Twice in the last two days I’ve seen an Instagram Reels clip claiming someone quit their job to do OnlyFans and got almost no subscribers. One was an RN, and after two months she only had twelve paying customers.

I know, I know, porn is a dicey subject, but porn always blazes the trail and it’s edifying to look at the landscape.

In case you’ve been under a rock, individuals now rule the pornography roost. The intermediaries have gone out of business. Now you can go direct to the consumer and make 80% of the dough. That’s right, OnlyFans only takes 20%, but you’ve got to bring in the customers.

This isn’t radically different from Spotify and other streaming outlets. Which take approximately a third of revenue. They’re paid for hosting your songs, but getting people to stream so you can get paid, that’s YOUR job!

But seemingly too many musicians think it’s somebody else’s job.

Meanwhile, the traditional powers might sign you, but they don’t know how to break you either. At best, they can blow up what you’ve already created. And why should you give them such a big cut for this? I read earlier today that Zac Brown is releasing his new album independently. I’m sure he could get a major deal, but at what cost, and what would the label do for him anyway? Now he’s in business with himself. If he can get people to stream, he makes money. If not? Never mind that he owns the product.

What those not on Reels or TikTok don’t realize is the successful people not only post every day, but oftentimes MULTIPLE TIMES PER DAY!

I know, I know, for years we’ve been hearing that you’re a musician and you don’t want to learn a new skill and expend the effort, but the game has changed and this is the world we now live in.

If you look at the most successful women on OnlyFans, they’re not the most attractive, the most beautiful, they’re the ones WHO WORK IT THE MOST!

Instagram is your primary point of contact. If you get banned, you’re out of business, and this happens all the time.

And if you hook someone, it’s your job to serve them such that they do not unsubscribe. This is the mentality a musical act needs today. Forget the middleman, think about the end user…how can you get them to listen to your music constantly and come to the show?

Well, you’re going to have to feed them information and music constantly.

Once again, you’re not trying to serve EVERYBODY, just a slice of the public, that’s enough to make you rich if you do it right.

So these two women who failed at OnlyFans… They both had big boobs. BUT THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!

Being good at your craft is not enough.

Being signed to a label is not enough.

No, you have to personally go out and sell yourself. Which is why I wince when acts say they have staff do their social media. Then it’s inherently flawed. It’s not about raw information, it’s about creating a BOND!

These women trolling for OnlyFans subscriptions… They don’t only talk porn. They talk about their lives, their hopes and dreams, and sure, a good amount is fantasy, but that’s the essence of music anyway, you’re selling a dream to the listener!

Being good and having good material is not enough. No way. It’s about how well you market yourself. And when you see something successful that started out on TikTok and you say you could do better, you’re missing the point. How good is your social media, how good is your marketing?

It’s more than the music, there’s creativity involved, just like there was in the heyday of MTV. And sure, creativity can be visual effects, but now more than ever it’s a twist on your personality, your view of the world, you can’t be bland, you must have an identity such that people become hooked on you. And the music rides right alongside.

A clip of music is not enough. It doesn’t engender virality. The visuals, the concepts, eclipse the music at first, the music is secondary, like it is in a film. But films are expensive to make and you can make a social media clip instantly, for free! Everybody’s got a smartphone, everybody’s got access to the internet.

Music is cottage industry, just like porn. It comes down to the individual, how well they sell their assets.

And you have to keep selling.

As for those OnlyFans women…truly successful people are selling phone calls that are not even them, they’re provided by a farm! And you can get a personal video or a signed photo… These women are in business 24/7, they can’t even go on vacation, for fear they’ll be forgotten.

If it sounds like a grind, it is.

But the difference between porn and music is that in music you’re selling more than your body, you’re selling your mind, your talent, what you come up with, THE TUNES! And if the tunes gain traction they will sustain you. And social media is not only an incentive for streaming the song, but also coming to the show, where people can be up close and personal!

Some of the biggest acts now sit in the lobby selling merch after the gig. Not only is it a huge revenue stream, it bonds the audience to them.

So how hard are you willing to work?

Don’t talk to me about talent, sure, it’s necessary, at least to a degree, but if you believe the most talented people have triumphed in the music business you’re sorely mistaken. It’s always been the ones who’ve been willing to work hardest.

