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Leon
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Gracie
Hi. Hi.
Leon
At the beginning of August of last year, Gracie called me up to vent.
Gracie
I've cooled down a little bit since yesterday, but yeah, my rose colored glasses are becoming clearer.
Leon
During our months long crash course in the ways of OnlyFans success, Gracie had begun wondering if she was leaving money on the table. So she had recently made a strategic business decision to remove the $5 monthly subscription fee from her OnlyFans page. It would now be free to join, but more expensive to buy content.
Gracie
Because I think as soon as people just see a paywall they're like, nah, I don't want to. I mean, so many of these people are so cheap.
Leon
Sure enough, Gracie's page quickly went from 160 subscribers to over 700. It was an experiment that seemed to be working. But then Gracie noticed something about her new subscribers. A lot of them were assholes.
Gracie
I've had people who will not buy a six dollar post because they're like, if it doesn't have, you know, hole in it, then I'm not paying $6. And I was like, don't, dude.
Leon
As you may remember, Gracie's handle on OnlyFans was professional girlfriend. So she was used to new subscribers opening with softer, more romantic messages like, wow, you're so beautiful. Happy to be here. With lots of exclamation points and kissy face emojis. One guy had even introduced himself by bashfully admitting that he was 32 and liked to collect Pokemon cards. And while Gracie told me that some of the new subscribers were also sweet, a lot of them came aboard and immediately started making demands.
Gracie
Hey, I want to see this and this. Hey, do you do this? Hey, do you Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I'm not a drive thru.
Leon
Gracie showed me screenshots of her DMs with these new subscribers and I was surprised to see the tone shift from the messages she had shared previously. One of these guys opened with let me fuck you. Another one called her a whore. And naturally one guy just said, show me your pussy.
Gracie
And look, on one hand I, I know I shouldn't feel precious because I am putting myself out there. You know, it's the same way that I feel like I, I probably can't be offended by mean comments that I get on my standup clips. But on the other hand I'm like, how do people talk to anyone like this? I don't even talk to ChatGPT like this. I say thank you to, how are you talking to me like this?
Leon
When Gracie started her OnlyFans account, she was mainly getting subscribers through her stand up comedy page on Instagram. So these were men who were already fans of her sense of humor and felt like they knew her a little bit and were therefore more likely to see her as a human being. But these new guys, freeloaders, as Gracie called them, were clearly not on that same page.
Gracie
I've been posting like, hey guys, thank you for being patient. I now have 700 subscribers and this asshole comes at me just being like, hey, not to sound like an asshole. Too late, you know, you're not getting back to me on this and that. So like, what's the deal? Basically, I'm not conversing with him enough. And then I also had someone else accusing me of having chatters, so I posted a whole video saying, hey, guys, it's me. Trust me, if I did have chatters, I'd be responding to you guys a lot faster. So you can, you can have one of two things. I can either hire chatters and you guys can all get what you want faster, or you can talk to me and wait like good boys. Um, so this guy, you know, and I, I give him this whole lengthy explanation which I thought would elicit some kind of empathy, like, hey, I have a full time day job. I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I'm cutting down on messages. And he just kept, I get that,
Leon
but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Gracie
And I say, hey man, also, like, you've spent $20 on me. I just checked. And he's like, oh, and this is the thing. Oh, now the rage is coming back. This is the thing that got me the most is he goes, I'm not gonna pay to get your attention or beg for content. And I was like, paying for my attention is literally the point of this platform. So I basically told him, I was like, hey, you can go somewhere else. Like you are not spending enough money to be making these demands. I'm sorry, you should. And he goes, well, I've spent $500 on other models, so it's not that I'm cheap. And I go, then, wow. Then go. And I just blocked him and then freaked out that this person is gonna like retaliate in some way by finding my content and leaking it or reporting my Instagram or something. It's like I didn't want him in my space. But I. It's scary to block people. It's scary to block upset men.
Leon
Ever since meeting Gracie, I'd been surprised and maybe also a bit concerned at how fearless she was with her digital presence. She'd been comfortable linking to her OnlyFans page from her Instagram, where she posted under her real name and advertised tour dates that let everyone know where she would be on a given day. But this was maybe the first time I'd heard her sound a little spooked. She was now seeing a darker side of the platform.
Gracie
It's just such a vulnerable thing, and it's just crazy to me that people don't have basic empathy. That's, I think, what it is.
Leon
Or they think they're they're paying for the privilege of not. And I'm sorry to have empathy.
Gracie
Look, I am not gonna stand that for anyone. I don't care how much you're paying, let alone you giving me $20. There are these angry, entitled men out there who just can't handle a no, even if it's polite and reasonable. And it really scares me.
Leon
The fact of the matter is there are a lot of angry men on the Internet and a lot of that anger is directed at women. And as it turns out, in recent years, a lot of that anger has been directed specifically at women on OnlyFans.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Take these OnlyFans girls brains. Put it in a male body.
Gracie
These would be in poverty, bro, because
Bogdan Dumitrescu
they don't have any real tangible skill sets.
Gracie
They're not entertaining, they're not funny, they're
Leon
not cool, they don't teach their audience anything.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Dudes are just watching because they're simps.
