4w ago

I got into the wrong career lol

250 comments

She probably gets treated more respectfully by her OnlyFans viewers than her co-workers in her PhD program.
- Have you never seen the insanity that is reddit's porn section?
  And thats how "respectful" they act when they're Not paying for it.
  
  Some of the comments you see on posts of young women announcing they’re “barely legal” and in the comments you’ve got >45 year old men saying what they’ll do.
  It’s just so creepy and unsettling.
  
  gonewild and associate subs have been showing lots lots of admiration and body positivity for amateur posters.
  However, eventually all those subs turned into an onlyfans advertising platform, so maybe then the mood got spoiled.
  Previously it was unpaid art for unpaid audience, and was almost unbelievably wholesome.
  
  Try going to an "AI" conference as a woman sometime.
  Grift and misogyny go hand-in-hand.
- Found the Onlyfans exec
  
  I'm not only the president, I'm also a customer!
- 100%. Only real academics will appreciate this comment.

Step one to becoming an Onlyfans star .... be young
Step two to becoming an Onlyfans star ... have natural beauty
- Step three: Be incredibly lucky...
- Lilly Allen is on onlyfans and makes more money than her Spotify streams. She only post feet pics so there's that.
- I'm 0-2. 😭

I personally never understood dropping out when something like this happeneds. Like bro now you got the money to have the degree and not worry about paying it off. Might as well have it just to have it
- A science PhD is fucking grueling.
  
  And OnlyFans job is grueling fucking? 🤔
  
  As someone who didnt even pass their first year and dropped out, mind explaining whats involved in a PHD and why science ones are so grueling?
- They drop out so they can do the other thing full time instead of part time...
  Especially because it's porn. Gotta make as much money now while she can
  
  Yeah, can always go back to school when you age out at 25...
- In some ways I understand it though. I'm sure the pecking order and bragging rights of being one of the only fans people that makes enough money to classify yourself in like the top 5% of income earners in America is probably more thrilling and exciting than having a PhD.
  Plus, if she's going for her PhD she probably already has her master's degree so it's not like she gave up academia entirely without getting anything from it.
  That being said, I still agree with you. If you were close enough to be in the program you might as well just finish it off. What's it going to do, stop you from posting your photos on only fans?
  
  Uhh...do you people know anybody who's been through a phd program? How would you rate their happiness from 1 to 10 while they were mid-phd program?
  If that crap isn't going to deliver them the world, it's gonna be a reeeeeal hard sell to get em to put up with it.
- With 2m instead properly you won't have to work another day in your life, with 1m you won't either but you might not be able to live in the buffet cities.
  Give me 1m and I'm retiring tomorrow.
  
  How old are you and where do you live that you think thats enough to retire comfortably?
  
  Buffet cities? Every city I know has at least one buffet.
- Academia is misogynist enough without an OF account. She's leaving a shitty job not just a low paying job.
- I know right? Imagine how much more a doctor could charge for sexy pics.
- You can always get that degree later when your income slows down. You'll have more total money if you dedicate yourself full-time to the money-making endeavour.
  
  True, I didn't think of that

Seen half a dozen posts like this recently. Always screams misogynistic outrage bait to me.
- Especially since it isn't true.

This is actually sad to see.
"An advocate of women in science until recently" makes you think what really are their priorities.
- academia is toxic for everyone, but especially for women, and especially in STEM
  
  The stories my female doctor friend tells me about treatment from male colleagues or female superiors is freaking rage-inducing. But 99% of the time she can't do shit about it because she'll be ostracized or risk her job, or in the past risk residency or placements. It suuuucks.
  
  6 downvotes from people going "not from me, I treat bitches nicely".
- I.. looked more into that.
  She did an interview in which she said that she did not like the academia Life but wants to focus on her social media career, which includes of, but also a YouTube channel where she published science related videos
  So still doing science stuff, but not pursuing a PhD anymore.
- ??? everyone's priority is money. obviously. how is this a shock?
  
  Why do people become teachers in the US? Certainly isn't "for the money".
  
  Have you never heard of scientists or artists? Lots of people prioritize passion over money.
- I hope my daughter gets to look up to women established in STEM fields.
  Seems like a busted world where there's more money in sex work than academia.
- It's just one woman. She doesn't represent whatever "they" you are refering to because there are a lot more women who don't take this path.

