2025/05/31 by Phiwokazi Qoza
Social Sciences · #Digital Economy and Work Transformation #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Sex work and related issues
paper · doi:10.1108/ijssp-12-2024-0614
openalex publication_date 2025/05/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Purpose This article concerns itself with generating a means of understanding platform-mediated work in South Africa through how it is organized on OnlyFans. It explores how Black South African youth are using digital platforms to negotiate their labour market participation in a country that has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Design/methodology/approach This paper is derived from fieldwork conducted between 2022 and 2023 in pursuance of a doctorate, in African Feminist Studies, at the University of Cape Town. The methods, such as in-depth semi-structured interviews, employed fall within Qualitative Research. Data were analysed through the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) – which is theoretically grounded in Hermeneutics (the interpretation) and Phenomenology (of experience). Findings The findings highlight the work done to create content and the social media integration that goes into building a following, marketing content, cultivating relationships with subscribers and managing online presence across social media platforms. This interrelated process requires both entrepreneurial acumen and digital marketplace literacies because platform or Gig economies shift managerial responsibilities of developing performance areas to the workers. The paper contrasts the promise of autonomy and empowerment with the realities of competition and algorithmic control by highlighting the importance of reputation management, the complexities of trust, and the persistent need to balance platform work with other jobs and domestic responsibilities. Finally, the article considers the potential for delayed gratification through residual income generation on OnlyFans. It posits the possibility of the revenue payable to creators accumulating beyond initial distribution challenges the overarching theme of income insecurity within platforms, because the services platform labourers offer can have more than one utility value, when their labouring circulates beyond the point of initial sale to the established audience, further drawing in new audiences who consume the labouring in perpetuity and accruing residuals that can enrich platform labourers in an uncertain future date. Research limitations/implications The stigma that is, unfortunately, attached to sex work likely influenced who was willing to participate in this research and the extent to which participants were willing to share certain aspects of their experiences. Participants’ decisions to use pseudonyms across digital sexual spaces and to selectively disclose their OnlyFans work to their interpersonal networks highlight the sensitivity of the topic and the potential for social desirability bias in their responses. They might have been hesitant to fully disclose negative experiences or the full extent of risks they face due to fear of judgement or repercussions. Practical implications The research highlights the need for Digital Marketplace Literacies to inform regulation. Cultivating these literacies could potentially help workers connect their precarity to platform affordances. The research challenges the notion of absolute precarity by raising the existence of continuous income generation through residuals. The research criticizes how platforms provide economic opportunities, particularly for marginalized youth who bear the burdens of social reproduction but face systemic exclusion from the formal economy, whilst also making platform labourers adhere to stringent terms and conditions, algorithmic management and constant pressure to labour online and offline. Originality/value To date, there is no research on how the emergence and growth of OnlyFans is occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article seeks to fill that gap in by exploring the lived experiences of OnlyFans creators domiciled in South Africa, who create content and distribute it across digital sexual spaces, to understand how the opportunities and risks that have been associated with platform and Gig economies manifest in this context. It elaborates on how OnlyFans content creators establish themselves against the institutional cultures of Gig and platform economies which embed informal labour dynamics into a landscape that is further structured by rigid terms of service. To do so, they must balance the risks, such as hypervisibility, algorithmic management and unpaid labour, posed with the opportunities, such as flexibility, autonomy and residual income, presented by the digital sexual spaces marketplace. The overall positive appraisal of OnlyFans, as a preferred employer, is directly linked to how segmented the South African labour market is. That is, economic opportunities presented by platforms make it difficult for participants to associate their precarity with platform affordances. Thus, there is need to cultivate digital marketplace literacies in ways that can inform regulating the labour market as it shifts between informality and formality and transforms due to hybridization.