Leon
In reporting this series, I spent a few more hours than is probably good for me diving into the so called manosphere, the loose network of Reddit boards, YouTube channels, and of course podcasts where men preach to other men about gender roles, relationships and self optimization. I'd been aware of the manosphere, but what I wasn't prepared for was just how fixated some of these guys were on OnlyFans in particular, its deleterious effects on women and the men who spend their money to talk to them. Some of the critiques I found in the manosphere sounded almost like religious sermons. Does God want you to stick a
Gracie
D in your mouth?
Leon
Is that what God wants you to do? When you talk to God, does he say gobble up that?
Audible Announcer
Is that what he says?
Leon
Others take the form of debates in which male podcasters and streamers invite creators onto their platforms in order to belittle them and yell at them about how high value men would never want to date them or start a family with them.
Professor EP
The amount of money that you two
Leon
girls are making on OnlyFans, is it worth giving up a family and love?
Professor EP
Because any man that is worth his salt that you would even be attracted to wouldn't put up with it, I
Leon
can tell you right now.
Professor EP
And you, my dear, are a depreciating asset.
Gracie
My takeaway after Leon shared a bunch of this vitriol with me was not only do we Onlyfans creators have no hope of finding a husband, we don't deserve one. Because we're evil for taking advantage of weak men.
Leon
And that includes the men these manosphere guys are trying to reach. Gracie, do you remember this gem from the massively popular streamers Czerka and Sneako?
Bogdan Dumitrescu
It's very funny that you get in
Leon
your moral high ground about this, saying that we're the scum of the earth and that we appeal to incel fans. At least we're actually trying to bring them faith, trying to give him value,
Bogdan Dumitrescu
trying to give him real I'm trying to save them from you taking their money before they kill themselves, we give them a real message. You jiggle your tits and pretend you don't expire in two years, you're getting
Audible Announcer
replaced by a teenager.
Gracie
Being introduced to the likes of Zirka and Sneako left me wondering whether I've been too precious and idealistic about this whole thing. The dream that creators like me are sold is that we have control over what we put out there. We we can run our own pages. We keep 80% of the money. We can sell whatever content we want for as much as we want to sell it for. But with this influx of unhinged and aggressive guys in my DMs, I had to ask myself what amount of money justifies being berated by hordes of indignant men? Is this worth it?
Bogdan Dumitrescu
We say that every person has their own price. I believe in this. I believe in this. If at some point the guy comes and say, okay, I will give you 50k to suck my dick, I will immediately analyze. And sucking a dick is like will never kill me. Because a lot of persons are doing this every day and you don't see them dead, 50k is 50k. There is no place for pride. Yes, a little honor, it's okay. But I don't have pride.
Leon
This is only fantasy. Episode 5 Water, Wind and Stupid.
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Bogdan Dumitrescu
We are in adult industry. Things never stop. You don't see guy stop jerking off because this is crisis off.
Gracie
You think it's recession proof?
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Of course it's recession proof. If there are no bullets flying by your head, you are going to jerk off.
Leon
We found Bogdan Dumitrescu's name while researching Onlyfans management companies. He was quoted in a Reuters series called OnlyFans Exposed talking about why men, not women, make the best chatters.
Gracie
Bogdan's company, which provides various services to onlyfans models and management companies, is based out of Bucharest, Romania. He says he grew up outside the city in a poor Jewish family and that his dream was always to become a millionaire. His parents tried to help him by putting him in touch with successful businessmen so he could ask them for advice.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
And I asked them what to do to become millionaire. I was okay, see what you are good at and do this for 30 years. And I said okay, come on, 30 years. It's a lot of time. Like I see you, you are 80 right now you are almost dead. There is no help for me to become a millionaire where I will be 60 or 80 and I will not be able anymore to run, to see, to hear.
Leon
After college, Bogdan did briefly try his hand at a traditional career and got a job as a software engineer at Hewlett Packard's Romanian office. But he didn't even last two months because it just wasn't enough for him.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
I couldn't stay there for a fucking paycheck because they give me €1,500 fucking paycheck and I didn't see any kind of projection where in my life, I could become a millionaire. Taking 1500 per month and doing reports and IT evaluation shit, I wanted to become a millionaire. This is what I wanted for me. Not working for somebody else's dream. I working for my dream.
Leon
Regardless of what you think about the adult industry, Bogdan is an undeniable success story. His mother now works for him, heading up the legal division of his business.
Gracie
From the sound of it, Bogdan's company does all the boring parts of Onlyfans administration that frankly, I wish someone would do for me. Contracts, payroll, legal stuff.
Leon
But it would be wrong to portray Bogdan as a mere bureaucrat. He is passionate about his work and has been since the first time he logged on to a campsite as an 18 year old in 1998 and saw a live feed of a naked woman in 98.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
I didn't know about anything about video chat, nothing. I was just looking for porn on the Internet like any normal guys would do. And I was using a dial up connection and I saw website like free live naked girl click there. And I entered that website and there was a girl in front of me with a webcam. And I was saying, are you live? Yes, I'm live. Oh, fuck. I was dead. I was dead when I saw this. And of course, immediately, okay, show pussy. Immediately. Night of my first. My first show pussy. And she was a real person. She was saying, can you say at least, please?
