Lily Allen Says She Earns More from Feet Pics on OnlyFans Than Spotify
October 28, 2024 11:33 AM   Subscribe

What it says on the tin. I'm not sure where I picked this up from this morning, and when I went to check I see it somehow was not MeFi, where I suppose it would be topical, and a perhaps welcome distraction from some other current events.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog (62 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
I can't even with this.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:35 AM on October 28 [2 favorites]


I'm surprised, but find it really believable.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:39 AM on October 28 [3 favorites]


obligatory Caroline Konstnar yt video (nsfw swear word)
posted by torokunai at 11:41 AM on October 28 [4 favorites]


I got Lily Allen and Lily Tomlin mixed up as I read this, and boy that was a surreal couple seconds.
posted by pattern juggler at 11:42 AM on October 28 [63 favorites]


Sex work is real work but Spotify is a music pimp.
posted by CynicalKnight at 11:43 AM on October 28 [18 favorites]


the most 21st century things about this:
- it could be true or fake
- I don't know whether to be happy or sad for her
posted by ginger.beef at 11:45 AM on October 28 [18 favorites]


obligatory Caroline Konstnar yt video (nsfw swear word)

The swear word was "fucking."
posted by groda at 11:54 AM on October 28 [6 favorites]


Billboard magazine estimated her music pulls in 4k daily from Spotify. Allen responded calling this figure misleading, but claims she's not smart enough to explain why. I feel like simply telling us how much per month or day she actually gets would not be that hard? I know the money gets divided up amongst many parties, probably according to an arcane formula, but ultimately she gets a check every month or year or day, and at this point why not just share the number instead of being coy?
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 11:56 AM on October 28 [5 favorites]


Today I learned WikiFeet was a thing. Thank you, MetaFilter.
posted by doctornemo at 11:58 AM on October 28 [4 favorites]


As Jack Stratton (of Vulfpeck) explained regarding the Spotify IPO ten years ago, it's right there in their terms : "the artist shan't make money".

My understanding is things have gotten worse for artists on that... "platform" since.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:09 PM on October 28 [4 favorites]


Why is there no corresponding hand fetish?
if they're is don't tell me, I'd rather not know
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:11 PM on October 28 [1 favorite]


Whether this is better or worse than having to do a Beatles medley on the Cher show while Tim Conway walks around in a yellow submarine costume is up for debate.
posted by credulous at 12:14 PM on October 28 [8 favorites]


Hands? Ahem
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:14 PM on October 28


Tell me capitalism deserves to die without telling me capitalism deserves to die.

Seriously, though, this is beyond fucked up. Kudos to Lilly for being willing to admit this.
posted by tommasz at 12:22 PM on October 28 [5 favorites]


My actual guess is that Lily Allen self-manages her wikifeet and thus very transparently understands what she makes via WF, and that she probably doesn’t have a clear handle on what she makes via Spotify because of the various cuts involved.

That said: boo Spotify!
posted by samthemander at 12:26 PM on October 28 [7 favorites]


I don't usually see two articles that refer to OnlyFans in one day, so:

'The Interview': Mia Khalifa's Messy World of Money, Sex, and Activism (NYT)
posted by box at 12:27 PM on October 28 [2 favorites]


Drea de Matteo (Adriana on The Sopranos) gave up on acting and now posts "really fucking racy" pics (her words) on an OnlyFans account (Buzzfeed link) managed by her teenaged son. If the last four words of that sentence didn't sour things for you, there's also some Hollywood won't respect my MAGA truth nonsense in the link.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:34 PM on October 28 [7 favorites]


Next you'll be telling me Lily thought that reindeer were fictional.
posted by dannyboybell at 12:46 PM on October 28


why not just share the number instead of being coy?

A cynical person might say that this is all good advertising for the foot pic business and she's going to milk this media moment as long as she can rather than just be upfront.
posted by ssg at 12:47 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]


I got Lily Allen and Lily Tomlin mixed up as I read this, and boy that was a surreal couple seconds.

I thought it said Woody Allen and boy-oh-boy, I don't want to see his feet pics on OnlyFans
posted by chavenet at 12:48 PM on October 28 [4 favorites]


Idiocracy achievement unlocked! Up next, Ow my Balls! becomes the hot comeback venue for male actors.

Anyways, The Fear rocks, but pop songs usually have low staying power for me, so I've not listened to her in years.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:54 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]


Because some people here might think that $4k/day goes straight to her, here's the start of a breakdown by Billboard

$3,239 going to sound recording for the copyright owner; $336 of mechanical royalties going to the publisher, who pays the songwriter; and $503 in performance royalties going to performance rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, etc.).

