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Only Fans is porn. This must be the first thing UCI have done for MTB that I wholeheartedly agree with.
Sounds like you need to upgrade the women in your life.
It’s spelled pasty or pastie if we are talking about the same thing. If your kid is finding out about porn from some pastie wearing a helmet advertising it and becoming addicted to it you probably have bigger problems. To say all porn is destructive or exploitive means you are into some pretty weird shit. https://i.redd.it/3ie0x1q0qa021.png
just look at the gains from one day of training. Seriously I have never been to fansonly but like redbull or monster on a helmet it is certainly not going to make me a consumer of their product.
Americans are funny, you can have the Nascar Freedom Jesus 500 sponsored by NRA , big pharma and like Busch light and people will say that this is acceptable and more than ok for kids/role models, while "porn" or weed (remember when JD Swanguen got a ban from racing due to having weed in his system?) are still seen as big bad evil and will corrupt the mind of your young teens.
A patsy is a person who's easily taken advantage of. A pasty is something you'd eat, at least here in the UK.
As someone has already stated, it'll be interesting to see what happens with Garlicki, as he competes in a lot more UCI sanctioned events than LB.
Yeah agree. Clever marketing by a porn site to 'be trying to get away from porn'. Sure......
Lewis won't care as he's already stopped racing, but I do wonder if he genuinely believes he's not advertising a porn site.
Is there porn on OnlyFans? Duh... does that make it a "porn website"? No... There are plenty of people on there that don't even show nudity let alone porn. It's essentially just Patreon but with content. You can show nudity and porn on Instagram, is that a porn website too?
Oh, talking about sponsorship and partners, how quick we forget about UCI and Rocky Roads...
We talk about the goddamn helmet sponsor of a rider, the associated morality issues and the ”impact” it could have upon the pure souls of the mountainbking population, but I haven't ever seen an explanation regarding that particular issue. Have you? :D
UCI, meow?!
Mx
'OnlyFans is an internet content subscription service based in London, United Kingdom.[1] The service is used primarily by sex workers who produce pornography,[2] but it also hosts the work of other content creators, such as physical fitness experts and musicians.[3]'
It's just clever marketing. Most of their revenue comes from porn. It's a porn website ultimately
Its tough. On one hand as a parent, we should definitely try and not expose our children to porn and ultimately by Lew having this sponsorship, its seemingly an advert directly to it! That being said, if you type OnlyFans into your browser does it show the pornography side of the Site? Or do you have to go looking for it? and if he was sponsored by Twitter would we be getting our pants in a twist?
Unfortunately for Only Fans it will never shake the image of what it has become. Maybe they should have another platform which is more aimed at Sports and other non-pornographic activities.
I heard something yesterday about Redbull and Monster Energy and maybe the ethics around energy drinks being sponsors and how much they influence the younger generation. Also alcohol and tobacco was banned in Motor Racing but it's ok if your sponsored by Heineken 0.0.
Athletes need to earn money and as most of this is through sponsorship you can't blame athletes taking what they can get.
I think if only fans wanted to shake the porn image it would have rebranded/renamed/changed logo etc. That's what corporations seem to do.
Maybe this is modern day sneaky advertising, but in a 'it's so blatant they can't be doing that' sort of strategy. Marlboro continued to sponsor Ferrari in the years after the tobacco sponsorship ban in sneaky ways that weren't so blatant.
No one blames Lewis, good for him. I just think the UCI banning him from racing is a justified decision, considering he is being sponsored by a porn site.
Energy drinks are a whole other can of worms discussion!!!
Your world is what you choose to see.
When Lew said Twitter promoted porn, I did a quick search. Took me 2 seconds to learn that Twitter allows graphic & UNCOVERED porn on their site.
Twitter's remedy for me is to elect to "blur" the content from a specific person or block them in the future. Doesn't stop a person from stumbling on every single bit of porn that's on the net on Twitter. They openly PROMOTE porn on Twitter now that I read up.
https://twitter.com/ItsKenzieReeves (Not Safe For Work) or kids.
From what I understand of OnlyFans is that they are behind some form of staggered "Pay Wall".
Only detail I've heard explained about their format is via a YouTube video that explains a foot fetish channel where some guy and his wife set up a foot fetish Only Fans & you see her feet and he rubs them or covers them in fruits, etc and you have to pay a little more to see a little more garnish, etc.
As far it made me understand, OnlyFans has set up a staggered format of letting people purchase as much of a person's content as they can afford.
So in Lew's case, he can set up a How to Jump Video & then as you watch it, there are then internal links to buy the next level Advanced Jumping?
Am I close to understanding what makes their product unique?
The UCI's only problem with this is they're not getting a cut. Remember this is the same organization the wholeheartedly supports dictators. https://road.cc/content/news/uci-defends-decision-honour-turkmenistan-d…
If OF had come to the UCI first with cash in hand: "UCI DH World Cup presented by Only Fans"
Onlyfans is profiting primarily from its “fees” on porn content. Twitter is a free service with lax rules on pornography much like Reddit and other sites that have porn on them but aren’t considered pornography. And sure that traffic is still traffic on their sites. But the majority of users only use of for porn. If some person told you they did onlyfans for a living you wouldn’t assume they cook on there.
I have no issue with the onlyfans model. It’s a far better platform than any other user submitted site I’m aware of in terms of major effort into keeping things legal and giving sex workers a platform to control their own career.
now I think it sucks we live in a world where marketing and commercialism is such a massive driver in an athlete getting a paycheck. I can’t blame Lewis for taking that paycheck from a company with morals in line with his own. But i also can’t blame uci for saying an onlyfans affiliation could scare away bigger and conservative corporate sponsors or doesn’t align with their morals.