Gracie
That sounds very real. That's what I say to my subscriber too. I go, we use our big words, okay? You can probably tell from our laughter we kind of liked Bogdan. Or at least we found him entertaining. He was uninhibited. But also in this moment, he reminded me of the guys I was complaining to Leon about on our phone call, going straight to show pussy. Bogdan was one of those problematic dudes. But now he's in the business and making millions.
Leon
And honestly, that might be one reason why he's been able to make millions. For better or for worse. Bogdan knows what these guys are thinking. It also doesn't hurt that he's from Romania, which produced some of the earliest cam girls on the Internet.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
The first webcam models come from Romania because put a poor country with poor person, but with the ability of learning and give them Internet. They were showing tits immediately because tits on camera means money fast. Because they were not prepared to speak English. Nobody was speaking English. But tits they don't speak, they speak by themselves. So put tits on the camera, put ass on the camera, money will flow.
Leon
Bogdan Wandered into the camming business by way of a job fixing computers. A guy asked him to come out to his office and take a look at his setup. He drove him out there in a Mercedes S class and walked him into a space that Bogdan described as looking like a Pakistani brothel.
Gracie
I'm having a hard time picturing that interior design aesthetic. Pakistani brothel isn't really on my Pinterest board. But Bogdan told us that there were a bunch of workstations separated by red curtains. When Bogdan was done with his repairs, the guy who ran the place paid him in cash. And then Bogdan just kind of stuck around.
Leon
Pretty soon he moved beyond fixing computers and started learning how everything about the camming business worked.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
I was starting to learn from the girls in the studio because the girls that were there, they were making a lot of money. And these girls were making about $2,000 per day. Per day. So sick amount of money, they can buy a car in one week of operation.
Leon
Eventually, Bogdan started his own camming operation. And by 2008, he was overseeing three separate studios. It was all very professional, industrial even.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
There were 150 models every day. So 50 models per shift. We were working pre shift, the morning shift, afternoon and night shift. The shift was eight hours. They starting from six in the morning until 2pm, the second shift from half past two until 10pm and the night shift from 11pm to seven in the morning.
Gracie
Bogdan's company was part of a booming Romanian industry. By 2013, the country was reportedly home to an estimated 2,000 webcam studios. That year, a vice reporter said that Romania was essentially the red light district of the Internet.
Leon
Keep in mind, this was all before Onlyfans, which expanded Bogdan's business even further. When it blew up during the pandemic,
Bogdan Dumitrescu
it was like a fresh breath of air. When the pandemic started, we needed to close the studio and send all the models home. And then we put computers all around to give computers to the model, arrange Internet connection. It was like two or three months, very hard, a lot of problems. And then we heard about OnlyFence. And OnlyFence was like, Ah, you don't need to go online a specific time. You just create content. And it was like, oh, I believe this solves this issue. Right now we have powerful models that are doing great money on OnlyFans, like 50k dollars per day. This is a lot of money per day? Per day, yes.
Leon
All right, Gracie, I'm beginning to see why you wanted to change your business model. That is a lot of money.
Gracie
Yeah, those kind of numbers are very tempting. But I'm not sure I could bring myself to do it. The bogged on way
Bogdan Dumitrescu
we have robots that with the AI systems that go on Tinder and fool everybody. Every guys from Tinder that I'm a beautiful girl and I want to you tonight. Oh girl want to me? Yes, I want to. Yes, yes, yes. Click here. You need to follow this link in order to get my details and her details there only fans and you need to subscribe for just $5. I need $5 because then the Indian guys will come and take the other 400.
Gracie
By Indian guys, Bogdan means his army of low wage Chatters. He is, let's say not a sentimental man when it comes to talking about groups of people. And as he would tell you, he loves his Indian guys. Some of his best friends are Indian guys.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
They are coming from the poor countries. In the poor country they developed very fast skills like English skill computer and they can be trained in the matter of days. And it's a boy that knows how another guy is thinking and is selling. He doesn't put any kind of heart, any kind of soul, nothing. He's a killing machine.
Gracie
According to Bogdan, I should have three to four killing machines AKA Chatters, AKA Indian guys working for me. Otherwise I'm wasting my time and also exposing myself to. Well exactly what I got as soon as I dropped my paywall.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
You need somebody to chat instead of you because you are a girl. And the girl sings first with her emotional part. And imagine that the guy will give a comment. Ah, you are asking $20 for this kind of movie. Come on bitch. Other girls are cheaper than you. And at some point you. You try to kill him because you feel this in your heart. Because you are a girl.
Gracie
Been there, guilty, guilty.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
And then comes Indian guy. He's paid like $2 per hour and he must sell $400 for each user. They don't care. Ah, you are. You are a. You are ugly. Yes, I know I'm ugly. Sorry, I'm ugly. Can you buy this picture please? And if you buy this picture, I give you the last two videos which are better than what you see right now. It's an Indian guy, you know Indian. They are trying to sell all the time. They are good at this.
Gracie
Putting aside the offensive ethnic stereotyping here, I felt like I needed to get Bogdan's take on my own dilemma, I. E. How to make real money while not giving up the thing that I think has made my onlyfans successful. I have a Confession, Bogdan. You're gonna call me stupid? Okay, so not today. I have a smaller onlyfans. I probably have like 800 followers. Managed it all myself. And the thing is, my issue is I actually do care about a lot of these subscribers. Like, I talk to them myself every day. I know their pets, names and their, you know, where they live and what they do.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
How much money do you make per month?
