On April 28, just before noon, Win White logged onto X and posted a series of messages to his 65,000 followers who, until that moment, were mostly unaware of his past as an OnlyFans creator.
“I’m asking humbly that we all refrain from sharing content from before. If you see it, save it … cool,” he wrote. “I know where I’ve been and I think I’m entitled to a life after that at least.”
That morning White, 29, had received several DMs about an old clip of him making rounds. Though he has done his best to separate his old life from his new one—last year he deleted his OnlyFans account and the separate X account where he posted content—it often has a habit of catching up with him. “All that work that I did for OnlyFans, I did out in California. I don’t really talk about it on this page. So I panicked,” White tells WIRED.
Still, he had a hunch how his request might be received, and how nasty the responses could get. “From the moment that I sent the tweet I knew that this isn’t something that everybody is going to adhere to. I don’t expect any type of respect.”
The reactions, which ranged from empathetic to mostly mocking, maligned White for his past choices. “You were desperate then so deal with the now,” one X user commented. As more people piled on, the ordeal ignited an intense discussion around the boundaries of consent and the ethics of consumption.
OnlyFans underwent massive growth between 2020 and 2023. A gay Navy veteran, White signed up for the platform in September 2022 because he wanted to establish independence from a toxic relationship he was trying to get out of. By August 2023, the year he quit, OnlyFans had more than 3 million creators. White says he shot maybe 40 videos in total, and mostly filmed solo scenes, with the exception of a few he did with a former partner.
The experience had started to feel inauthentic to who he was, on top of the reputational consequences not being worth the scant payout. “I only did it when I needed money to do something extra curricular. It was never my day job. I didn’t get rich off of it.” There’s another thing, White says, “I really sucked at it,” which is why he was so caught off guard by the responses to his posts asking people to stop sharing his content.
Many people argued that White’s plea was unreasonable. This is the internet and, well, the internet is forever. “You can’t ask millions of strangers to collectively agree to a ‘hush’ policy on content that you personally put out and kept live. That’s just not how this works,” posted one X user, with another piling on: “Digital footprint lives here and doesn’t leave here.” Others called the request hypocritical given that they had paid for the work. Added @stuntqween: “I’m all for respect—but it’s quite comical when retired OF gays finally accumulate the funds that they’ve dreamed of (from making porn) then all of a sudden it’s ‘take that down!’ Babe we paid for that OF content, shared your content to SUPPORT you & funded your lifestyle.” Those in support of White contended that it came down to one issue—consent—saying the inability to start over constitutes an unfair social punishment. Asked @MrFlyyyGuyyy, “Why are y’all so comfortable disregarding a person’s consent?”
Over the last several years, there has been a notable exodus of high-profile creators from OnlyFans, including influencer Blac Chyna and Great British Bakeoff winner John Whaite, and some are having to navigate tough questions as they quit the business.
