"Forever Lost in Time": Narratives of Desire, Auras of Authenticity, and the Embodied Costs of (Queer) Porn Work on Twitter and OnlyFans

This digital ethnography observes and analyzes the experiences of gay/bi men who identify as "content creators" on Twitter and OnlyFans. In what I argue can be called a scattered personal public, these men negotiate internal desires and external expectations to produce "raw" or "authentic" sexually explicit material (SEM) in a community on Twitter colloquially known as "Spicy" Gay Twitter. Generally driven to this virtual space in hopes of organically being "seen" or feeling "found", content creators in fact must master a variety of techniques to curate appropriately engaging content. Eventually transforming their profiles into commodified, promotional exhibits which guide their audience from a scattered personal public (Spicy Gay Twitter) to an exclusive, subscription-based service site (OnlyFans), this content must feel both genuine and marketable. Obscured by auras of "authenticity" which in part drew them to this scattered personal public in the first place, these laborious techniques result in a number of embodied costs for the creators-turned-curators featured herein.