Gracie
This month I'm doing 11k.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
11k? This is called normal. Normal income. Yeah, it's normal. That's it. And this is maybe because you care about them. Yeah, but don't think they care a lot about you. I don't know, maybe this is your way of being. This is how you feel that it's okay to do. We have models caring a lot for the members. Even when the old guy died. Died from cancer, I don't know, something, an illness. The girl was going to the church and light a candle for that guy. Because truly she felt something from that guy. It was an old guy, but he was there for her all the time. And yes, maybe it's working, but I see just numbers, because as a guy, I'm an engineer. I need to see mathematics. We are here to do business. Business means move money, create a brand, do something. If I involve my heart in this, my heart is full. My pockets are not full. Maybe at some point you are in that state stage. Maybe it will take, I don't know, more years of life. More. Maybe you'll need some more money at some point. For a new house, for something else.
Gracie
No, that's not it, Bogdan. I'm in my 30s and I'm like 90k in debt. So I don't. I. There's something I can't. I don't know, I can't like these guys. Over.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Yeah, you know, there are three aspects in life always available. Water, wind and stupid. You see all available elements of nature. Water, air. And stupid people. Because they are being born every day. New stupid people are being born every day. So if you don't collect the money from these guys. I will collect the money from these guys. I will make millions and you still stay in debt. There is a place in your life when you. You need to put like. Okay, let me choose. Stay in debt, get out of debt, or even thrive and go millionaire. But something must change. Otherwise you just stay there and live until this opportunity is no longer available to you.
Gracie
And here Bogdan went for the jugular.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
If you are telling me that you are in your 30, I tell you that you are over the normal age for this. Having 18 to 20 years old. This is where you want to be right now. Because the most of the guys pays for underage. So you must be 18 and looking like a 14.
Gracie
No, I hate that.
Leon
Gracie, what were you thinking at this point in the interview?
Gracie
Okay, I was disgusted by Bogdan at this point, but there was also a little part of me that was kind of jealous of him. Like, he has this complete lack of moral compass and that's what makes him a killing machine.
Leon
Yeah. My reaction was like, I don't want the things this man is saying to be true, but I'm worried that they are like. Bogdan definitely thinks we are all more like animals than we would like to believe. And as a Russian, I'm actually very familiar with this mindset. It's like very Eastern European. Like, this is how things are and this is how they will always be.
Gracie
And we haven't even gotten to the part where he gave us his very Eastern European theory of American men.
Leon
Oh, yeah, this was very Cold war. He said that most of the revenue his clients bring in comes from the United States. Because American guys are basically hardwired to be simps.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
The American guys, they are the perfect opportunity for these models. Because American guys are more about heart. They have a good heart, a big heart. Because the living in America was better than in our countries. In our country, we've been in multiple wars. The Russian came, the German came. Everybody came all over us and destroyed our country. I've been robbed. I've been cheated. That's why right now I'm a soldier. You want to take money from me? Good luck. You are built in a better world. You lived in a world when you have, from the moment you are a kid till now, you have a hot shower in your house. You have a house and you have hot water. I didn't have this when I was young. Until my 10, the hot water was available only 2 hours, 2 days per week. Because of this, you are softer and your heart is bigger than ours. Because our heart is. We have double rib cage to protect our heart.
Gracie
So what happens when you take our soft American boys and expose them to onlyfans? A platform that puts emotional connection at the center of its business model. According to Bogdan, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Most of the guys that goes on Onlyfans, they think that at some point they will meet the person. They think it's more accessible to them. Where are you from? I from usa. Which part? Ah, there. This means we are like one hour drive. They are all trying to meet. They think in their head that the model belongs to them. They want to control, they want to be part of something nice. And this something nice is getting in the life of a real person. And this is OnlyFans.
Leon
Gracie. I wonder how Bogdan's theory of American men squares with our buddies Sneako and Zirka from the Manosphere.
Gracie
Yeah, well, I feel like Sneako and Zirka. Sorry I can't say their names with a straight face, but I feel like they'd agree with him about quite a bit. Right, except they think it doesn't apply to them because they've taken the red pill and now they know better than to fall for Bogdan's tricks or something.
Leon
I think that's right. And in fact, there's a whole strain of Manosphere content that comes from guys I would call bogged on wannabes. Have you heard the term E Pimps?
Gracie
Oh yeah, the bottom feeders of managers who live in their parents basement instead of the creator's ink house. And they Send creators spammy DMs promising to increase their revenue by tenfold.
Leon
Right, and you actually see a lot of warnings on the OnlyFans advice board on Reddit from women who have been contacted or even scammed in this way. Which I guess is not very surprising that these guys are out there. What's more interesting, I find is that a lot of them are actually targeting other men by offering to train them for a price. Of course, in the art of epimping and the dream these guys are selling usually in low budget YouTube videos, is basically. Hey bro, isn't it unfair that women can just go on OnlyFans and make a million dollars by taking off their clothes? Well, now you can get in on the game.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Guys, I just purchased the management rights for an OnlyFans creator from this official creator marketplace for $150. I sent her 20 trends to hop on and her Instagram has gained over 8 million views in the last seven days. And one of her videos hit over 6 million views and we made over
Gracie
$5,000 in the very first week.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
I charge her 50% for this service
Leon
and here's proof of payment.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
In fact, I made over $200,000 last month, repeating the same steps with over four 50 creators.