As for that work… Most people have no idea how hard it was. Travel, multiple radio appearances, if you saw the schedule of hit acts you’d be flabbergasted. For a long time the music alone has not been enough.

If your goal is press, if your goal is impressing the industry, you’re doing it completely wrong. These OnlyFans babes are not concerned with getting stories in the newspaper or on TV, just how much money they make (although successful ones do brag that they’re in the top 1% or 5%).

How do I know all this?

Because porn, women trolling for OnlyFans subscribers, floods Instagram. You can’t avoid it. Less on TikTok, but it’s there too.

In other words, on social media you’re being exposed to a lot of stuff that may not interest you. But the algorithm is serving up stuff and…you never know what you might like that you previously thought you didn’t.

Now if you’re starting…

Man, I have to write a whole screed about this. The most important thing is STARTING! Don’t worry if it’s good enough, if it isn’t no one will see it anyway! And you can only learn the skill if you participate.

Oldsters will bitch, say it’s too much work, rail against substandard songs that break through, whereas the youth have already bought into the paradigm and are playing, and winning.

And you can too.

Assuming you’re willing to work around the clock.

If not, you’re probably not going to make it.

But if you don’t play, you DEFINITELY won’t make it!

PASSION

If you don’t believe it, we won’t.

Passion trumps everything but craft. Once you have the skill to deliver your message, it becomes completely about how you deliver your message. This is what is absent from TV competition shows, this is what is absent from too many songs in the Spotify Top 50, this is what is absent from too many of today’s movies, TV shows and books. If you don’t care about it, if we don’t believe it’s the most important thing to you, we’ll shrug and pass.

Passion is what AI cannot replace. Because it cannot be defined, it’s only something you feel. Sure, it can be faked, but we know that too. We’re looking for sincerity, credibility, and that’s the essence of all great art.

Don’t worry if you miss a note, or if you’re singing flat or are a bit pitchy, oftentimes you shouldn’t even eliminate the flaws via computer. It’s these variations from perfection that make you human, that allow us to relate. We want to feel there’s a person under the message. And that it’s coming directly from them to us. We don’t want the intermediaries involved, which is why too much cowritten stuff may be commercial but is too often junk. Yes, you can get three people in a room and they can passionately create something, but that is rare. Passion comes from a mood, a state of mind, and it’s anything but workmanlike.

And the more you can “fix” a product with new tools, the more you’re eliminating the passion.

Doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, whether people agree with you or not, but whether you convey your message CONVINCINGLY!

It’s all about the spark. And carrying through on this inspiration.

VIEWPOINT

Bland is anathema. Especially in art. You get along with everybody to get ahead in business, but that is not how it works in art. In art you are singular. With a vision. And that vision can both reflect society back upon itself or lead people. If you’re afraid of offending someone, you’re doing it wrong. As long as it’s from the heart, with passion, your message, your work, will have an impact.

And to have a viewpoint you must live, have experiences. Which is why the work of the barely pubescent always sucks. They don’t have enough life experience to know what is going on. Artists have to do things, let their minds breathe, you don’t want to spend all your time in the recording studio or writing in front of a computer. Sans input, you don’t have anything to react to, nothing to inform your viewpoint.

Jagged edges hook people. And without hooks it slides right off of people. You must SAY something! It could be about politics, love, ecology, anything, as long as you’re passionate about it. And don’t weigh in if you’re uninformed.

CRAFT

The building blocks are crucial. You have to know how to play your instrument, you have to know how to write. No one is great out of the box, NO ONE! You have to work at it. To the point where it’s second nature. Where you don’t have to think about forming the chords and changes come to you naturally, without even thinking, via inspiration. Everybody wants a shortcut, and now, more than ever, digital tools offer them. But you have to learn how to code, build a website…get some design experience before you can employ fonts to their best effect, learn that sometimes less is more.

You’ve got to pay your dues.

Having said that, don’t be crippled by your dues and craft. The key is to use the basics as bedrock, a jumping off point.

If you’re spamming people with songs at age thirteen, you’re doing it wrong. You’re probably doing it wrong if you’re fifteen or sixteen too.