What does that mean for Lily Allen? Allen is one of three songwriters on Smile (her biggest hit). The copyright is held by EMI, not Allen. Who knows what her specific deal is, but royalties can be 10%. Add on top of that repayment requirements for repaying her advance.

So I could easily see her taking home less than $300 a day from Spotify, making her less than the $10k a month she gets from OnlyFans.
posted by thecjm at 12:54 PM on October 28 [12 favorites]




Saucy Victorian Ankle Content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSxQHQ_1gX4
posted by wmo at 1:07 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]


$4,000 is roughly equivalent to 1.6 million Spotify streams. Is Lily Allen really getting that many streams per day? In any event, as someone noted above, she will likely only receive a small fraction of any royalties derived from Spotify. Spotify is an evil company that has done immeasurable harm to the music industry and the ability of small artists to make music. Absolutely no surprise whatsoever that someone who receives literally hundreds of millions of plays on some of her songs is still struggling to live off the proceeds.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 1:20 PM on October 28 [5 favorites]


what is the remedy for the inexorable forces of social media and content platforms?

because for all the hate they receive in this space, I don't see what can be done about it. I'm the old weirdo of my circle of friends, for maintaining my creaky old iTunes library with all the CDs I painstakingly uploaded to the damn thing. Twice now, having irretrievably lost it once already.
posted by ginger.beef at 1:34 PM on October 28 [2 favorites]


0.003 cents per stream.

As featured in the 2023 Eurovison song "Who The Hell Is Edgar ?"

Although I bet it's even less now.
posted by Faintdreams at 1:48 PM on October 28 [4 favorites]


Mike Cooley from the Drive-By Truckers says that because of streaming, he's "a t-shirt salesman."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:51 PM on October 28 [9 favorites]


In the future, every career is a gateway to a secondary career doing porn for people who are/were fans of your first career.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:54 PM on October 28 [14 favorites]


(Because the porn pays better)
posted by Going To Maine at 2:00 PM on October 28 [4 favorites]


I've seen people elsewhere say that Spotify should be hated for the money it gives Rogan rather than its artist payout rates. I see no reason why it shouldn't be loathed and detested for both.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 2:18 PM on October 28 [31 favorites]


what is the remedy for the inexorable forces of social media and content platforms?

because for all the hate they receive in this space, I don't see what can be done about it.


yeah, it's a good question. bandcamp seemed like a more artist-friendly alternative for a long time, but recent events have a lot of people questioning both its longevity and raising major doubts over whether the new owners are going to be as artist (and worker) friendly. there's some experiments in artist-owned streaming, like Catalytic Sound, that seems to be rolling along pretty well in its niche; hopefully, more of that will happen.

there's also a...triangulation that i think record labels have seized on. spotify's rate structure is undoubtedly awful, but as thecjm points out, a large part of the opacity and pie-slicing happens on the record label's end, but spotify makes a convenient distraction, in much the same way book publishers seized on the internet archive's...imperfect approach to covid lending to try to drive copyright law in their favor to the detriment of libraries.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 2:32 PM on October 28 [4 favorites]


Is there a market for photos of male feet?

Just idly curious!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:49 PM on October 28


Is there a market for photos of male feet?

you are now subscribed to my newsletter, Toe Jam: A Weekly Visual Guide to Fungal Curiosities
posted by ginger.beef at 2:55 PM on October 28 [7 favorites]


Vulpeck's Sleepify was obviously pulled for infringement against John Cage's estate.
I wonder who has the better feet, though: Jack Stratton or John Cage.
posted by symbioid at 2:55 PM on October 28


Well it got me to check out her "latest songs" playlist on YouTube and now I'm crying over "Three" so well played, Lily Allen.
posted by subdee at 3:03 PM on October 28 [4 favorites]


Kendra (of Hailee and Kendra fame) apparently makes good bank on the side, selling feet pics. To where, in their vlogs, any shots that coincidentally have close views of her feet, they blur them before posting. They went to a salon for pedicures, and she made sure there were no shots of her feet, or were blurred. Y’gotta pay for foot pics.

It’s weird (to dull ol’ me, anyway) how foot fetish seems to have blown-up so much over the past couple of years. But, as I said, I’m dull.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:28 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]


I’m saddened nobody’s willing to at least entertain the possibility that her feet really are that great.
posted by panama joe at 7:10 PM on October 28 [6 favorites]


Dude, have you seen feet? They're just, y'know, feet...
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:10 PM on October 28 [2 favorites]


Dude, have you seen feet? They're just, y'know, feet...

