CEOs.
But when a 14-year-old says that “OnlyFans is a smart backup plan if college doesn’t work out,” we are no longer talking about teenage rebellion.
We’re talking about the collapse of hope in traditional pathways to meaning.
Because behind every “empowered” teen posting semi-nudes for coins is a world that failed to give her better options.
Postfeminism in a Push-Up Bra
Girls in the study often used language borrowed from postfeminist scripts: “It’s my choice,” “It’s empowering,” “I’m taking control.” These declarations are familiar, especially to those of us who remember the “girlboss” era of lean-in feminism.
But other girls, in the same breath, admitted that economic pressure makes those choices feel anything but free.
Some even likened it to prostitution with filters. But in a culture of Epstein, is the stick dirty on both ends? Or do we need a bigger boat?
This is what Rosalind Gill (2007) and Angela McRobbie (2009) have long warned us about: the neoliberal sleight-of-hand that rebrands coercion as self-actualization. What you used to endure, you now opt into. With a flirty smile.
Boys Will Be… Consumers
Boys, meanwhile, mostly float above the spectacle, according to this research,
Some fantasize about joining in, but most see OnlyFans as a girls’ game—lucrative for them, consumable for him.
They describe pirated content on Discord, pop-ups on Telegram, tricks to bypass age checks.
To them, it’s less about power or intimacy and more about access. It’s like they’re watching an economic video game they didn’t build but know how to play.
And still, a few are even considering joining the hustle—not out of sexual confidence but out of despair. They don’t see a better plan.
From Sacred to Subscribed
Here’s the part no one wants to say out loud:
This isn’t just a story about bad parenting or lax tech regulations.
This is a story about spiritual malaise. We’ve hollowed out the deeper meanings of intimacy, identity, and connection. We’ve turned sex into content, relationship into transaction, and human dignity into click-through rates.
In a culture that treats the sacred as marginal and the algorithm as gospel, some kids are simply adapting to the lack of gravitas..
They’re spiritual refugees. They don’t hold a gravitas for their personhood. They just believe in monetizing their existence.
The Real Sex Talk We’re Not Having
Parents are told to have “the talk,” as though a few words about contraception and consent will shield a child from the gravitational pull of erotic capitalism.
But what today’s teens need isn’t just better warnings. They need meaning. They need more compelling counter-narratives.
Sex education must expand out it’s current constraints to embrace deeper sense of digital literacy, media deconstruction, and spiritual resilience.
Not in a religious sense, necessarily—but in the sense that some things should perhaps not be for sale. Some aspects of personhood, perhaps might simply be too important.
Our kids are fluent in monetization. Are they fluent in awe?
Do they know that the body is not just a product?
That intimacy is not just leverage?
That they are not just data?
A Culture That Sells Itself
The saddest irony? These teens aren’t deluded. They’re just paying attention.
They see that adults sell their souls every day—on LinkedIn, on Instagram, in the quiet clickbait of self-promotion.
So when they say, “Why not sell my body online?”
They’re not being reckless.
They’re being congruent.
Final Reflections from a Therapist Watching This Unfold
In my practice, I occasionally see the long arc of this trend.
Some couples trying to rebuild trust after micro-cheating. Or a teen is haunted by digital regret. Families are slowly realizing that, unfortunately, like a predator in the neighborhood, the culture got to their kids before they did.
What this study shows us—starkly—is that the next generation doesn’t believe the system is going to save them.
So they’re trying to save themselves. And they’ve been handed a very dangerous set of tools to do it.
As therapists, educators, parents—as citizens—we have to ask:
When everything is commodified, what do we hold sacred?
When attention is currency, how do we teach stillness?
When exploitation wears the costume of choice, how do we tell the difference?
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Anciones-Anguita, K., & Checa Romero, M. (2024). Making Money on OnlyFans? A Study on the Promotion of Erotic Content Platforms on Social Media and their Influence on Adolescents. Sexuality & Culture. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-024-10011-5
Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549407075898
Casey, B. J., Jones, R. M., & Hare, T. A. (2008). The adolescent brain. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1124(1), 111–126. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1440.010
McRobbie, A. (2009). The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change. SAGE Publications.
Clinician Transparency Statement:
Daniel Dashnaw practices under the supervision of two licensed AAMFT supervisors in accordance with Massachusetts law—one for work in public mental health, and one for private practice. This article reflects a synthesis of social science research, clinical experience, and the emotional truths of real families. It is not a substitute for professional therapy.