Digital Labour and Platform Capitalism: A Discourse Analysis of OnlyFans Creators Interviews

Since the COVID-19 pandemic spread in 2020, platforms like OnlyFans have experienced a significant surge in popularity, also due to the fact that many people could not perform their in-person labour. OnlyFans revolutionised digital sex work by offering creators new modes of income generation through paywalled content. Many creators have begun to define this platform as a tool that empowers them and helps them achieve success and financial stability. However, there is academic evidence that, by operating in the realm of platform capitalism, digital workers on these platforms are often exploited in various ways. In addition, the exploitation of digital labour on OnlyFans is also a feminist issue, as the vast majority of workers identify as women, and the buyers are mostly heterosexual men. Therefore, there is a need to study the discourse around female labour on OnlyFans through the lens of three main theories: Platform capitalism, Digital Labour Theory and Feminist Theory. Throughout the research, it becomes clear that the findings reveal a discursive tension. On the one hand, creators often describe their work with words such as "empowering" and "freeing," and they feel like they can "be their own bosses." On the other hand, many also speak about the extreme competition on the platform, the lack of labour protections (e.g., sick leave and retirement) and the social and economic stigma they face because of their job. The methodology applied is Critical Discourse Analysis: by analysing the discursive choices of the creators themselves when discussing their labour, the aim is to investigate how OnlyFans workers create discourses around gendered experiences of precarity, empowerment, and oppression. This research aims to analyse how OnlyFans creators discuss their work and how they perceive labour precarity. This thesis contributes to the ongoing conversations about digital labour, focusing specifically on digital sex work.