That’s how I feel about music. It’s all just a buncha notes, really
posted by panama joe at 8:16 PM on October 28 [6 favorites]


Billboard magazine estimated her music pulls in 4k daily from Spotify.

Billboard Magazine doesn't know anything. I found the article. First, it's not "Billboard Magazine" but rather Hannah Dailey, who has been writing for them for three years. Her numbers come from the scientific method of... plugging a single day's stream count into the Music Streaming Royalty Calculator and then copy/pasting the very specific number $4,077 into her article:

Allen’s daily stream count on Spotify as of Oct. 17 was about 851,623. Assuming that number is correct, the Music Streaming Royalty Calculator estimates Spotify would’ve paid a total of $4,077 a day, with $3,239 going to sound recording for the copyright owner; $336 of mechanical royalties going to the publisher, who pays the songwriter; and $503 in performance royalties going to performance rights organizations (ASCAP, BMI, etc.).

Okay. So how much of that goes to Lily Allen? Specifically? In this case? Dailey doesn't report on that because she doesn't know. This is just some throw away content farm article on the tweet of the day.

What is the Music Streaming Royalty Calculator? Who the fuck knows. Nothing about its methodology is given: "Manatt's Music Streaming Royalty Calculator draws from our deep market experience and analysis into the data collected from direct source payors to provide accurate, up-to-date and easily accessible streaming revenue information." Uh. Cool. Okay. Yeah, let's take that as gospel, I guess, and call Lily Allen a liar.

I hate how we cling to any reported numbers as if their quantitative specificity was a suitable substitute for fact. We like to do real math with pretend numbers and then claim the results have somehow obtained meaningfulness.

I know mefi's own jscalzi has had to deal with jokers who think they know his sales numbers better than him, and it's something I've thankfully encountered only a few times. It's irritating.
posted by AlSweigart at 8:26 PM on October 28 [15 favorites]


Steve Albini wrote 'The Problem With Music' in 1993, 13 years before Spotify existed. It goes into a bit of detail about where the money goes (pre-Spotify obvs).
posted by phigmov at 9:08 PM on October 28 [11 favorites]


I would pay money for an image of Lily Tomlin‘s feet because Lily Tomlin. Honestly, I think selling pictures of your feet is a creative and resourceful response to the need to make a buck. That is not a bad thing.
posted by Bella Donna at 9:44 PM on October 28 [2 favorites]


Yeah, but I don't want to think about the reasons why people want feet pics or what they are doing with them.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:05 PM on October 28


foot fetish seems to have blown-up so much over the past couple of years.

I've always thought of feet as being the goto example of fetishes. It seems so strong in those that have it and so mystifying for those who don't. Like there isn't anyone who only sort of finds feet sexual. And both kinds of people can appreciate the definition of fetish when it comes to feet.
posted by Mitheral at 10:34 PM on October 28


The British artist launched her OnlyFans in July after first bringing up the topic on her Miss Me? podcast

Allen and Miquita Oliver talked about this topic in the episode "The Beautiful and the scammed" on BBC. They discuss money and social media and the end of bands in general around the 5 min mark, and segue to Allen's situation at 11:40 min.
posted by Ashenmote at 10:51 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]


It seems so strong in those that have it and so mystifying for those who don't.

Basically like Cilantro.
posted by uncle harold at 11:55 PM on October 28 [6 favorites]


Lily Allen self-manages her wikifeet

... as a sole trader, presumably.

Also, there's this: The Decline of the Working Musician. It's an Nyer book review for what looks like a good read on the subject.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:02 AM on October 29 [5 favorites]


Lily Allen Says She Earns More from Feet Pics on OnlyFans Than Spotify

To be fair, Spotify does specialise in music and podcasts, so it's not that weird she wouldn't make as much on feet pics there.
posted by Dysk at 1:01 AM on October 29 [10 favorites]


but ultimately she gets a check every month or year or day, and at this point why not just share the number instead of being coy?

For starters, she doesn't get a check directly from Spotify ever.

Spotify sends the lion's share of the money to record labels and music publishers.

She gets a check from EMI, her record label, for her royalties as a performer generated from all streaming and digital downloads and CD and vinyl sales (if she even does physical media.)

She gets a check from her music publisher as a songwriter, again from all of whatever relevant income sources apply - all streaming sources, downloads, actual terrestrial radio airplay, etc etc etc

She might get a check directly from a Performing Rights Organization (ASCAP or BMI or whichever) for her royalties as a songwriter from, again, multiple varied income sources. Or those might be (probably are) funneled through her publisher also.