Leon
So that was an ad basically from a pretty random guy we found on YouTube. But some of these epimps have gained a real following. Gracie, you're familiar with Andrew Tate?
Gracie
Yes, I am. And I was really hoping we could make it through this podcast without talking about him.
Leon
Sorry.
Gracie
If you don't know who Andrew Tate is, consider yourself lucky. He's a self proclaimed misogynist influencer and one of his core beliefs is that women are property.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong
Leon
with women doing onlyfans as long as
Professor EP
I had influence and control over it.
Gracie
What do you mean? Don't go for the photographer to get the angles.
Leon
Yeah, no, no, no, no.
Professor EP
Not doing any real work, but just
Gracie
like taking all the money.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
If my chick said I want to
Gracie
do only fans, I'm like, all right, then cool. Go do it. How much you made? Ten grand.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
All right, give me eight.
Professor EP
All right, cool.
Gracie
Why would. What woman is going to give you eight grand?
Bogdan Dumitrescu
You're my woman. You're doing only fans. You're selling my product. The.
Gracie
Your product?
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Yes. Correct. Next question.
Gracie
That was Andrew Tate on a podcast in June of 2022. In December of that year, he was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, rape, and forming an organized crime syndicate.
Leon
And where was he arrested? Romania. He and his brother were running a webcam studio there. Not insinuating anything here about Bogdan, but the Tate brothers were allegedly forcing women to do onlyfans content against their will and profiting off of it. Ugly, ugly stuff.
Gracie
Well, Leon, the good news is that we're now seeing a new iteration of the E. Pimp. Guys that are making millions and don't even need women to do it. At least not real ones.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Hello, I'm Matt Ford.
Gracie
And I'm Alice Levine.
Leon
And we're the hosts of British Scandal.
Gracie
Yes, we are. And our new series starts with a loud, lovable woman from Birmingham who becomes one of the most famous people in Britain.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
This is the story of Jade Goodin,
Gracie
the reality TV star who built a fortune just by being herself and then
Leon
lost everything in one of the most public racism scandals Britain has ever seen.
Gracie
It's a story of fame and a
Leon
change of the conversation around cervical cancer forever.
Gracie
Follow British scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad free on Audible.
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Bogdan Dumitrescu
Audible.
Audible Announcer
Be fascinated. Be fascinating.
Gracie
Hi, Professor.
Professor EP
Hi, guys. Pleasure meeting you.
Leon
What should we call you? Should we call you Professor?
Professor EP
Yeah, professor is probably the best.
Leon
Yeah, Professor. Okay, how about the Professor? That sounds better, right?
Gracie
Leon and I spoke with the professor late on a Wednesday night in October of last year. He's known online as Professor Episode.
Leon
The professor takes his anonymity very seriously. When he posts Instagram videos. He wears a rather creepy black and white mask that covers his entire head. He did tell us that he was in his 20s and was obviously a male, but he kept his camera off when we interviewed him so we couldn't see his face.
Professor EP
In this very moment, I'm sitting in my penthouse in Bali, actually.
Leon
Oh, okay.
Professor EP
I have a pretty nice view in front of me. It's very close to Canggu, I'm sure. Maybe you heard of it before.
Leon
Sure.
Gracie
Leon had not heard of Canggu before, but now that we've both had a chance to Google it, it turns out Canggu is a beach town in Bali known for surfing, wellness retreats, and the digital nomads who enjoy such things.
Professor EP
You have access to almost everything, I would say, that is hyped on social media, so you can do cold plunges, have a pool in the gym, sauna, like IVs, everything that's related to health in a hype way.
Gracie
Before he relocated to Bali, the Professor told us he lived a pretty average life in a German speaking country. He refused to be more specific than that, but I think there are only like three, right?
Leon
I'm pretty sure he's just from Germany. But in any event, in 2023, the professor found himself spending a lot of time exploring all the ways he could use ChatGPT, which had been unleashed on the public the previous year.
Gracie
I mean, same. And I guess kudos to him for seeing a business opportunity while I was mostly just asking it for relationship advice, which it was pretty good at.
Leon
Well, the real opportunity occurred to him when ChatGPT introduced the ability to generate images. The professor experimented with asking it to generate images of humans just to see how realistic they could look. And that gave him an idea. Why not create an AI generated woman, a Very beautiful woman and put her on Instagram.
Professor EP
It was new. I don't think social media has seen it before at that time. And that's why I thought maybe I can get some traction around it or people are maybe interested in it.
Gracie
The professor called his AI generated model Emily Pellegrini, hence Professor ep. When he talked about asking a computer to conjure up a woman from scratch, I couldn't help but think of that 80s movie, Weird Science.
Leon
It's been a while for me, but yeah, I don't think it's too far off. In that movie, the two teen boys look through magazines like Playboy and Vogue and pick and choose body parts they like from different models and then feed them into a computer to create the perfect woman. And from the sound of it, that's basically what Professor E.P. did. I wondered, if you're trying to create what you think is going to be a successful influencer on Instagram, what exactly do you tell the AI you want?
