The Russell Brunson Show - The Propaganda Playbook: OnlyFans (He Made $701 Million - She Made $180 a Month ) - #Marketing - Ep. 124

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

There’s a dangerous moment in marketing… when a lie gets wrapped so tightly in a feel-good story that people don’t just believe it - they defend it. And this week, I couldn’t shake that feeling as I watched the world celebrate someone whose business model quietly reshaped an entire generation. Not through force… but through framing. Because when you learn how to rename something controversial as something virtuous, you don’t have to convince people anymore - they’ll convince themselves. What you’re about to hear isn’t really about OnlyFans, or even the man behind it. It’s about a pattern - a playbook that’s been running for over 100 years. A playbook that turned cigarettes into symbols of freedom… and is now turning exploitation into empowerment. And once you see how it works, you’ll start recognizing it everywhere - in headlines, in culture, and even inside the marketing strategies we use every single day. Key Highlights: ◼️The “Reframe Formula” that transforms harmful products into movements people proudly support ◼️How Edward Bernays’ “Torches of Freedom” campaign mirrors modern creator economy narratives ◼️The hidden data behind OnlyFans: who actually profits… and who pays the real price ◼️The escalation trap - why platforms reward pushing boundaries further and further ◼️The ethical line every entrepreneur must face when using persuasion at scale At the end of the day, this episode isn’t about judging one platform or one person - it’s about understanding the responsibility that comes with influence. Because the same tools that can build billion-dollar companies… can also destroy lives if used the wrong way. The real question is: when you master the art of persuasion, will you use it to reveal truth… or to hide it? ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event →⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com slash podcast. That's sellingonline.com slash podcast. This is the Russell Brunson show. Last week, the owner of OnlyFans died. He was just 43 years old. And I'm about to say something that's probably going to get me in a lot of trouble with a lot of different people.

This man was one of the biggest pornographers in the history of the world. He made $4.7 billion by convincing millions of young women that selling explicit content of their bodies online was empowerment. And right now today, across every headline they're calling him a pioneer, a visionary, a hero of the creator economy. No, I'm sorry. No, when Hugh Heffner died, I remember being confused. People were actually mourning the guy and celebrating him. And I'm sitting here thinking, this is the man that built an empire

and exploiting women and they're treating him like some kind of hero. And now I'm watching the exact same thing happen again except this guy made Hefner look like an amateur. Hefter had what a mansion and some magazines this guy had over 4.6 million creators 300 million users and a propaganda machine that convinced an entire generation that pornography is freedom and the technique he used to pull it off it's over a hundred years old it was invented by the man i've been teaching about in the series Edward Bernays same trick same target same lie different century and by the end of this video you're going to see exactly how it works who it hurts and how to make sure that you never use

his power the wrong way. This is the propaganda playbook, where I take the biggest stories in the news and decode the propaganda techniques that are hidden inside of them. And then I show you how to use the ethical versions of those same techniques to grow your business. So with that said, let's get right into it. So let me tell you about the man behind only fans, because most people have no idea who he is.

His name is Leo Anid Radvinsky. He's Ukrainian born and grew up in Chicago. He graduated valedictorian from Northwestern University with an economics degree. Sounds pretty impressive, right? But here's the part they don't put in the headlines. While he was still a student Northwestern, he started a pornography referral website. That was his first business in college. Then he went on to create a site called My Free Cams, which is exactly what it sounds like,

a campsite where men pay to watch women perform on camera. So let me be really clear about something. This wasn't some tech visionary who accidentally wandered into adult content. This was a guy who started in porn from day one and then figured out how to make it mainstream. In 2018, he bought 75% of OnlyFans from the original British founders. And here's what happened next. Before Red Vinsky took over, OnlyFans was the general content, platform for fitness trainers, cooking channels, musicians, and that kind of thing.

