Abstract

 
 
 This essay compares the complex hierarchy of surveillance embedded in the content sharing platform OnlyFans to Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison. OnlyFans creators have found a sweet spot in a novel surveillant assemblage, capitalizing on the voyeuristic tendencies of their followers who are subsequently subject to data surveillance by the platform and its intermediaries. In the classic panopticon, prisoners are held captive in a circular room under the gaze of a single guard in a tower, unable to determine if and when they are being watched. In the inverted OnlyFans panopticon, the content creator stands alone in the tower and captivates their invisible audience below. Each creator maintains a single porn-opticon (pornographic-opticon) to be ultimately surveilled by the platform, a faceless, bodiless puppet master running the show from behind the scenes. Through this analogy, this essay explores the particular set of affordances that set OnlyFans and its creators apart from other platforms and forms of sex work.
 
 
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