Professor EP
I just had the assumption that European beauty standards, let's say Italy in Emily's case, tend to work very well. And what I noticed in the beginning is that if I make images with bigger boobs, I get better engagement. Yeah, it was pretty straightforward. So as, as more sexy as an image would be, as more engagement I would have. Yeah, this was, I think, the core insight back in the days.
Gracie
Boobs to followers, the classic that will teach you more than business school ever would.
Leon
Once Emily started amassing followers, the professor decided to monetize and try to push her to subscription platforms like OnlyFans and a competitor site called FanView. Crucially, FanView allowed AI generated creators on its platform, whereas OnlyFans never has.
Gracie
At that time, photos were pretty easy to make, but AI wasn't good at producing realistic looking videos. Yet. If the professor wanted to give subscribers a lifelike moving image of Emily, he had to get creative in maybe a not quite legal way.
Professor EP
We took videos of very successful OnlyFans creators that they posted on social media that looked similar from a facial structure and from the hair and maybe the body type to Emily. And we just face swapped her face on it. And I know that's maybe not the right thing to do and kind of like copyright and all these problems, but back in the days we didn't even care. We generated massive amounts of traffic through that strategy because obviously we took winning pieces of content and just recreated them. Stole them. Yeah.
Leon
Once the professor realized he should probably stop stealing content, he leveraged some of his contacts within the OnlyFans management community to Make a licensing deal with a successful OnlyFans creator.
Professor EP
There's a person out there running a big OnlyFence account and she has a share. And she earned a good portion of money with the account of Emily because she was incentivized getting a percentage of the revenue for providing 750 pieces of content, masturbation, everything you can imagine. And then we swapped Emily's face on it. And that was how we were able to monetize on the highest level possible, because we had real nude content. So everything about these nude pieces that we sold were real, beside the fact that we swapped the face in a
Gracie
very startup sort of move fast and break things way. The professor put Emily's content on Instagram without ever labeling it as AI. There wasn't any regulation since it was all brand new. And he said he didn't really even think about it. But she immediately got the attention of male Instagram users who certainly seemed to think she was real.
Professor EP
I think the people who are in this space and who are likely to subscribe to an OnlyFans girl, they are having a certain feat due to the algorithm on their phone. And I think they see a lot of women and I think that they don't think so much about it when they scroll. And yeah, even with the lowest quality that we ever had, there was a good portion of people who thought she's real and started texting her or wanted to go on a date or stuff like this.
Leon
And when you say texted her, you mean like they would DM her on Instagram?
Professor EP
Yeah, 100% say, oh, you're so cute, or send flames on the stories and stuff like this. It just opened up the conversation from a flirty perspective and kicked it off that way.
Leon
Pretty soon, the professor started accounts for more AI models, including a sister for Emily Pellegrini named Fiona. And you won't be surprised at this point to hear that he also hired a team of Filipino chatters to respond to his paying subscribers.
Professor EP
All these crazy guys come in there like, hey, I want to see your feet. I want to see this. I pay you $50. And they go crazy. And they just tip your money and they go, you're so sexy and you're so handsome. Obviously, it's crazy. Never seen this before. Totally absurd. If you don't come from this industry, you cannot even believe that on this scale, stuff like this is happening again. And in reality, people are nasty what they want to have. It's really disgusting. I was taking a lot of screenshots and sending them to friends I was like, look at this guy. Obviously, we made so much fun of these people. You cannot even imagine what they want from you. When males are aroused and driven by sexual things, they stop thinking.
Leon
I asked the professor if he had learned anything about men or humanity in general from his time as an AI pimp. His answer was pretty simple.
Professor EP
I think the core realization was really just, people are so fucking stupid. That was the biggest thought I had at the time, I would say. And I realized how much money you can make with a man if you give them what they need, whatever it is, you can make a lot of money.
Gracie
Most people are stupid. Sound familiar? He's carrying the Bogdan torch. I wondered if he, like Bogdan, saw that as just how the world is, or if, like, me and Leon found it extremely depressing. Was there some part of you that makes you like. Like, does that make you kind of sad at all?
Professor EP
No, no, no, not at all, to be honest.
Gracie
Why not?
Professor EP
I mean, these emotions would. Would not lead me anywhere. I think I'm a person. I have a lot of empathy. Where I have a lot of empathy is like, seeing poverty or people who just lost the lottery when they were born, and it's not their fault helping them or helping animals. I don't know why, for me, like, this didn't make me sad at all. I was like, if he can spend $50 on an image, it would be okay. Otherwise, he wouldn't do it. Right. If he has access to Internet and a phone and he's buying porn with
Leon
his money, that means he's fine.
Professor EP
Yeah, probably is okay. I mean, there are people who don't have food. So I was like, if this American guy can pay it, he better pay, you know? So I wasn't sad at all. No, didn't care. Honestly. It felt so easy. Was so easy. Was just asking for an image of pink lingerie, and you send it to him. And then there's the switch in the front end, like, of the platform, and it says, from. Not paid. I think it was. And then it says paid. This was so good. This was so good. Yeah.