After Advinsky, it became, and these are the media's words, not mine, a hive of pornography. He didn't create a content platform that happened to have porn on it. He bought a content platform and turned it into pornography on purpose because that's where his money was. And oh man, was there a lot of money? Revenue went from $59 million in 2019 to $1.4 billion by 2024. The number of creators on the platform went from $350,000 to $4.6 million. But Advinski personally received over $1.8 billion in dividends.

in since 2021. And in 2024 alone, he was paid $701 million. $701 million in a single year. His net worth when he died, $4.7 billion. Now let me show you the other side of those numbers, the side that they don't put in the headlines. The average only fan creator makes $180 a month. The top 1% earned 33% of all the revenue on the platform. 34% of creator surveys said that they experienced negative mental health consequences, anxiety, depression, shame, and fear. 6% disclosed that they're traffickers, their traffickers help them to create and market their content. And 11% that they were aware that minors were on the platform. So the guy at the top made $700 million in one year.

The average woman on his platform made $180 a month. And we're calling this empowerment. It is not empowerment. That's a pyramid scheme with the ring light. And the money is one thing, but what this platform actually does to the women on it, that's where this gets really, really dark. It's not for the weak, girls. If I'm honest, it was hard.

I don't know if I'd recommend it It's not like just having With someone Yeah, yeah Just one in one out like it feels Intense Like more intense than you thought it might Definitely

Sorry Sorry Okay, just take it Yeah one minute She's crying She's talking about disassociating And this is on a platform That's marked as empowerment

That word empowerment Doesn't come from her It was planted there by a propaganda technique that's over 100 years old. And I want to show you the real stories, not the highlight reals. The real stories is what happens to women on these platforms. Because once you hear them, you're never going to hear the word empowerment the same way ever again. So I went looking for some real stories, not the highlight reals, not the girl on TikTok showing

off her apartment, the real stories, the ones that don't get promoted by the algorithm. What I found made me sick. Story number one, I was a slave. There's a woman who wrote a first person account about her time on only fans. She signed to the way a lot of women do. She needed money. She thought that it was going to be easy, take some photos, post them and get paid. And that's how it sold, right?

But here's what actually happened. The subscribers started making requests, custom content, and the requests weren't, well, they weren't dignified, okay? They were degrading. And she tried to set boundaries. She said, I'm not going to do that, but then the money came only when she said yes. So she started breaking her own boundaries.

One at a time. And before she knew it, she was doing things she never would have imagined that she would do. Not for thousands of dollars, not for hundreds, but for $50 here and $20 there. And here's what she said. She said, I was not free or empowered. I was a slave to the dollar and to my subscribers.

There's no real autonomy when your audience controls the outcome. After she left, she couldn't date. Men didn't want to be with someone who'd done it. Career doors were closed. And she said the thing that really got me. She said she could only see the damage clearly after she got out. While she was in it, she couldn't see it. It was like she was under a spell and she didn't wake up until she walked away.

Story number two, the identity collapse. Now, this next one really hit me because of the timing. A woman published an essay in March of 2026 this month about leaving only fans. She wrote it just 10 days before Radvinsky's death was even announced. And she described what happened to her identity while she was on the platform. She said the moment she made her first $10,000, something shifted. She said the line, I am an only fans creator became my identity. That was who she was now, not a daughter, not a friend, not a woman with dreams and goals, an only fans creator. The platform ate her identity. And then she left. You

know how she described the recovery? Like sobriety, like getting clean from an addiction. She said she had to rebuild what she was from scratch. And here's the details I can't stop thinking about. In her entire essay, and it's a long essay, she poured her heart out. She never once used the word empowerment. Not once. The word she used was freedom.

And she meant freedom from only fans, not freedom because of it. Story number three, the escalation trap. Okay, so these are individual stories, but there's a pattern here. And the pattern is what makes this a propaganda story and not just a sad story. The young woman told Business Insider.

