Vylit, from OnlyFans’ former CEO, is coming — and it permits topless pics

“Actually, everyone seems to be a creator,” Amrapali (Ami) Gan, former CEO of OnlyFans, informed Mashable in an interview. Take into consideration how each viewers member movies the live performance they’re watching — or how everybody at a restaurant movies their meals. 

Gan and her co-founder, Kailey Magder, hope to harness our trendy creator financial system with Vylit, an upcoming 18+ platform the place, apparently, anybody can construct an viewers and monetize their posts, together with topless content material.

“Vylit is the place sharing and incomes collide, as thirst traps and on a regular basis moments stay aspect by aspect,” Vylit’s web site claims. “Why? Since you’re sizzling.”

Gan, who was CEO of the grownup platform OnlyFans from December 2021 to July 2023, mentioned that we’re simply at the start of the creator financial system, and it may turn into an increasing number of normalized for anybody to promote content material, subscriptions, and the like based mostly on their private pursuits.

“That is actually the longer term,” she mentioned.

Vylit launches in beta subsequent month, with the aim of getting a broader launch in March or April 2026. However whereas Vylit will permit naked breasts, do not anticipate it to be precisely like OnlyFans. 

Topless, however no nudes on Vylit

After Gan left OnlyFans, she began a advertising and marketing firm referred to as Hoxton Initiatives. She and Magder labored with different manufacturers there — however they had been each entrepreneurial-minded, Gan mentioned, they usually ideated on what their very own enterprise might seem like. 

They’d different concepts, like a canine deal with firm or holistic cleansing merchandise, however between individuals regularly reaching out to them with concepts for “the following OnlyFans” and their very own frustrations with trendy social media, the concept for Vylit fashioned.

“It actually addresses this white area that sits between conventional platforms like Instagram and TikTok, and these grownup creator platforms,” Gan mentioned. “And that is the place we see the chance to have an 18 and over platform the place anybody can monetize content material, construct a neighborhood, and have true freedom of expression.”

That freedom has its limits, although. “As we are saying, we’ll free the nipple, however not the remainder,” Gan mentioned. That means, solely the highest half shall be allowed Vylit. No genitalia, no express content material. (Gan led advertising and marketing at OnlyFans on the time when it tried to ban express content material in August 2021; the platform quickly reversed course after a horde of backlash.)

Whereas X and Bluesky permit grownup content material, Meta platforms (Fb and Instagram) and TikTok do not.

The rationale behind Vylit’s line, Gan defined, is to enchantment to a mass market viewers. “Lately you possibly can activate HBO or no matter and see every kind of stuff, so we really feel that it is much more acceptable whereas nonetheless holding that broader enchantment to anybody who desires that protected area to share content material,” she mentioned, whereas not opening an app very first thing within the morning and seeing nudes.

18+ within the age of age verification

“To us, the way forward for social media may be very a lot 18 and over,” Gan mentioned.

Plainly an increasing number of legislatures imagine this, too, with the elevated adoption of age-verification legal guidelines, which require private knowledge like a authorities ID or biometric scans to show you are of age. This goes for express websites, however an increasing number of non-explicit websites are putting in age-verification measures like Spotify and YouTube. Free speech and web consultants informed Mashable earlier this yr that elevated age verification would basically change the web, together with curbing minors’ entry. 

At Vylit, the group had these conversations earlier on, Gan mentioned. All customers will undergo an age verification course of within the type of a facial age examine. If you wish to add content material onto Vylit, you may need to submit an ID as nicely. 

All content material shall be reviewed by AI earlier than it is revealed on Vylit — together with textual content. (Vylit is partnering with Unitary AI round content material moderation). Every thing that will get flagged shall be reviewed by a human, Gan mentioned. 

Instruments for creators — past what OnlyFans has

AI additionally shapes the instruments for creators on the platform. One is image-generation, Magder mentioned. Vylit can create an “AI twin,” so creators can enter photographs of themselves and it’ll generate content material with that “twin.”

Then there’s AI chat, created within the likeness of the creator. Followers (or “members”) will be capable of converse both with the creator themselves or their AI, and there shall be transparency round that. (In the meantime, on OnlyFans, creators are utilizing controversial messaging instruments, the place followers assume they’re chatting with creators when really they’re chatting with AI bots — or different people referred to as “chatters.”)

The Vylit group can be creating stronger search and discovery instruments to simply discover creators you are fascinated by. Not simply based mostly on aesthetic preferences however hobbies and pursuits, Gan mentioned. It will assist foster neighborhood in addition to engagement, as followers can have reference to a creator past what they seem like. 

Whereas OnlyFans did not come up, the platform is understood for its lack of search operate, a lot in order that customers have taken to creating their very own.

How Vylit is completely different than different creator platforms

Gan and Magder made these options, and Vylit as a complete, with creators in thoughts. Creator jobs grew 7x in recent times, in keeping with a examine launched earlier this yr, and Goldman Sachs estimated that the creator financial system might hit $480 billion by 2027. 

However with platforms like FanHouse — and let’s face it, OnlyFans — already on the market, the place does Vylit slot in?

Gan mentioned that Vylit is a platform that is made for everybody, whether or not you need to monetize content material or construct a neighborhood. She claimed that customers will be capable of construct a neighborhood on Vylit, whereas different platforms are sometimes for individuals who had an present viewers. 

Magder concurred, saying, “These present platforms are actually targeted on the highest one p.c of creators, and anticipating these creators to do advertising and marketing so as to construct their following.” However the advertising and marketing has to occur on different platforms — whereas you possibly can be part of Vylit and create an viewers. 

“We actually take into consideration what’s stopping individuals from changing into creators, and it is like, nicely, they do not really feel like they’ve a large enough following to monetize,” she continued. So, they’re constructing Vylit to permit creators of any measurement to thrive.

And there shall be monetization instruments. Vylit creators will be capable of supply subscriptions, content material pay-per-view, and ideas. Magder mentioned they thought of creator ache factors and the way they’ll reverse engineer the platform to assist on a regular basis creators — whether or not they’re small and attempting to turn into a creator or they are a large creator who’s been within the area a very long time.

This month, although, most creators should watch Vylit develop from afar, because it’s invite-only.