<i>Friends, not ATMs</i>: parasocial relational work and the construction of intimacy by artists on Patreon

Hair, Lee

doi:10.1080/02732173.2021.1875090

Cited by 29 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…However, in turning to sites like OnlyFans or Patreon, we found that the creators engaged in differing forms of affective conversation; they treated their patrons like their friends and reciprocated their donations with intimacy through personal messages or tier specific rewards. These moments unveiled the often gendered and invisible emotional labor that goes into maintaining a brand, Furthermore, as Hair (2021) found, while intimacy allows for fans to feel like they are more connected, "it may also add invisible labor for creators, especially those who feel uncomfortable self-disclosing personal information or constantly engaging with fans" (p. 209).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosplay on Demand? Instagram, OnlyFans, and the Gendered Fantrepreneur

Rouse

Salter

2021

Social Media + Society

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Fan producers engaged in monetization, or what Suzanne Scott has termed “fantrepreneurs,” struggle with legal mechanisms for brand-building given the limitations of both copyright and platform moderation. These challenges have been amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has fundamentally changed the way that cosplayers, or fans who dress up as characters from their favorite television shows or movies, market themselves in an increasingly online space, as opposed to their initial public platforms of conventions. Restricted by digital platforms and their various moderation and monetization methods, cosplayer fantrepreneurs have developed new, multi-platform methods for sustaining their content and community connection. One prominent platform significant to this turn is OnlyFans, which is billed as a “peer-to-peer subscription app,” and allows users to “Sign up and interact with your fans!” Through a sample analysis of 50 cosplayers, this case study considers the approaches of cosplayers on integrating OnlyFans as part of a multiplatform struggle for economic viability. When we contextualize this platform labor in the history of cosplay, we note the hypersexualized labor that has always been central to monetization in this space, and the media franchise exploitation that profits from that labor at the expense of the fan producer, demonstrating the fundamental, gendered exploitation of the trend toward a patronage economy.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosplay on Demand? Instagram, OnlyFans, and the Gendered Fantrepreneur

Rouse

Salter

2021

Social Media + Society

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“…I see a lot of girls who "make a bang" on these platforms despite not representing the canonical type of beauty; it is a platform that allows you to be followed for who you are. (Sibilla,26) Another way the same objective is reached is when parasocial (Hair, 2021) relations and content that foster them are deployed side by side with more consciously planned out materials:…”

Section: Scopic Technologies As a Form Of Working The Embodied Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

The bodies of the (digitized) body

Cardoso¹,

Scarcelli

2022

MedieKultur

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OnlyFans has enjoyed increasing attention from media and from users and consumers, especially since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and particularly amongst Internet-savy emerging adults. We used semi-structured interviews to collect testimonies from young Italian women (N = 20) who sell their own sexual(ised) content on OnlyFans and processed them through Th ematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Through this process, we sought to explore how different bodies are conceptualised in relation to content production, and how labour takes somatic existence in multiple ways. We looked at 1) how the body is prepared to be presented and mediatised, 2) how its presentation is conceptualised and actualised, and 3) how that work of representation, as a work of networking and therefore where bodily energy is invested and expended. Through this, we show how there are multiple, concurrent, and at times contradictory, narratives about corporality, and that potency and healing coexist alongside exhaustion.

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“…Previous work on digital patronage has primarily focused on creators’ efforts to foster long-term relationships between themselves and their fans and the blended social-financial nature of such interactions (Hair, 2021; Leith, 2021; Wohn et al, 2019; Wohn and Freeman, 2020). The current study takes a step back to consider the role of digital patronage within the broader creative ecosystem.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most creators do not make a liveable income from Patreon alone, but adopt it as one of many revenue streams (Knepper, 2017; Regner, 2021). Patreon creators offer different levels of monthly subscription options, or ‘tiers’, for which patrons receive increasingly exclusive perks (Hair, 2021; Regner, 2021). 1 Patreon is seen as more accessible to new creators because it does not require a ‘minimum audience’ for monetization, unlike partnership platforms like Twitch and YouTube (Bonifacio and Wohn, 2020; Manjoo, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The majority of studies on digital patronage have focused on its relational aspects, such as creator-fan relationships and fans’ motivations to provide support (Bonifacio et al, 2021; Hair, 2021; Leith, 2021; Wohn et al, 2019; Wohn and Freeman, 2020). Although these topics are crucial to study, the current study seeks to step back and contextualize digital patronage as a platform-based revenue model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multi-platform practices among digital patronage creators

Hair

Bonifacio

Wohn

2022

Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Med

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Digital patronage is an emergent revenue model in which fans provide recurring financial support to a content creator, as exemplified through platforms like Twitch and Patreon. Whereas previous research has investigated creator-supporter relationships, the current study investigates creators’ multi-platform practices through in-depth interviews. We build on trends in creative labor studies and communication to examine how creators perceive Patreon and integrate it into their existing workflow. This study’s findings contribute to a better understanding of the role of digital patronage within the broader ecosystem of creative labor platforms.

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Friends, not ATMs: parasocial relational work and the construction of intimacy by artists on Patreon

Cited by 29 publications

References 46 publications

Cosplay on Demand? Instagram, OnlyFans, and the Gendered Fantrepreneur

Cosplay on Demand? Instagram, OnlyFans, and the Gendered Fantrepreneur

The bodies of the (digitized) body

Multi-platform practices among digital patronage creators

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