You go to college for the experience, the broadening of your horizons, to learn about people and things and have something to bounce off of.

DO NOT get caught up in the anti-college gobbledygook spread by politicians. If you think college is a trade school, you’re not an artist. Most of what you learn in college happens outside the classroom.

Not that you need to go to college, but if you don’t… Just don’t do the same things, repeating yourself. Go to new places, meet new people, do new things, otherwise you’ll have nothing to write about.

Which to a great degree is why today’s music does not resonate with the masses. The people making it just aren’t worldly enough. They can use the usual suspects to create something that sounds professional, but that does not mean it will resonate, and its odds of lasting are small.

Don’t get caught up in the numbers game. No one ever listened to a record and thought “Where is it on the chart?” A record stands alone, in its own space, and it either resonates or it doesn’t.

And if your work doesn’t resonate, refer back to the above elements. And know that artistry is a calling, a long hard road into the unknown. Now that creation is easier everybody is doing it, but that is why so much is not great. You may be ahead of the game, people may not get you, but ask yourself…what makes you so special? So you can write, sing and play. THAT’S NOT ENOUGH! To rise above you must be unique, it’s a 360 degree endeavor. If people don’t react to your music on the first listen chances are you haven’t got it. Because we all recognize magic. Everybody from two year olds to ninety two year olds. Because it’s something you feel.

You’ve got to make people feel something. That’s  your number one job.

Or else you’re not an artist.

This is society’s Napster moment.

They never could kill P2P with the legal system. It took a bright twentysomething from a foreign country to save the record labels’ lunch. And now said labels are trying to survive by purchasing the distribution systems of much younger companies led by entrepreneurs. NO ONE running a major label today has ever had skin in the game, they’ve always worked for the man. They don’t know how to be nimble, they’re tied to the balance sheet.

But when you’re starting with a blank piece of paper…

All the brass at Apple is over 60. Any wonder that the company missed AI? It was so busy trying to squeeze money out of the App Store and subscriptions that it missed the future.

I woke up today to a story in the “Washington Post” about a 25 year old running for a Congressional seat:

“Democrats face another split over age and values in Arizona – Adelita Grijalva is the front-runner to replace her father in Congress but faces an unexpectedly competitive primary featuring a young social-media-savvy newcomer.”

Free link: https://wapo.st/3GI7h63

The money quote?

“Her campaign has been fueled by her large social media following”

I’ve yet to find a boomer testify positively about social media. Record execs will reluctantly admit records are broken by TikTok, but they don’t know how to do this. As for boomers and Gen-X’ers? Social media is THE DEVIL!

Oh, some are still on Facebook, connecting with their high school buddies and showing off, not knowing that TikTok is something different. TikTok is creative, it’s about connecting. And to anybody over fifty, it’s ANATHEMA!

There’s a gap as wide as the culture in between.

Not that Trump is in touch with youngsters either. In fact, if you’re on TikTok or Instagram Reels you’re constantly chuckling at the AI depictions of our President. He’s being mocked on a regular basis, and his team doesn’t even know it!

@rev_repeat_offender

*Tuba noises* Our fearless leader got a bill of clean health.. #aitrash #comedy #trump #grifterinchief #repeatoffender #fat #chonky #caloriedeficit #perfecthealth

? Fat – “Weird Al” Yankovic

As for the bros on X… That’s about dissatisfaction over their inability to get laid, inability to get a reasonable job, leaving them with all this time to waste on the service which has a very narrow appeal.

The culture has moved on from the political system. Trump’s only hope is he can control the youth via autocratic methods, because the penny is about to drop.

Tucker Carlson? He’s 56 and made his name on TV, do you think youngsters care?

So oldsters said Napster was stealing, they sicced the legal system on the service and the end result was that new decentralized services erupted to replace it. Talk about Whac-A-Mole.

Then the brass tried to teach the users a lesson by suing them. And then installed rootkits in the CDs.

Not only was there backlash, NONE OF THIS WORKED!

The MP3 didn’t sound good enough, physical product was everything. But the younger generations cottoned to streaming, saving the record labels. They know that access is everything, that ownership is passé. Youngsters don’t care that concerts replaced records, they’re into the EXPERIENCE!

