The day is January 1, 2020. After months of mental “Do It”/”Don’t Do It” tennis matches and giving myself a few very impressive stress zits, I have decided to begin my journey on OnlyFans. I input my data and I choose my new moniker, deciding to adopt Han Solo’s last name — and hopefully his give ‘em hell attitude. I am nervous. And sweaty.
Oh, so sweaty.
I would take something scathing and quote-tweet it, either turning it into satire of the creep who commented it or embracing their slurs and ‘insults’ head on.
Until now I have never been outwardly sexual. In fact, I have always been — dare I say — modest. I have no idea how to pretend to be sexy, so instead I advertise just as I am: a weird little lady with big floppy boobies and a short buttcrack. I start noticing the humor in my day-to-day interactions, so I begin making funny videos about the “woes” of being an OnlyFans girl. Silly things most people in online sex work deal with constantly, like wading through the mountain of wieners and free nude requests in my inbox. I want to stand out and I realize there are not enough people making light of our trivial struggles, not to mention our not-so-trivial struggles, like the constant shaming and berating people receive for making a career out of sex work (especially amid the rise in OnlyFans sign-ups).
I still remember the first mean comment I ever received. I was promoting myself under a thread made for OnlyFans promotions on Twitter when a man commented, “Your body looks like five quarter-pounders smashed together.” My face got hot, my heart rate quickened and I wondered why he would feel like he needed to say that about me. I was upset and embarrassed, but the more I stared at his comment the more hilarious it became to me. I imagined this man sitting at his computer in his mother’s basement, donned in nothing but a stained wife-beater, picking Dorito dust out of his belly button with one hand and furiously typing out his comment comparing me to hamburgers with the other. I began to laugh.
I started advertising with the rude comments people left for me. I would take something scathing and quote-tweet it, either turning it into satire of the creep who commented it or embracing their slurs and “insults” head on. You call me Miss Piggy? I call it an honor.
So many people hide behind their computer screens on anonymous accounts wasting their precious time and energy seeking out confident humans on the internet to bash them. They want the feeling of power that comes with knowing they held any semblance of control over your thoughts. They want to “live rent-free in your mind.”
They dig at my looks, my intellect and my worth as a human being with comments that are so incredibly stupid, that every time I have to read them I feel my last two brain cells attempt a murder-suicide. They can’t stand the idea that I decided to profit off my body in any capacity, but the fact that I decided to do it and bust a nut at the same time sends them into such a blind rage that they simply have no other choice but to share my content and whizz all over it.
And I truly could not ask for better free advertising!
I recently made a humorous video called “A Letter to People Who Spend Their Time Shaming OnlyFans Girls.” I felt my point was very clear about the absurdity of feeling self-righteous over not paying for porn or supporting the people who make it. It wasn’t an attack on people who don’t pay, but an address to the people who shame us for making it and putting it behind a paywall. And that pissed ... people … off.
Someone posted the video on Worldstar — without any consent or credit to me — and I watched in shock and horror as thousands of vicious comments poured in. I could not fathom the complete lack of basic human decency I was witnessing. I called my boyfriend in the middle of the night to cry because someone compared me to Smeagol.
He asked me, “How did you find out about this?”
Through the snot and hiccups I told him, “Some of my new subscribers said they found me there.” And then it hit me. This online shame-fest had given me my single most successful day since starting my OnlyFans page. The horror turned to glee. I took to Twitter as fast as my thumbs could carry me and started addressing the mean comments with open arms.
When we let shaming get under our skin and respond in anger, all it does is add more fuel to a dumpster fire that is already larger than any of us care to handle. We sift through so much negativity in one day that we just don’t have the mental bandwidth to look twice when we see someone arguing on the internet. When we flip the script and use their jeers for our own empowerment and interest, it takes the pressure for you and others to get angry out of the equation.
Your friends and consumers don’t have to fume for you, they just get to sit back and giggle. Seeing someone get excited about being compared to the ogre version of Princess Fiona from Shrek is the kind of care-free energy everyone could use some of right about now.
Next time some turd rolls their way into your comments or DMs, remember that the best way to ruin their day (and jumpstart yours) is to let it roll off your back. It’s okay to feel sad or angry when you see someone try to bring you down, but if you “let the hate flow through you” as Emperor Palpatine would say, all it will do is give them power. Turning it into something fun brings us together as a community. You’ll stop focusing on the negative things people say about you, and spend more time enjoying the camaraderie and kindness of your peers. It’ll be good for you. And your blood pressure. I promise.
Savannah Solo is a content creator who can be followed @savannah_solo on Twitter, on OnlyFans.com/savannahsolo and @xsavannahsolox on Instagram.