Best thing for kids would to have racers race on logoless bikes with logoless kits and helmets. That will never happen. But I feel from the ucis perspective onlyfans is just too controversial for them to allow without it effecting sponsor and viewer engagement.
Strangest part of all of this is I could swear that no less than a year ago, Lew announced he wasn't going to race seriously anymore because it wasn't making him happy or defining him.
I thought he announced he was going to focus on generation content people want to see from him & step back from being a full time racer.
I don't think he's like RatBoy and just wanted to bail out on all racing. But I know people are accusing him of this being a publicity stunt to get clicks for OnlyFans & that he had no intention of racing (which I don't think is true).
I do think it stinks that he found a way to possibly pay for him to do what he enjoys...create content AND race EWS on occasion & is getting punished for it.
I'm skeptical of all this...
Also, he wasn't "banned", right? He just alleges that they'd fine him if he tried to race
Spot on with most of it, I don't think it actualy is the best thing to have no brand identity at all.
at the end of the day exposure to porn is inevitable. The longer you can keep it from kids, especially when they are developing the better. Saying that the best thing for kids is to have no logo's or brand identity is not realistic at all,. It is however realistic to have some standards when it comes to advertising within a market where children may gather.
So you are still all talking about this, which is the whole point if your income is derived from publicity/likes/subscribers etc.
I'm sure the exercise has done wonders for his coverage, so regardless of whether he fronts a UCI race in his OF helmet, then job done.
Q.E.D.
I was going to mention Karnow's deal as well. I will say, Karnow did take a little bit of heat and there was some controversy when he first started with the OF sponsorships because he was being paid by specific "content creators" and running their account handles directly on his bike. For his 22/23 deal, he's now working directly with OF as a business entity which I feel has been much more accepted by the community.
I feel like the general consensus from the Moto community is that some of these guys have it pretty rough financially to make a living out of racing, so if they find new sponsors that bring some $$$ to the table and aren't directly impacting the sport or image of the sport in a negative way, then why penalize them for that?
sure. No doubt. Does that make it ok??
yep. probably important to talk about important things.I'm a dad. they know about porn. they talk about it at school, they hear abut it from their friends older sibblings. This is normal. When it is attached to mainstream sports, it is normalised. It makes it more accessible. Not good. It's important to talk about it for sure.
Wild how OF might damage the image of the UCI, but road teams sponsored by repressive regimes like Bahrain, Israel and the UAE, chemical company Ineos, and a slew of gambling sponsorship is fine, as is handing out special awards to the dictator of Turkmenistan.
They should just use the full title of the Company:
Only Fans of Yellow Sperm.
McFuckingmoron.
Don’t call ANikel that
I’m calling you that.
You don’t say, please be more specific next time. But how so?
This thread is funny.
1) Anyone pretending a grom ripper would not otherwise discover porn if it weren't for Lewis and his OnlyFans sponsorship is lying to themselves or is a time traveler from 1981. The real threat to little Johnny discovering porn at too early of an age is...(checks notes)...The Internet. Everyone here can query more porn than mankind ever thought would be avalaible before you read the next sentence of this post and we all know OnlyFans is not the culprit of this. We need to stop pretending that a logo on a jersey is somehow the tipping point for children.
2) I get the rule the UCI is enforcing, and I see it both ways. Ultimately, I feel the UCI wants to portray cycling in the same vein as polo, golf, tennis, and other forms of 'gentlemanly competition'. If Rolex is your aim, then OF might be the antithesis to this aim. I'm not saying I agree with this direction nor do I think it makes the most sense, but I am saying this is my feeling based on twenty five years scratching my head over "what kind of entity is the UCI"?
3) IPO - Anyone saying the only way they can IPO is if they are more than just a porn platform has no idea what they are talking about. Playboy was public. Rick's Cabaret is still public. There are plenty of "vice" stocks that are public, in fact there are even vice ETFs (that do well in recessionary environments...though I'm not sure OF is recession proof) To add, the CEO has long stated he has no desire to go public, which I understand. Its a PITA to be public and they need no capital to continue on their trajectory. I imagine they will go public if rates fall significantly and valuations of this sort of cash flow creep up, but the aim to get Lew a sponsorship and growing "beyond porn" has nothing to do with IPO plans.
4) Marketing of OF - I was still working in financial news when OF came out and said "no more porn". I called a spade a spade when this happened and guessed it was a publicity stunt. Turned out, I was right. Whoever the marketing person knows what they are doing. I'd wager sponsoring Lew has less to do with exposure the athlete is going to get "in the arena" and a lot more to do with the conversation they may evoke like this one.
5) As someone else stated, we are a funny group here in the US of A. We will let big pharma advertise to children as soon as they can turn on the TV (Hmmm...maybe I am depressed! Lexapro here I come!), have next to no say in the political temperament of our educators, are totally fine with whatever sponsors end up on the side of a NASCAR stock car but then throw a fit if we hear about porn and a bike rider? Its so weird.
My own opinion here is we should let riders attract whatever sponsors they want. Let it be a marketplace and let the riders decide who they do/don't want to represent. I am not convinced any of these sponsorships do a whole lot in the first place (unless its controversial or similar) so yeah..send it. Idiocracy is now and I'm here for it
As to point 2; are the UCI enforcing any rules pertaining to this? My understanding is that Stephan Garlicki signed a similar sponsorship deal with OnlyFans, but is competing at WC races without issue.
Call me cynical, but I'd say Buchanan saying he's not allowed to race is probably more about his love of clickbait than anything else.
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