Meanwhile, my inbox is still filled with people waiting for the old, pre-internet world to come back… IT ISN’T!

This is akin to the youthquake of yesteryear, the one in the sixties. The old guard was just too out of touch. No one wanted to be shipped to Vietnam to be killed.

Today’s driver is economic death. Not only can they not get a reasonable job that will allow them to buy a house, the government is adding debt that will hobble their future AND THEY KNOW IT!

Enough of the canard that the youth are ignorant. They’re online all day AND THAT’S WHERE THE NEWS IS! Never has a generation been so well-informed, and able to interact with its peers all around the world, instantly, FOR FREE!

Just like you can record in your bedroom for free. The old record label model has been demolished. Recording is cheaper and a broader swath of product is being consumed and the majors’ market share is declining. The old model of being able to control the marketplace is gone, NO ONE can break an act. Because today breaking an act means starting so small the old pros can’t even see it. It’s done in the bedroom using the new tools, communicating with your brethren. Forget polishing it, just PLAY!

That’s another thing the politicians can’t understand. Stop being measured and start being out there. The past is plowed under by the future nearly instantly. If you don’t play you can’t win. Making a mistake? It happens! Best to be in the game. Not every TikTok post is good, not every one gains traction, but that does not make people self-conscious, they continue, waiting to catch lightning in a bottle. And on TikTok, as opposed to YouTube or Instagram, the algorithm will allow nobodies to gain instant traction. The past is only prologue to a degree. The youth are used to new heroes constantly appearing and disappearing. Society has never been more fluid. But the oldsters insist it is moribund.

And like Napster all this is happening right in front of our eyes, in plain sight, but oldsters refuse to see it.

This is much bigger than Trump posting on Twitter and now Truth Social. The ball has moved, in typical modern media fashion, and not only are the Democrats behind, so are the Republicans. To succeed in modern society not only do you need to be agile, you must be willing to throw out the past and jump into the future on a regular basis.

Not only are the youth disillusioned, they are growing in number, EACH AND EVERY DAY! It’s only a matter of time until their values rule. They’re sleeper cells all over the country, just waiting to erupt. And oldsters can’t even see them!

Streaming has eclipsed network yet oldsters still ask for money to advertise on linear TV. Who is watching? Furthermore, youngsters HATE ADS!

This is not a right or left issue, Democrat or Republican, this is a societal issue.

Then again, the young lean left.

But it’s more than politics. It’s culture. And culture drives society.

The markers of change are out there, but in today’s multifarious world the obvious can be ignored, until…

Now wait just a second. There’s a flood in Texas and over a hundred people die and it was an unforeseen  act of God, but fire destroys homes in California and the fault lies with the mayor and the fire department and…

I’m not saying I don’t care about the people who lost their lives and their loved ones, but I am saying America has devolved to the point where if it’s not good for me, screw you!

Yes, it used to be different. As evidenced by the Youngbloods hit “Get Together”: 

“Come on people now

Smile on your brother

Everybody get together

Try to love one another right now”

That ethos is long gone. Then again, the people who experienced it are so busy protecting their nest eggs that they’re not worried about selling youngsters’ futures down the river. It’s mine for me.

As for Mamdani…

Are you catching this? The Democratic brass, Silicon Valley and the major news outlets are FREAKING OUT! Instead of evaluating why Mamdani won, they want to take away his ability to change a city whose government is deeply flawed, where it’s too expensive for the average punter to live in Manhattan, and even Williamsburg!

The young…

The government may not care about climate change, but the younger generations do. If you want Gen Z to buy your products not only must they be green, you must give back! Yes, there are a lot of right wing trolls on X, but just because someone yells loudest that does not mean everybody thinks the way they do.

And then there’s Elon Musk trying to start a third party. Not a bad idea, if he didn’t rape the government willy-nilly with DOGE. He lost the left who loved his cars. Now all he’s got is his bros on X and his AI bot that is literally trained on his tweets!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve checked out.