That statements that accompany those checks may or may not break down the details of how much of each check comes from each source and which songs. And she probably gets some kind of year-end statements from her record labels and publisher(s). And hopefully she has a business manager who could bug the labels and publishers and streaming services and everyone for more detailed breakdowns. But it's not like she can just search her banking app for "Spotify" and do some quick math to get a number if she wants to Tweet a reply to someone.
posted by soundguy99 at 5:07 AM on October 29 [8 favorites]


Andy Warhol, 1968 - In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

Andy Warhol's Ghost, 2008 - In the future, everyone will have 15 followers.

Andy Warhol's Ghost, 2024 - In the future, everyone will be a sex worker.
posted by Naberius at 5:07 AM on October 29 [3 favorites]


We are working on a video game about being in a band and are incorporating some nifty tools so the players forming the band have some creative control over how their songs turn out without having to know how to write or play music. In building out the tech I spent a year researching how music licensing works, and the sent my academic stepson on a further research journey to try and understand the ‘system’. The best approximation I can give in non-specialist terms is. Lily Allen has obviously chosen to use a tangible asset as her owned source of personal wealth. Instead of watching as her creative assets are strip-mined by an apparently endless stream of ‘rights holders’. It’s wild how that system is just one exploitive scaffold built directly on top of another.

The fact is it is safer to deal with foot pics because her feet are directly attached to her body, and nobody can claim a creator credit because one time they gave an extra cute mani-pedi.
posted by MirJoy at 5:25 AM on October 29 [4 favorites]


It's wild how that system is just one exploitive scaffold built directly on top of another.

And yet, for those who own capital (intellectual property rights, music distribution channels, and shareholders thereof) exploiting those who labor (actually create and perform the music), it's just another Tuesday in the 21st century.

Or 20th century, in pre-Spotify times, as others have pointed out in this thread.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:40 AM on October 29 [5 favorites]


It's fascianting, and horrifying, to see the major shifts in OnlyFans.

In the early days when few women were selling porn on OnlyFans it was apparently quite lucritive for the average provider.

Then it got popular and the market was so flooded that most providers are making nothing while the few at the top have to constantly scramble to keep thier position and income, basically social media all over again. If there isn't already a paper on the topic named "Parasocial Media" I'll be really surprised.

And then the celebrities started moving in. It started slowly, a couple of D listers from back in the day who hadn't gotten much work after the one show they were on ended. But now it's spreading.

I'm going to guess that in another five or ten years the major income earners on OnlyFans will be minor or even major celebrities and non-celebrities will be pushed to the margins.

In 20 years it will be taken for granted that any random celebrity will be using an OnlyFans account to pull in extra income and, of course, that means women in Hollywood will be paid even less with the excuse that they can just make it up on OnlyFans.
posted by sotonohito at 7:46 AM on October 29 [4 favorites]


In the future, everyone will be a sex worker.

I'm an out of shape bald old dude; I'll be screwed then. And not in a money-making way.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:27 AM on October 29 [2 favorites]


I worked in the digital music space in the early days, when the conventional wisdom said that no one would ever pay for digital music, much less subscribe.
Payments to artists were tiered, with a permanent album purchase, like the $0.99 tracks in iTunes, netting them the most, and “internet radio” streams like what Spotify is now, netting a fraction of that. Fun fact, if you subscribe to a music service like YouTube Music, where you pick which tracks you want to play, instead of listening to a “channel” , the artist gets about 10x per stream. If the service offers a “download locally” button, for offline listening, that pays even more, even if you never actually press play.
posted by funkaspuck at 11:26 AM on October 29 [3 favorites]


I'm an out of shape bald old dude; I'll be screwed then. And not in a money-making way.
Good news, Greg_Ace.
posted by now i'm piste at 12:02 PM on October 29 [4 favorites]


Heh...pass. thanks...
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:57 PM on October 29


Think about all the bear daddy fans out there. I sure have.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:29 PM on October 29 [1 favorite]




Joking aside, I'm glad that those who are mentally and emotionally suited to that work can turn it to their advantage, and wish them well.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:19 PM on October 29 [2 favorites]


In the brain there is a "cortical homunculus" [wikipedia] where the location of the feet are really close to the genitals.

"The foot territory is next to the genital territory in the brain" [rando site]
posted by porpoise at 12:02 PM on October 31 [2 favorites]


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