Excuse me for referencing it, but I’m thinking of an update to Warhol’s famous and tired maxim, “In the future everyone will have 15 minutes of fame.”Maybe, if recent events can be taken as clues, the updated version would read, “In the future everyone will need 24 hours of fame seven days a week.” Last week, a venture capitalist estimated that OnlyFans, a platform that allows social media content creators and adult content creators to charge their fans directly for monthly subscriptions to exclusive content, is now a $1 billion media company. Also last week, the parodically-exclusive social audio app Clubhouse raised $10 million from venture fund Andreessen Horowitz at a valuation of $100 million, the final payoff of an inspired rollout strategy that allowed only venture capitalists and VC-adjacent celebs to be early users. Clubhouse is like the San Vicente Bungalows of apps, but everyone wears Patagonia. It’s famous for being exclusive and exclusive because everyone is famous. Both apps surged in popularity and buzz during the pandemic. But both apps reflect something long in the making.
Every social media platform has its own ways of measuring, incentivizing and perpetuating popularity. Twitter rewards clever or funny or infuriating or infuriated tweets, and Instagram rewards beauty, and Twitch rewards entertainment. I’ve only read about Clubhouse (not invited) and OnlyFans (not pathetic), but from what I know they point to a social economy that values total availability most. OnlyFans is like Bandcamp, Patreon or Twitch but engineered to extract money from base impulses, making it potentially much more explosively popular. It’s like if the Instagram Explore page figured out to hustle your credit card out of your wallet. When the pandemic hit and social media influencers were left with no travel or shopping to fuel their content and no brand money to fuel their income, they turned to OnlyFans. Yes, it’s almost entirely sexually explicit content. But direct monetization is out there as an idea thanks to OnlyFans. Now, any time not creating content is lost revenue. Cameo was a harbinger. Like washed up celebs before us, a lot of people are looking for new ways to make money with so much time on their hands.
In the subscription-based patronage model of social media content creation, your whole life is monetizable and therefore it rewards your availability. Slow down your posting or stop posting and you lose subscriptions. OnlyFans is just the beginning. The end of the beginning might look like Clubhouse. Clubhouse is live voice chat rooms made up of people you follow, like an audio version of the concept I outlined a couple weeks ago called . On Clubhouse, important or impressive people allow themselves to be available for voice conversations with other important or impressive people while allowing those conversations to be available for others to drop in and listen. It’s continuous, indefinite availability in audio form, like an always-on live podcast you can tune into or out of at any time. Every platform mints new stars, and Clubhouse will, too, if it becomes mainstream. What type of pop culture does something like Clubhouse create? What type of stars? The most available among us will thrive. The first Clubhouse star, the user who becomes that early must-follow, will be someone who makes themselves available to talk all day for anyone who will listen.
Eventually, media demands total availability. Pop culture has been steadily marching toward the total availability of its creators, stars and artists for decades. From “Ed TV” to Justin.tv and from influencers to live streamers, pop culture has predicted its own final form. Recently, we've gotten even closer to continuous media created by the most totally available stars. Fifteen minutes of fame sounds kinda nice compared to that.
The shorter stuff
In July of 2019 I wrote an essay titled Yesterday, Disney’s head of streaming became TikTok’s new CEO. (NYT)
Bob Iger didn’t have to break out “in this very difficult time” to announce “Hamilton” the movie on Disney Plus. But speaking from experience, it’s hard to resist. (Twitter)
Dismayed that “Dave” is FX’s biggest comedy hit ever, bigger than “Atlanta.” (Deadline)
“Prepare To Brace” has to be the dumbest tagline in the history of entertainment. Congrats “Snowpiercer!” (Twitter)
Cannot get enough of how bad the show looks! “A crime drama where the female lead solemnly implores the hero, ‘You’re the only homicide detective on the train!’” (Daily Dot)
Special "The New York Times Effect" Section
After a brilliant profile of Val Kilmer, two Kilmer movies broke into the top 30 on the iTunes chart. (Image)
And after a big retrospective, "Mad Max: Fury Road" shot to number five. (Image)
Insanely fast turnaround time for this Jeffrey Epstein Netflix documentary that everyone will talk about. (YouTube)
This Robert Pattinson profile is quarantine-as-performance. (GQ)
These superheroes that never went away and no one has ever heard of are back. (Twitter)
Knew the Coen Brothers writing the "Scarface" reboot was too good to be true. Luca Guadanino is no De Palma! (Variety)
I'm sure local San Franciscans will miss the people who use the word meatspace. (BuzzFeed)
Loving the portrayal of André Balazs as a Howard Hughesian recluse. (Air Mail)
Delighted that Brad Parscale's Ferrari is a source of beef with Jared Kushner and Trump. (VF)
The "Rick and Morty" version of "American Dad" is Hulu's most watched title. (Variety)
Special "The New York Times Beef" Section
Joe Pompeo on BuzzFeed feeling squeezed by the Times. (VF)
But the title fight is Ben Smith taking on David Remnick and Ronan Farrow, obviously. (NYT)
"MacGruber" is one of the funniest movies ever and I always just assumed everyone agrees. (The Ringer)
You're better off not knowing anything about this Barstool Sports podcast drama. (NYPost)
Fascinated by the unremarkable movies that find second lives on Netflix. On Wednesday, a Terry Crewes movie called "John Henry" that had a short theatrical run in January was the most watched title on the platform. (Variety)
"Unhinged" is marketing itself as a movie for people who are mentally unwell? This is a Hail Mary! (Twitter)