Gracie
So, I mean, as a real human creator, I can confirm that feeling. It's very powerful.
Professor EP
So you're a creator as well? If I'm allowed to ask.
Gracie
I am, yes. I am on OnlyFans.
Professor EP
Ah, really? That's. That's interesting. That's cool.
Leon
Somehow I had failed to make clear when I told the professor that Gracie and I would be interviewing him together, that she herself was an OnlyFans creator. But he seemed kind of excited, he immediately asked her for a link to her Instagram account so he could check out her content.
Gracie
Okay, my comedy content. To clarify, I don't think he wanted to partner with me on Fanview.
Leon
I mean, I wouldn't put it past him. But also, it's important to say that the professor seems to have moved on somewhat from making money off of guys thirsting after his AI models. This is, in fact, why he now calls himself the Professor.
Professor EP
Welcome and congratulations. By being here, you've taken the first step toward becoming a version of yourself that transcends the constraints of ordinary life. A version that defies the beliefs held by the masses. A future self that thrives limitlessly.
Leon
What you're hearing here is the introduction to Professor EP's AI Influencer Accelerator course, a series of videos that you can purchase for the low, low price of $47 by visiting the cleverly named website Pellegrini exposed.com this influencer works for me 24 7.
Professor EP
She never asks for money. She never needs sleep. And yet, in just six months, she made over $1 million.
Leon
That's because Emily Pellegrin and this Gracie is where we get back to the manosphere. Because from what I can tell, the Professor's new business model is teaching other people, other men, to do what he did.
Professor EP
We live in the attention economy. If you can build an audience on social media, you can turn that attention into income. Take Andrew Tate, for example. Like him or not, his rise to massive wealth came from one thing. Attention.
Leon
So there you have it. Full circle. Want to be the next Professor EP or the next Andrew Tate? All you have to do to escape the rat race and move to Bali is register for a suite of tools promoted by the AI Influencer Accelerator course. Then pull a few attractive images from Instagram, invent an appealing Persona, and start generating content.
Professor EP
As AI evolves, so does the potential of AI models. Your timing couldn't be better. If you've ever tried running an onlyfans agency, you know how frustrating it is to depend on real creators? They start strong, then drop off. Your revenue disappears with them. All your hard work gone. With AI, you're in full control.
Leon
Are you able to say how many. How many people have. Have signed up and have done the course?
Professor EP
I think at this point, it's slightly more than 10,000.
Leon
You hear that, Gracie? 10,000 AI pimps and counting.
Gracie
And that's just the guys who have signed up for this one online course.
Leon
Right? And who knows how many Emily's each one of them has already generated on the one hand, my immediate thought was that none of these guys are going to make any real money. But on the other hand, it did make me wonder if I'm missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime while wringing my hands about it. You are someone who likes, has very clear eyes about what's coming, and your reaction is to sort of like participate and see what you can make for yourself out of it. Right. Whereas the rest of us maybe are going to be more passive participants in this and it'll just happen to us.
Professor EP
Yeah, yeah. 100%. Yeah. For us, it's like the question how to get a billion dollars, get some bunkers, be safe, be free. Whatever is coming, we are free. But yeah, for the other people, it's different. It's a huge opportunity. I mean, it's going to make a lot of millionaires. No matter if you guys or I want it or not, it's going to happen anyway. So that's why I'm saying, okay, I rather be the leader and have an impact on this stuff and shape it a bit and make money off it instead of just knowing that it's going to happen and sit on the sidelines and watch. Watch it blow up.
Leon
Yep.
Professor EP
You know?
Leon
Yeah.
Professor EP
Does it make sense?
Gracie
Yeah. You can probably hear in that feeble. Yeah. How depressed this conversation was making me. And it only got worse when the professor told us about a new AI tool that was about to launch which would allow users to upload 10 or so photos of anyone they wanted and generate supposedly realistic AI images of them fully nude.
Leon
I went on the website and I gotta say, they definitely aren't realistic. Realistic yet, sure.
Gracie
But as we heard from both Bogdan and the professor, men are stupid. And also, the technology does seem to be improving at a frighteningly rapid rate. It's probably only a matter of time until I can make the custom content I send to my subscribers with AI. Like, I could be out to dinner with my friends and generating custom striptease videos at the table. But then does that not kind of defeat the point for a creator like me? Right. I actually kind of market my Only Fans page. In my bio, it says my tagline is the last real page on OnlyFans. Part of my allure is people know I'm real. I offer, like the girlfriend experience. I chat a lot.
Professor EP
Yeah, but what if your competition just says it's them as well? Like, how are you going to prove it's really you? So the people just say, that's me. I'm the only one. I'm just doing it real. And the people who like this person are going to believe it. So I think that really doesn't matter. I think the worth comes from the relationship that you're building with your audience and that's why they pay so much for it, because they like you. And yeah, you can always say I'm the only one still real. In three years you can say that and they will believe you because they like you and they know you since years. They see you every day in the stories, in the feed, postings on Instagram, in the OnlyFans account. They're texting with you every day. They're liking you. You're like a friend or like a lover or whatever. So if you say it, it must be true, right?