If you've got it, flaunt it.
I hope she manages to set up an irrevocable trust that guarantees steady income for the rest of her life so someday she can quit sex work and just pursue art or something if she wants
Hell, maybe it'll turn out that sex work is her art and that is ok too
- Good for her but I can't help but feel envious that paths and choices like this are basically exclusively only available to the opposite sex
  
  you could argue that men have similar exclusive, lucrative paths that use their strength/athleticism and are also probably statistically similar rates of exclusivity within their sex. Like, not everyone will be a professional footballer just like not every onlyfans model makes livable income.
  
  it isn't. there's a lot of male OF models too, although their fans are probably mostly gay men. good news is, unlike performers from before online videos took off, you don't really have to be "gay for pay". OF models can get away with doing solo work as well.
  
  Blame that on men being the only people willing to pay for it.
  That said there's plenty of gay men out there willing to buy pictures of your ding dong if it's photogenic enough.
- Sex work is performance art.
- But my Puritan beliefs are more important than her well being!!!
  /s

I googled this story to, uh, fact check it, and found this article saying that her move to OF is fake news. Except, upon closer examination, it seems the article is AI slop and completely made up. How ironic.
- So I'm reading this debunking, and
  Zara smartly leveraged the viral moment to confront the misinformation head-on and promote her YouTube channel, where her actual content lies.
  So I go to her YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@zara-dar and,
  Description
  STEM Gal and Model Austin, Texas.
  Message me:
  https://ZaraDarz.com
  Most recent video is https://youtu.be/_uEG0H4RXcA where she says she is making an OnlyFans (I'm not going to watch the full 10 minutes so unless this is an elaborate prank that's revealed in the end...)
  Go to https://ZaraDarz.com which is listed as her website on her YouTube channel
  STEM Gal | PhD Dropout | OnlyFans model
  Message Me 🌶️
  Go to the OnlyFans link https://onlyfans.com/zaradar/c3
  If you are a sapiosexual, this page is for you 😉 (Please click “more info” below 🥹)
  Texas-born and bred, engineer, Ph.D. dropout, and YouTuber. I'm a nerd with a passion for art, fitness, and reading.
  On this page, I share with you my artistically and beautifully curated exclusive content which includes a level of nudity and my love for erotica 📸. I love pushing my boundaries with you 😉.
  Also this Instagram page links to her website (the one mentioned on her YouTube) and is from at least as far back as December 2022 https://www.instagram.com/zara.darz/ which also mentions she is a 🌶️ Content Creator and links to an exclusive invite only Instagram page.
  And I'm just rereading your comment and seeing that you said the debunk article is AI slop, I thought you were saying that article called others AI slop lmao.
  Well, if anyone else misreads it they can also see this too now lol.

Good for her! I'm sure it's not easy to achieve that kind of success on OnlyFans, so clearly she made some smart moves to get where she is.
- /s?
  
  No, no sarcasm. The vast majority of OnlyFans creators barely make any money. This woman did something smart to achieve success.
  
  I guess it depends on how easy you can be discovered. It's easy to take off your clothes and get people to pay you to do it, but if you're in a sea of 1000s of women doing the same thing are you seen?
  Same thing with being a YouTuber. Anyone can create a channel. It's hard to make that channel worth something.

OnlyFans is suspicious af considering it’s not blocked in US states with porn bans. Some weird small group of people did a lot of hard work to effectively create a monopoly over porn in some U.S. states, users and creators should beware. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these onlyfans contents are marketing pieces.
- It’s not suspicious really. They apparently don’t operate in Florida due to those ID laws. It’s more so just that the states have targeted PornHub specifically for their bans to start with and since PH is owned by a conglomerate of sites similar to them, it’s affected many of those sites. Smaller sites remain unaffected often times.
- As far as I understand it, the "porn bans" are actually laws that force strict ID requirements, not literally banning porn. (I'm not trying to debate whether they're effectively porn bans, I'd agree they are.) So sites that are paid access only probably have an easier time proving they don't let minors in.
  
  Right, shifting the younger populations to the past of least resistance, and helping them form parasocial relationships which may be hard to break. Getting them while they’re young, so to speak.