What I mean by this is I read the news, it affects me, but I don’t do anything about it and I don’t expect anybody else to do anything about it. We are already living under authoritarianism, but what is most confounding is people are accepting it. I thought if America turned into Hungary, run by the right wing hero Orbán, there’d be riots in the street. But we’ve got little more than crickets. Oldie leftists are disillusioned and living in the past and youngsters have been battling a negative future outlook for nearly their entire lives.

Don’t ask me to protest. To show up with a sign. We did that and it had no effect. It’s not 1968, never mind 1972 when the Republican Senators stood up to Nixon, who looks like a left wing saint compared to Trump.

And even Obama just excoriated the Democratic brass:

“Democrats Must ‘Toughen Up’ Against Trump, Obama Tells Donor – Frustrated that prominent Democrats have not fought harder, former President Barack Obama said in a speech that his party’s leaders needed to step up.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/us/politics/barack-obama-trump-democrats.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Wk8.N4_H.V9k_dnJ6AklH&smid=url-share

And please stop asking me for money. What are you going to do with it, buy TV ads like Andrew Cuomo? Today it’s not about money, it’s about marshalling the troops online with sincere messages delivered in a clever way. But the fearful Democrats just can’t understand, never mind accept, the new rules. Mamdani’s their Napster.

So Kristi Noem insists she must sign off on every expenditure over 100k, which is like Jamie Dimon needing to approve the purchase of anything more than a cup of coffee at JPMorgan Chase. And as a result, the FEMA phone lines went unmanned, the contractors having been laid off/not renewed. I didn’t see this story on Fox whatsoever and then Kristi Noem goes on a Sunday TV news program and denies calls weren’t answered. Hell, in the Trump administration you just fake it ’til you make it, lie until you get caught. And then you have constituents/fans who will support you no matter what you say.

Should I get into RFK, Jr. and vaccines? I can’t get the MMR shot because of an immune issue, hopefully my fifties immunity will hold. As for those keeping their kids from being vaccinated, they don’t care about herd immunity, they only care about themselves!

Like the corporations who killed easy cancellation. Is there a soul in America who doesn’t want to be able to cancel a subscription easily with one obvious click?

OF COURSE NOT!

But the individual not only has no power, Trump signed a bill that hurts the little guy and gal and the people who are aware of its contents are against it, overwhelmingly, but Congresspeople are afraid of their leader. What next, firings and suicides like in Russia, with Transport Minister Roman Starovoit?

I’m lucky. I live in California. You can denigrate it all you want, but it’s the world’s fourth largest economy and you can get an abortion and sure, it’s imperfect, but when you lose your home to an act of God you get more than thoughts and prayers.

And the public just wants to anesthetize, things are so bad. “Superman” gets bad reviews but does boffo at the b.o. Then again, try getting something new noticed by the public, it’s nearly impossible.

I don’t have any kids. But I was watching a video about skiing the Vallée Blanche earlier today and the glacier in Chamonix had shrunk so much in ten years it was a strenuous climb to where you used to walk right into the gondola.

Check the video out here, you can see the shrinkage starting at 9:20 (and back up before to see even more of a dramatic change):

But instead of addressing these climate disasters, let’s just cut the weather service. Ignorance is bliss.

But that’s what underlies so many of the world’s problems, raw ignorance. Hell, the newspapers have been delineating all of Trump’s faux pas, but the right has done a good job of marginalizing anything but Fox News and a bunch of websites those on the left have never even heard of.

And you want me to love my brother?

Yes, I keep hearing that from those on the left. We don’t fight like they do, we go high when they go low. Well, that never worked on the schoolyard and even though MLK, Jr. preached nonviolence, he was a leader who riled up an agitated public as opposed to Schumer, et al, who throw their hands in the air and say, “Who me, coach?”

Everybody lies on the stand, why should I tell the truth.

The January 6th perps got pardoned. So what does the rule of law mean?

And then we’ve got the immigrants as scapegoats. God, you’d think they were an invading force about to take over the government, when the truth is they’re doing all the jobs white citizens refuse to do.

Then again, under the rubric of rip-off, poor whites are going to lose their local hospitals. Let’s make it more simple, why don’t we have the government stop supporting ANYBODY! You’re all on your own. Enough with this social safety net pioneered by Roosevelt. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps, go to work at Walmart and…

GOOD LUCK!