She said, I regret doing only fans when I turned 18. 18 years old, she started with mild content, but the algorithm rewards the more explicit stuff. The subscribers pay more for the more extreme stuff. So there's this constant pressure to escalate. Do a little bit more. Push a little bit further. Push past the line. You said you'd never cross. And then that becomes the new line. And then you push past that one too. A survivor of sex industry described it like this. She said most performers found themselves sucked into a spiral doing more hardcore content for less and less money and eventually turned to escorting just to make ends meet. Now, does that sound familiar to anybody? Because it It's the exact same escalation pattern as cigarettes. You start with one and then you need two.

Then it's a packetade. Then you can't stop. Except with OnlyFans, the product you're escalating isn't a cigarette. It's yourself, your body, your dignity. And unlike a cigarette, you can't throw it away when you're done. That content lives on the internet forever. Story number four, the collateral damage. It's not just the creators.

The damage spreads. These are high school boys being bullied at school because their classmates found their mom on OnlyFans. There's a woman who found out her boyfriend, the first father of her newborn baby had been secretly spending thousands of dollars on custom only fans content instead of saving it for their family. There are networks, literal organized networks of subscribers who buy creators' content and then sell to other porn sites without the creator's knowledge or consent. So even if a woman leaves the platform, her content doesn't leave with her. It's out there forever,

getting sold to people she never agreed to share it with. And then there's the data that should end the empowerment debate once and for all. In a major survey of only fan creators, 6% disclosed that their traffickers help them create and market their only fans content. Their traffickers, 30% received messages from suspected traffickers offering to manage their accounts. And 11% so they were personally aware of minors who had content on their platform. These are not edge cases, okay? And this is not empowerment. This is their business model.

This is what $4.7 billion empire is built on. And today, we're calling the man who built this a pioneer. So those are the real stories and those are the women. Now, I want you to hear how the media is talking about the man who built. the platform that did this to them. Listen to this language. Radvinsky created a website called My Freecams, according to Reuters, which was a pioneer in letting people pay for explicit content online. Transforming the fan subscription service that lets users pay for exclusive content from creators from a niche website to a hugely popular porn business. Today, OnlyFans is pitching itself

as one of the most lucrative choices for all types of creators across the $250 billion creator economy, recruiting athletes, comedians, and adult entertainers alike. Pioneer, reshape the industry, creator economy. A woman just told you she was doing degrading things for $20. Another one said she needed sobriety to recover from what the platform did to her identity. Teenagers are getting bullied at school because of their mom's accounts. 6% of creators and their traffickers, their traffickers, were involved in making their content. And the man who built us all as a pioneer?

I want to know what you think. Seriously, is there any version of story where it could actually be celebrated? I want you to tell me in the comments because I generally want to understand. how in the world we got here. How do we get to a place where man makes $700 million in a year off the backs of women who are averaging $180 a month? And we call him a visionary.

And I'll tell you how we got here. We got here because of a propaganda technique that was invented over 100 years ago. And the man who invented it did the exact same thing with cigarettes. So if you've been watching the series, you already know this man, his name's Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew, the guy who invented public relations. Okay, again, this is the first edition copy of his book

called Propaganda. And everything I've built in my business, Trace, back to what I've learned from this man. Now, Bernays pulled off a lot of campaigns. And we talked about some of them in previous episodes. But the one that maps perfectly to what OnlyFans did. I mean perfectly, like it's the exact same playbook, word for word, is called the Torches of Freedom.

Here's what happened. In 1929, women didn't smoke in public. It was taboo. It was unladylike. If a woman lights a cigarette on the street, she was judged for it, which meant that American tobacco companies losing half of its potential market. And so because that, they went and hired Bernays. And Bernays didn't do what you'd expect. He didn't run ads about cigarettes.