I watched the video and it is very convincing and honestly true on many levels. If you can earn much better money from being your own boss then why would you want to spend time with those assholes at work for less?
I am doing it myself just not as successful and not porn because I like privacy.
There is something strange about her and this whole thing though. I can’t help to think it’s all some kind of stunt or AI person idk. Something is uncanny. Maybe it is just the autism that radiates from her that throws me off and looks AI
- I suspect it's AI generated too. Look at her right shoulder after around the 30 second mark: https://youtube.com/shorts/Cks_9h9Nx_Q, it's all jittery. Quite a cunning plan if that is the case though; carefully crafting a PhD persona and doing instructional videos for a year so men slowly fall in love, and then go full-bore on explicit content.
  
  I think it may be the case of AI augmentation techniques. I do not think the whole person is artificial outright. The older the video the more clear it should be.
  What can we tell is 100% real is onlyfans money and someone actually being in front of the camera.
  Kinda makes you want to try to pull off something like this doesn’t it? Whether it is the case or not it really looks like an exciting way to make some money on the side.
  At least before such things become super common
- If I had to guess, I'd say her OF gig is far from a full time job. So she still has time to spare to work on what she enjoys, and the capital to start an actual business down the road.

CapITAlisM iS thE BeST sysTEm wE HAve! SOCialIsM doeSNt woRK!

Capitalism is a completely inefficient and unsustainable grift based on serving privileged white wieners.
- Plenty of Chinese, black, south american weiners.
  There is no need to bring in race and divide us. We're all getting fucked by the 1% regardless of skin color.

Apparently this is fake news
- just checked out her channel. she links to her onlyfans in the about section and her most recent video is titled: "PhD dropout to onlyfans model." your linked article claims she used the rumor to her advantage, so maybe its just that? but cant confirm since the vid is 18+ on youtube and i dont have an account anymore.
- The fake news is fake news apparently. She has a video on her YouTube where she describes the whole thing and it seems true. However, I don't know what sort of content she does on OnlyFans. She does show the max amount of cleavage possible on YouTube, but I'm not sure if she shows more than that on any other platform. Everything I could find was actual science content, except she is a very attractive lady wearing revealing clothes while telling the story. But I know OnlyFans also does chats for example where pictures don't need to be exchanged at all, people will pay just to talk to an attractive person. She might also do feet pics, which can be highly valuable to some people.
  So it's implied she sorta dropped out of school to do porn. But it's nothing like that, she has a couple of degrees already, had a nice side project going with her content creation on multiple platforms including YouTube and didn't see a future for herself with the path she was on. So she switched to doing content creation fulltime.
- Her yt links to her OF acc

Good call. I left science after my PhD 20 or so years ago. I make more than many of the scientists that I manage. Science is a long, hard path that doesn’t pay well for probably 99% of PhDs.
I owe my financial security to that decision all those years ago.
- I worked as a technical writer many years ago and we had two physics PhDs working in the same job. They both had pursued academic careers for years before dropping out and taking a job that actually pays the bills.

I've done cursory research on this person, and my understanding is that she claims she will still be teaching science but only wearing sexy tops on. I don't know how truthful that is but even some Olympic athletes said they are in Only fans but "only being sexy without showing", in order to supplement their income. I don't really fault people for this considering the worsening cost of living crisis.
- The problem with sex work under capitalism isn't the worker, but the capitalism.
  
  This times several billion
  
  What was the problem with it under feudalism?

Whenever i see the jokes about randoms dropping out of thier jobs to join only fans, i just think of Randy from South Park trying to start only fans
- There's probably a market for Lorde on OnlyFans.
  
  Ya ya ya feelin' good on a Wednesday

TBH, I don't blame her in the least. It's hard enough for men. I can't imagine what it must be like for women to endure misogyny on top of what men go through in STEM.

Hope she makes enough before her looks drop off.
You’re only a young hot piece of ass for so long.
Then what?
- She already made a million. Give her two more years and she'll make more than an average scientist in their whole career. Then she can still get a PhD.
  
  As long as she's careful with it, she'll be fine. A lot of people who have sudden income windfalls don't know how to be smart with it and end up losing everything, but as she's pursued higher education, she's a lot more likely to be financially literate than someone who regularly plays the lottery.
  If she invests wisely, she could be set for life.
  
  But she won't. She'll waste her money and end up with nothing.
- A PHD maybe?
  
  Ya? It’s that easy to just get into a phd program huh?
  She dropped out of her doctorate. She’s going to have to explain why she dropped out if she wants any chance to get back in and that is already pretty low after dropping out.
- Stocks, I guess.
  