Gracie
I know at the beginning of this, as you could hear, I was pissed about the gross dudes on my page, but listening to Bogdan and the professor talk about these guys who were falling for their bullshit, I kind of felt defensive on their behalf. Maybe not for the freeloading dirtbags, but certainly for my ride or die VIPs. Like, I can't let myself believe that all men are inherently stupid or suckers or evil if just for my own sanity. And I still have to believe that there must be actual value in what I'm offering my subscribers. No killing machines, no AI. Just me. Real, hopefully irreplaceable. And I want to prove to the Bogdans and the professor eps of this world that they're wrong.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Hi. Look at you.
Gracie
Oh my God. How are you? All right, come on in.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Hi.
Gracie
It's so good to meet you.
Bogdan Dumitrescu
Same here.
Gracie
Great. You look like you're not going to kill me. That's next on Only Fantasy.
Leon
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OnlyFantasy – Episode 5: Water, Wind, and Stupid
Host: Leon Neyfakh
Co-host/Guest: Gracie Canaan
Guests: Bogdan Dumitrescu (“OnlyFans management mogul”), Professor Episode (“AI Pimp”)
Date: June 11, 2026
This episode explores the hard economics, psychology, and evolving technological landscape of OnlyFans by following Gracie Canaan’s hands-on creator journey and interviewing two figures at the cutting edge (and sometime bottom) of the “synthetic intimacy” industry: Bogdan Dumitrescu, who built a management empire, and the mysterious “Professor Episode,” who runs AI-generated OnlyFans models. At its core, the episode wrestles with the question of what’s “real”: Can connection mediated by screens and heavily intermediated by business tactics or AI still be authentic? Or is it—as the title suggests—ultimately only fantasy?
(00:12 – 09:14)
Gracie’s Business Experiment: She removed her OnlyFans paywall, making her page free-to-join but charging more for individual content to increase reach.
Downside: Toxic “Freeloaders”:
Risks of Visibility:
Emotional Toll:
(06:35 – 09:14)
Leon delves into the manosphere: a network of Reddit, YouTube, and podcasts focused on “self-optimization” and enforcing gender hierarchies.
OnlyFans is a particular target—they claim it “damages” both men and women.
“Does God want you to stick a D in your mouth?” (Leon, impersonating manosphere rhetoric, 07:25)
Podcasters often “debate” creators just to insult them:
Gracie’s realization: “Not only do we OnlyFans creators have no hope of finding a husband, we don’t deserve one. Because we’re evil for taking advantage of weak men.” (07:58)
(11:27 – 25:24)
Bogdan employs low-wage chatters (often in India), who answer DMs, sell content, and remain unfazed by insults—unlike real creators:
On Gracie’s approach:
‘Water, Wind and Stupid’ Law:
Age & Appeal:
Cultural Analysis:
(28:03 – End)
Users eagerly swiped, chatted, and paid for content, believing Emily was real. Professor built up a team of Filipino chatters to field DMs.
No guilt?
"Paying for my attention is literally the point of this platform."
— Gracie, confronting an entitled subscriber (04:12)
"Putting aside the offensive ethnic stereotyping here, I felt like I needed to get Bogdan’s take on my own dilemma."
— Gracie, reflecting on Bogdan's “killing machine” sales model (21:17)
"If you don't collect the money from these guys. I will collect the money from these guys. I will make millions and you still stay in debt."
— Bogdan, outlining his ruthless business ethic (23:25)
“Most people are stupid. That was the biggest thought I had at the time, I would say.”
— Professor, on the scalability of AI intimacy (40:40)
“It felt so easy. Was so easy. Was just asking for an image of pink lingerie, and you send it to him... and then it says paid. This was so good.”
— Professor, on the ease of monetizing digital desire (42:03)
“Maybe not for the freeloading dirtbags, but certainly for my ride-or-die VIPs. Like, I can't let myself believe that all men are inherently stupid or suckers or evil if just for my own sanity.”
— Gracie, reflecting on authentic connection (49:03)
| Timestamp | Topic | | ------------ | -------------------------------------- | | 00:12–09:14 | Gracie’s paywall experiment, freeloaders, emotional labor, aggression from new subscribers | | 06:35–09:14 | The manosphere, toxic masculinity, creators as “depreciating assets” | | 11:27–25:24 | Bogdan’s origin story, cam studio rise, "killing machine" chatters, American simps, law of water, wind & stupid | | 28:03–30:34 | E-pimps & Andrew Tate, Justifying exploitation | | 32:43–47:59 | Interview with Professor Episode: Birth of AI models, monetization, face swaps, realization about men, influencer accelerator | | 47:59–49:51 | Gracie’s reflections on authenticity and value, defense of “realness” | | 49:51–End | Teaser for the next episode; outro |
This episode is a deep dive into the “back office” of synthetic intimacy: the gritty economics, psychological cost, and rapidly advancing AI that blur the boundaries between authentic connection and pure fantasy. The hosts wrestle with the existential question: Does anything on OnlyFans remain “real”? Or have the economics, automation, and toxicity of the industry turned everything—even emotion—into marketable illusion?
Memorable Signoff:
“No killing machines, no AI. Just me. Real, hopefully irreplaceable. And I want to prove to the Bogdans and the Professor EPs of this world that they're wrong.”
— Gracie (49:03)