He didn't argue that smoking was safe. He didn't try to convince women that it's okay. He does something way more sophisticated than that. He hires a psychoanalyst who tells him the cigarettes are a symbol of male power. If you can connect smoking to women's liberation, to fighting oppression to equality, women just won't tolerate smoking. They'll demand it. So Bernays hired a group of young, attractive women.

He positions them in the New York Easter parade, the most public event of the year. And at his signal, they all light cigarettes and march down Fifth Avenue. And he tells every reporter that, that these women are lighting torches of freedom, a protest against oppression. And it works overnight. Smoking becomes an act of feminism. Women all across the country starts smoking not because they like cigarettes, but because they believe they were making a statement. American tobacco made billions, and millions of women got lung cancer.

He reframed a product that kills you as a symbol of freedom, and an entire generation bought it, and now watch this. In 1929, Bernays called cigarettes torches of freedom. In 2026, only fans call it pornography, creator empowerment. Brne says that smoking was a woman's right, and only fans say selling explicit content is owning your body. Bernay's position it as fighting oppression. Only fans positioned it as financial independence. The product in 1929 was cigarettes.

The result was lung cancer. The product in 2026 is pornography. And the results is depression, shame, exploitation, trafficking, and content that lives on the internet for the rest of your life. The profiteer in 1929 was American Tobacco. The profiteer in 26 was Leonid Radvinsky, worth $4.7 billion. And the average woman in 1927,000. 1929, she got cancer. And the average woman in 2026, she makes $180 a month and can never take it back. Same technique, same target, same reframe, same lie, 100 years apart. If you want the full

story of how Bernays pulled this off, from Freud to the Easter parade to how I came across these exact techniques and use them to build my business, I actually made a video that walks you through the whole thing. All you got to do is go to Secrets of Propaganda.com. And I'm going to put the link in the description down below. But right now, I want to stay at Onlyfans because there's another layer to this that actually makes it worse than what Bernays did. Okay, I want to show you guys this other book. It's called Amusing Ourselves to Death by a guy named Neil Postman. He wrote it in 1985. His thesis is one of the most haunting things I've ever read. I want to read from you something from the very first pages book. Okay, so listen to this. In this, he's talking about two different

authors. One was Orwell who wrote the book 1984 and the other is Huxley who wrote the book, The Brave New World. So these two different authors. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there'd be no one who actually wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information, where Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared the truth would become concealed from us, and Huxley feared the truth would be drowned by a sea of irrelevance. And then he writes this, and this is the line that changed how I see everything. In 1984, people were controlled by inflicting pain. In a brave new world, they were controlled by inflicting pleasure.

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us, whereas Huxley feared that what we love will actually ruin us. That's what makes OnlyFans worse than what Bernays did with cigarettes. Bernays had to trick women into smoking. He had to stage a parade. He had to plant stories and newspapers. He had to manufacture the whole thing from scratch. Only fans didn't have to trick anyone.

The reframe was so good. Empowerment. Independence, your body, your choice, that 4.6 million women volunteered. Nobody forced them. Nobody held a gun to their head. They signed up because the propaganda was that. effective. The pleasure was that appealing. The illusion of freedom was that convincing. That's not Orwell. That's Huxley. We weren't oppressed into this. We were entertained into it. And

Postman warned us about it 40 years ago. Okay. So I got to tell you guys a personal story because this one isn't just an academic thing for me. When Hugh Hefner died, I remember watching the news coverage and being genuinely confused. People were mourning this guy, celebrating his life, calling him a legend, talking about his contribution to the culture. And I'm sitting here in my living I'm thinking, am I the only one who's crazy? This man was one of the biggest pornographers in the history of the world. He built Playboy on the objectification of women and we're treating him like he's some kind of American hero. I didn't say anything, and I'll be honest with you, I didn't say anything partially because I was scared and partially I didn't