  Sounds like a winning business strategy. I can’t see how this could ever go wrong.
- Under capitalism everybody's gotta horde money while their bodies can still serve.

Prostitution pays I guess
- Well yeah, that's like the whole point of prostitution.
- For women only & it's an easy gig compared to anything else
  
  Easy gig compared to what? Certainly there are more difficult jobs, but I'd hardly think it's easy. This feels like the same mentality as people who say it's easy to be a streamer, or the way people would say it's easy to be a YouTuber a decade ago. I think there is a lot more work that goes into it than you suspect.
  Especially if you're saying it's "for women only" implying it's just male gaze propping them up. If you really believe that, wouldn't that make it more difficult? Wouldn't that imply women only have a few years to make money while they're in their "prime"? Wouldn't that imply they need to have a strict diet and workout routine to maintain their figure?
  
  Really, an easy gig? I guess you are referring to only fans and not actual prostitution, the latter does not seem easy at all.
  
  For women only
  More like "for anyone having sex with men".
  Also safe to say it's far from easy considering the dangers inherent in it, especially in countries that demonize sex workers.
  
  It's for men too but apparently you're too lazy for an "easy gig".
  
  Many men, in the same age range, could also make a quick buck off OnlyFans.
  You just have to be comfortable with the idea that it's still going to be mostly men jacking off to pictures of your butthole.

I hope she’s saving for retirement. How does she expect to make money when she gets older and the OnlyFans crowd no longer wants to masturbate to her videos?
- Nobody sees a sports athlete get a million dollar contract and says "I hope this guy is saving for retirement. How does he expect to make money when he can't pitch fastballs at 100 mph?" Why does this comment only happen to women being models?
  
  It’s actually discussed a lot in sports. There are many stories of athletes who earned millions and were broke just a couple of years after retirement because they didn’t have the right people around to help them prepare.
  I’m a basketball fan, so here’s an example: https://fadeawayworld.net/20-nba-players-who-went-broke-and-lost-millions-of-dollars
  In a 2009 report published by Sports Illustrated, it was estimated that 60% of NBA players will go broke within 5 years of retiring.
  
  I guess I’m weird, then, because I think that - especially regarding Olympic athletes in sports that don’t have much of a following.
  
  i just repeated what others below said better
  a ton of famous athletes go broke after retiring because they are retired at like 35 or 40 with an unsustainable lifestyle. So many bad car dealerships and bad restruarants are retired pro athletes trying to maintain a lifestyle that they should have avoided while destroying their body for cash.
- Lol having a PhD doesn't get you a pension. She'll make more from OF than she'd ever make by staying in academia.
  
  So much this. PhD just means you are earning significantly less than your peers for at least six years, and then if you stay in academia, it’s less your whole life. There are some nice perks though, but for purely monetary reasons, you do not go for a PhD.
- If she's not a complete idiot, she probably already has more retirement savings than the average gen-xer. Assuming the pyramid scheme that is our stock market keeps growing, she might have already saved all she needs to. If the bubble collapses, she will just be living in a mad max apocalypse with the rest of us.
- You say that like she was going to make a fortune in academia.
  She's dropped out of a doctorate which means she likely already has more qualifications than you and I combined.
  
  There’s a difference between making a fortune and just having a steady pay check.
  The issue is when she is old and used up the income dries up completely.
  So whatever “fortune” she makes from this better carry her for the rest of her life because that tap WILL dry out.
- obviously like any sporting personality who gets too old for sport you coach the next generation of only fans contenders, and manage their social media presence, marketing etc. all for a small % of their takings.
- Bro what
  
  OnlyFans has a reputation for people exploiting their looks. OnlyFans users have a reputation for judging people based on their looks. As you may have noticed, people tend to be judged as less attractive as they get older.
  I’m not endorsing that system, I’m just evaluating it based on how people act.

'Attention' is an extremely hard habit to kick
- The other thing that's probably hard to kick is a life of leisure and the money to buy whatever you want by staying home with a camera instead of sweating through a PhD program.
  
