For 3 days in February, porn star Alix Lynx flew to Miami for her first unique creator gathering the place she was in full grind mode: capturing Reels and speaking technique with different creators. “It was sort of like SoHo Home for OnlyFans ladies,” she says of the expertise, which is named The Circle and drew greater than a dozen intercourse employees, together with Remy LaCroix and Forrest Smith.
Lynx, who’s a former webcam mannequin turned OnlyFans starlet, has a mixed 2 million followers throughout Instagram, TikTok, and X. She joined OnlyFans in 2017 with “the posh of getting my very own following,” she says, however these numbers haven’t all the time translated to subscriptions. It’s why she was in Miami.
“I don’t suppose individuals perceive. I do a shitload of promoting,” Lynx says.“That’s the large false impression with OnlyFans—when creators be part of they suppose it’s going to be simple. However except you’re a genius at advertising and marketing on social media, which is few and much between, it’s genuinely arduous to get discovered and acquire a following.”
Lots of OnlyFans’ 4 million creators have stated the identical factor: native discovery on the platform sucks. “There’s only a frustration,” Lynx says. “In an ideal world, there can be that searchability function as a result of it makes it an excellent taking part in subject for creators.” (In line with OnlyFans, the platform limits its search function as a security precaution so customers don’t by chance stumble throughout content material they didn’t intend to see.)
It’s an issue that Presearch—a free, personal, decentralized search engine—needs to repair with the launch of its image-based discovery software Doppelgänger.
Doppelgänger is the latest addition to Presearch’s Spicy Mode, a NSFW function for looking out grownup content material. Customers can add a picture of a celeb—or any particular person they suppose is sizzling—to seek out OnlyFans creators that resemble them. The know-how matches the consumer with related creators who need an viewers somewhat than to deepfake platforms which are nonconsensual and unlawful. Ever questioned who Sabrina Carpenter’s or Pedro Pascal’s porn doppelgängers have been? Surprise no extra.
In line with the corporate, Doppelgänger is constructed with particular guardrails—no monitoring what customers search, specific age-gating—and runs on Presearch’s decentralized index, “which surfaces content material conventional search engines like google and yahoo and business AI suppress,” says Brenden Tacon, head of product and enterprise improvement at Presearch.
“We’re making an attempt to supply a spot the place you would possibly serendipitously grow to be found,” Tacon tells WIRED. “You gained’t on OnlyFans. In case you’re hustling your self on Instagram, Reddit, and all these locations, it’s so arduous to interrupt by the noise.”
With 300,000 day by day lively searches on Presearch—based on the corporate—Doppelgänger is without doubt one of the first instruments available on the market pushing for moral discovery of grownup creators at scale. In contrast to conventional reverse picture instruments that scan throughout the open net to find the place a photograph seems or try and hint somebody’s id, Doppelgänger doesn’t search the broader web, doesn’t floor private data, and doesn’t try and determine an individual. “It merely returns visually related public profiles primarily based on picture options, making it structurally extra restricted and, in some ways, extra privacy-protective than a regular reverse picture search,” Tacon says.
Nonetheless, the accuracy of Doppelgänger may use some enchancment. In a number of assessments run by WIRED, the AI appears higher tailor-made to seek out matches for ladies than males. I had no downside discovering look-alikes for Cardi B and Sydney Sweeney. However when looking for Michael B. Jordan look-alikes, it advised feminine creators Chanell Coronary heart (the quantity 3 match) and Chamile Symone, along with Uncut Jock NYC, a white-presenting Brazilian intercourse employee. In reality, 5 ladies have been advised amongst Jordan’s prime 40. Curious if this was a glitch, I dragged a photograph of actor Jeff Goldblum—a perennial “hottie,” based on the subreddit r/VintageLadyBoners—into the picture finder, and the highest search outcome was for Jean B, a self-described “twink content material creator,” adopted by 38 recommendations of large-breasted ladies. (A second seek for Goldblum—who, for what it’s value, is extra zaddy than twink—with a unique picture, didn’t fare any higher; the lone male “look-alike” was for YCC, who’s Chinese language.)