know that maybe I was the one that was wrong. Maybe I'm being a little too harsh. Maybe I just didn't get it. But now I'm watching the exact same thing happened and this time it's worse because Radvinsky made Heffner look like a small timer. Heffner had a mansion and a magazine. That was his reach, a magazine you could buy at a newsstand. Redvinsky had four point million creators and 300 million users. A platform that recruits women directly through their phones, through TikTok, through Instagram, through algorithms that target young women with stories about financial independence,

how you can be your own boss and own your own body. That's not a magazine in a newsstand. That's a pipeline. It starts with 16-year-old scrolling TikTok and ends with an 18-year-old posting content that she can never take back. Today, the headlines are calling Redvinsky a pioneer, just like they called Hefner a legend. So I'm going to say what I should have said then when Hefner died and I didn't.

This should not be celebrated. Making billions of dollars off the exploitation of women is not visionary. It's not pioneering. It's the oldest trick in the propaganda playbook. You reframe the harm, you profit from the pain, and you let someone else deal with the wreckage. And I want you to hear the man who invented this trick talk about it because the way Bernays describes what he did,

with zero remorse, almost proud of it, tells you everything you need to know about the difference between a brilliant technique and terrible intent. He said, we're losing half of our market because men have invoked a taboo against women, women smoking in public. Can you do anything about that? I said, let me think about it. And then I said, if I your permission to see a psychoanalyst to find out what cigarettes mean to women? He said, what'd it cost? So I called up Dr. Brill. Zero remorse. He's proud of it,

and I'll be honest, technically, yeah, it was brilliant. The man was a genius of what he did. But the technique killed people. Millions of women got lug cancer. because Edward Bernays figured out how to make cigarettes feel like freedom. And so here's the question I keep coming back to. If Bernays were live today, would he be running only fans? Because the playbook is identical. Find something that's taboo, reframe it as freedom, target women, and make billions. And by the time anybody asks whether it's actually harmful,

the money's already been made and the damage is already done. I want to hear your thoughts on this. Am I overreaching here or is this the exact same thing just a hundred years later? And please tell me what your thoughts are in the comments. I think this is a very important conversation that we should be having. All right, so here's where this is practical for everyone watching because I teach the stuff for a living. The reframe is the single most powerful tool in all of marketing. Every great business runs on one and I need you to understand that because the technique itself

is evil. It's what you do with it that matters. When I built click funnels, I did not sell software. No one wants to buy software, right? I sold liberation. I sold freedom from the tech nightmares, the designers, the developers, the IT people who hold your business hostage. I told everybody, you don't need them anymore. You can do this yourself. That is a reframe. When I wrote the book, Expert Seekers, I didn't sell a marketing course. I sold the the idea that your message matters and the world actually needs it. That is a reframe. When you create the two comma club awards, we didn't celebrate revenue. We celebrated proof, proof that you can do this, that it's possible, that the dream is real. That is a reframe. Every single one of those worked.

They worked incredibly well and they worked because they're true. The product actually delivers on the promise. ClickFunnels actually does free you from tech headaches. Expert secrets actually does help you get your message out. The two common club award actually does prove that it's possible. And that is the line. That's the line between what I do and what Bernays did. That's the line between what I do and what only fans did. A reframe that reveals a genuine truth about a product. That's marketing. A reframe that hides a genuine harm. That is propaganda. Bernays promised freedom and delivered lung cancer. Only fans promised empowerment and delivered exploitation. If your reframe is a lie, if the product doesn't actually do what the reframe says it

does, then you're not a marketer, you're a propagandist or a pornographer, whatever you want to call it. So let me give you three questions to check yourself by, okay? Because I think that every entrepreneur needs to run their marketing through these. Number one, If your customers knew everything about your product, the good and the bad, all of it, would they still buy? If the answer is yes, your reframe is honest. If the answer is no, you're hiding something. Number two, does your reframe make a true promise or a false promise? Bernay's promise freedom.