  Yeah, had I the potential to do the same, I’d grab the chance in a heartbeat. It’s both much more lucrative as well as comfortable, allowing working from home or in midst of traveling, or whatever. The flexibility alone would be enough to convince me. Assuming they have the audience already and not just jumping in cold.
  They’ll probably make at least tenfold the money I’ll be making in my entire lifetime, in a couple of years. Certainly more than academics would.
  People here worried about the long term? As if getting a phd and working in academics would ever bring them the money they’ll likely make in a couple of years. If anything, this is the move to make if one is concerned about the long term, especially financially. They’ll be able to retire, probably very early, unlike your average academic.
  Anyone making this very choice, I.e being smart enough for a phd but choosing something else, will have thought about the future and all that comes with it. With sensible investing and whatever, they’ll probably be sailing towards a very comfortable life.
  Why would anyone think choosing the phd would be the more long-term sensible choice? Academics is the same as being a nurse or a teacher: it’s a passion choice. Not a smart choice. Not everything has to be smart either. But it’s certainly going to be so much more future-proof in general.
  
  She probably won't be able, like most athletes, to do this until regular retirement age. So why not make the most of it now. She can always go back into research if she felt like it after she can retire for life.

Maybe her fan base is sapio sexual... still a waste of talent ._. (but I would do the same... one million to fuck on cam? Per year??? Deal!)

Complete the damn degree and then do what you want. At least your have a document to help you if the shit hits the fan.
- That's her only fan too
- She can do whatever she wants with that kind of money in the bank. Continuing her degree later wouldn't be a problem.

This is... so inefficient.
She could have become an engineer (or whatever she wants), made videos about it, and made a big difference in many people's lives, and had whatever personal life she wanted. Instead, she's producing 'entertainment' that's been replicated a bajillion times.
I an happy for her personally, but this is such a loss to society and a huge ding against the education/work pipeline. If it isn't 'worth the hardship' for someone so brilliant, hardworking, charismatic, attractive, and everything to go into STEM, then the system she's in is completely busted.
- If it's such a loss to society, perhaps something should be done about society's economic structure and how it partitions rewards. Rather than throwing shade on someone for making an economically advantageous decision.
  
  When has anything ever worked that way?
  Absolutely never

I might do this to get out of being a software developer, tbh,

fap* fap* ibid. ibid.

What a sad waste of expensive education.
Why do people in academics want to pursue big money in the first place? Misplaced priorities.
- As an academic, if I could make $1M/year by showing my body on OF, I would quit my job in a heartbeat. I would make my money while I can and reassess when no one is interested anymore.
  Once I'd made my money, maybe I could use my academic expertise to effect some real change in the world. I'd certainly be more capable of making an impact if I were independently wealthy.
  
  Okay thanks for sharing with the world that you're greedy and arrogant.
  Why not just finish your degree and then model? If you're already in a program that means you've completed all of the prerequisite education so it's only whatever remains of the 3 years the program takes to finish, 4 maximum. You're not going to age out of modelling in 2 years time.
  Let's be completely honest, if you dropped out in the middle of your PhD study to go earn money, you're probably never going back.
- Capitalism is a wealth based caste system, but kids aren't taught that in school so many don't connect the dots until they are in college.
  If we don't want people to value wealth above everything else maybe we shouldn't have a system that also prioritizes profits above people, the planet, science and everything else.
  
  First of all, thats completely off topic.
  Secondly, unregulated Capitalism devolves into a caste system as a result of weakness of the democratic state's ability to self govern.
  If a nation state has the complete authority over all labor and markets it likely isn't a very free nation, and all authoritarian nations also devolve into castes almost immediately with no recourse to push back.
  If a nation state does not have complete authority then it will organically develop markets and therefor is a capitalism, anyways.
- On one hand: work long hours with little to no recognition, put up with the bullshit politics of academia, constantly worrying about job security due to grant-based funding, and all while struggling to make ends meet.
  On the other hand: don't struggle to make ends meet, deal with a lot less bullshit, job security.
  I'd ask you how you don't understand, but you thought someone else bringing up capitalism was unrelated, so it's obviously a sad waste of my expensive fucks-to-give to try to educate you. Misplaced priorities? Sounds more like you have no clue what you are talking about.

Translation: I threw away my ethics in favor of getting rich.
- Are you implying that creating porn is unethical?
  
  Sure sounds like it. 1950s ass take.
  
  When the majority of them hide their face it makes you wonder huh?
- Are you implying that there are ethical ways to get rich?
- As opposed to... checks notes ... the rest of the world?

250 comments