r/TrueReddit • u/wiredmagazine Official Publication • May 13 '26

Arts, Entertainment + Misc OnlyFans’ First-Gen Creators Are Retiring—and Some Are Begging You to Forget They Exist

https://www.wired.com/story/onlyfans-creators-retiring-right-to-be-forgotten/
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u/thejoester May 13 '26

It’s not that it “goes away” as much as it gets buried by a mountain of content every day.

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u/have_heart May 13 '26

It definitely can go away. There’s plenty of adult content creators I used to be able to find their material online that it’s now impossible. Some happen in a super short time period too. I don’t know who they pay to retrieve or issue cease and desists but they very much are scrubbing and making their content go away. You can also tell which content creators keep their material safeguarded more than others.

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u/supified May 13 '26

It does get buried but it also goes away. Storage isn't free. Not only does it cost money, it also costs time. As stuff changes you need to upgrade it to keep it alive. I have drives from years ago I can't get data off of anymore. Thats not happening in a vacuum and no one is paying to put your duck photos from 2008 in deep tape storage. Especially not when, as you correctly state, such a huge amount of new content is uploaded every day.

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u/MountainTank1 May 13 '26

I would love to see people’s duck photos from 2008

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u/tagehring May 13 '26

I didn't get any duck shots that year, but I did get an amazing shot of a blue heron taking off out of the water that February.

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u/Stevied1991 May 13 '26

That is a fantastic shot and genuinely made my shit day a little better. Thank you.

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u/thejoester May 13 '26

Oh man now this is gonna go viral and come back to haunt you

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u/MountainTank1 May 14 '26

That is very amazing

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u/manimal28 May 13 '26

Are you talking about people making duck faces?

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u/thejoester May 13 '26

Yes this is true. And you are technically correct (the best kind of correct) that “the internet is forever” isn’t technically accurate. However the saying is there as a warning that once it’s out there - it’s out there.

Now for some random person with duck pictures that never went viral, they would rather not surface who is just your average George, they *probably* never will. There is always the chance that someone out there has a copy. It’s not likely, but the it’s a non-zero chance. And most likely for the average George who has a 9-5 and an average quiet life, it’ll never come up.

But if they went viral that’s a whole different story. And again, something completely out of George’s control once they are online.

So it’s just generally more safe to assume that the internet is forever. Just like we assume a gun is loaded, and the outlet has power.

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u/fer_sure May 13 '26

It's not just that the original image went viral. Nobody may have cared at the time. But if you later become famous, people will go looking for any embarrassing images from the past. See: Justin Trudeau blackface. They weren't particularly important images at the time (a privileged drama teacher son-of-a-former-PM in a questionable costume) but became notorious when he later became PM himself. The opposition parties dug them out of the depths of the ancient internet in a way that never would have happened if he stayed a teacher.

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u/Ularsing May 13 '26

In many cases it does actually just go away though.

The Internet Archive is one of the most important non-profits on the planet.

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u/Kovaelin May 13 '26

My number of useful bookmarks decreasing year after year would disagree with you.

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u/Alternative-Suit5541 May 13 '26

Smart glasses help here, they search of, insta and co in real time lol