He delivered cancer. Only fans promised empowerment. It delivered depression, shame, and content you can never get off the internet. So what does your reframe promise? And does the product actually deliver on it? And number three, and this is the one I come back to the most, I call it the mom test. If your mom saw your marketing, the full picture, not just the highlight reel, would show. She'd be proud of you.

If the answer is yes, you're good. If the answer is no, it's time to rethink what you're selling or how you're selling it. Bernays fails the mom test. Redvinsky fails the mom test. Don't fail the mom test. All right, real quick, I want to hear from you guys on this one. What is the most powerful refame you've ever seen in business, both good or bad? A product is positioned in a way where the language completely changed how you felt about it.

Drop it in the comments down below. I want to read every single one of those. All right, and then I want to get really real for a second, because this episode is different from the other ones I've done. In the other episodes, the Iran War, the Epstein files, the Holy War stuff, I told you I wasn't going to tell you which side was right. I said I was just going to decode the technique and then let you decide and make up your own mind. But for this one, I'm telling you where I stand. I believe that what Radvinsky built was wrong.

I believe it destroyed lives. I believe it destroyed families. I believe it destroys the future of young women who signed up because they were told it was empowerment and found out too late that it wasn't. And I believe that calling him a pioneer today is the same thing as calling a tobacco executive, a visionary in the 1950s while people were dying of lung cancer. And here's why I think this matters to every single entrepreneur watching right now. You and I have been given something powerful.

The stuff I teach, the funnels, the webinars, the offers, the storytelling, the identity shifts, the reframes. This is the same science that Bernays use to sell wars and cigarettes. It's the same science that build only fans into $4.7 billion empire, and it works. Man, it works incredibly well. And that means we have a responsibility because the techniques don't care how you use them. They work for good and they work for evil. They'll build a movement that changes people's lives and they'll build a machine that destroys them.

The science doesn't judge. We have to judge because we're only on this earth for so long. And you got one shot of this thing. And when it's all over and it will be over, when you look at your life, we look back at your kids and you stand before your maker. The question isn't going to be, how much money did you make? The question is going to be, what did you do with what you were given?

Did you build something that made the world better? Or did you use the most powerful persuasion tools ever created to exploit people and then call it empowerment? I want every entrepreneur watching us to hear me on this. Learn the science. Master the techniques. build your funnels, grow your business, make your money, get your two comical club word on the wall, do all of it. But do in a way where you can look yourself in the mirror,

doing a way where your kids are proud of what you built. Do in a way where when people talk about your legacy, they don't have to reframe what you did to make it sound okay. Because Radvinsky needed a reframe. He needed the word empowerment to cover up what he actually built. Bernays needed the phrase torches of freedom to cover up what he was actually selling. If you need a reframe to make your business sound ethical, your business isn't ethical. Build something that doesn't need the spin. Now look, what I just showed you is one technique from a playbook that's been built over 100 years. It started with Sigmund Freud figuring out the human beings aren't driven by logic. They're driven by unconscious forces they don't even know about.

Then his nephew, Edward Bernays, took those ideas and weaponized them. He sold wars. He overthrew governments. He made women smoke. He invented the entire field of public relations. And then a guy, my mentor named Dan Kennedy, he came along and figured out how the entrepreneurs could use those same dark arts ethically. And I spent the last 20 years taking all of it and turning it into a system that bootstrap click funnels passed a billion dollars in sales without any. venture capital and I made a video that tells the entire story from Freud's

discovery to Bernays weaponizing it to how I use the exact same techniques today to sell stuff online you know if what you just saw in this video hit you if got you thinking then that video is going to blow your mind all you do right now is go to secrets of propaganda.com or hit the link in the description and go watch it right now while this is fresh on your mind if you haven't already please subscribe to this channel because this is the propaganda playbook every episode I take a big story from the news I decode the propaganda behind it and I show you how to use the ethical version of those things in your business as

well. The same science, same playbook, different story. And the next episode is coming out soon. Thanks so much and I'll see you guys on the next one.