"Really, everyone is a creator," Amrapali (Ami) Gan, former CEO of OnlyFans, told Mashable in an interview. Think about how every audience member films the concert they're watching — or how everyone at a restaurant films their food.
Gan and her co-founder, Kailey Magder, hope to harness our modern creator economy with Vylit, an upcoming 18+ platform where, apparently, anyone can build an audience and monetize their posts, including topless content.
"Vylit is where sharing and earning collide, as thirst traps and everyday moments live side by side," Vylit's website claims. "Why? Because you're hot."
Gan, who was CEO of the adult platform OnlyFans from December 2021 to July 2023, said that we're just at the beginning of the creator economy, and it's going to become more and more normalized for anyone to sell content, subscriptions, and the like based on their personal interests.
"That's truly the future," she said.
Vylit launches in beta next month, with the goal of having a broader launch in March or April 2026. But while Vylit will allow bare breasts, don't expect it to be exactly like OnlyFans.
Topless, but no nudes on Vylit
After Gan left OnlyFans, she started a marketing company called Hoxton Projects. She and Magder worked with other brands there — but they were both entrepreneurial-minded, Gan said, and they ideated on what their own business could look like.
They had other ideas, like a dog treat company or holistic cleaning products, but between people frequently reaching out to them with ideas for "the next OnlyFans" and their own frustrations with modern social media, the idea for Vylit formed.
"It truly addresses this white space that sits between traditional platforms like Instagram and TikTok, and these adult creator platforms," Gan said. "And that's where we see the opportunity to have an 18 and over platform where anyone can monetize content, build a community, and have true freedom of expression."
That freedom has its limits, though. "As we say, we're going to free the nipple, but not the rest," Gan said. Meaning, only the top half will be allowed Vylit. No genitalia, no explicit content. (Gan led marketing at OnlyFans at the time when it tried to ban explicit content in August 2021; the platform soon reversed course after a horde of backlash.)
While X and Bluesky allow adult content, Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok don't.
The reason behind Vylit's line, Gan explained, is to appeal to a mass market audience. "These days you can turn on HBO or whatever and see all kinds of stuff, so we feel that it's a lot more acceptable while still keeping that broader appeal to anyone who wants that safe space to share content," she said, while not opening an app first thing in the morning and seeing nudes.
18+ in the age of age verification
"To us, the future of social media is very much 18 and over," Gan said.
It seems that more and more legislatures believe this, too, with the increased adoption of age-verification laws, which require personal data like a government ID or biometric scans to prove you're of age. This goes for explicit sites, but more and more non-explicit sites are installing age-verification measures like Spotify and YouTube. Free speech and internet experts told Mashable earlier this year that increased age verification would fundamentally change the internet, including curtailing minors' access.
At Vylit, the team had these conversations earlier on, Gan said. All users will go through an age verification process in the form of a facial age check. If you want to upload content onto Vylit, you'll have to submit an ID as well.
All content will be reviewed by AI before it's published on Vylit — including text. (Vylit is partnering with Unitary AI around content moderation). Everything that gets flagged will be reviewed by a human, Gan said.
Tools for creators — beyond what OnlyFans has
AI also shapes the tools for creators on the platform. One is image-generation, Magder said. Vylit can create an "AI twin," so creators can input images of themselves and it will generate content with that "twin."
Then there's AI chat, created in the likeness of the creator. Fans (or "members") will be able to speak either with the creator themselves or their AI, and there will be transparency around that. (Meanwhile, on OnlyFans, creators are using controversial messaging tools, where fans think they're speaking to creators when actually they're chatting with AI bots — or other humans called "chatters.")
The Vylit team is also developing stronger search and discovery tools to easily find creators you're interested in. Not just based on aesthetic preferences but hobbies and interests, Gan said. This will help foster community as well as engagement, as fans will have connection with a creator beyond what they look like.
While OnlyFans didn't come up, the platform is known for its lack of search function, so much so that users have taken to creating their own.
How Vylit is different than other creator platforms
Gan and Magder made these features, and Vylit as a whole, with creators in mind. Creator jobs grew 7x in recent years, according to a study released earlier this year, and Goldman Sachs estimated that the creator economy could hit $480 billion by 2027.
But with platforms like FanHouse — and let's face it, OnlyFans — already out there, where does Vylit fit in?
Gan said that Vylit is a platform that's made for everyone, whether you want to monetize content or build a community. She claimed that users will be able to build a community on Vylit, whereas other platforms are typically for those who had an existing audience.
Magder concurred, saying, "These existing platforms are really focused on the top one percent of creators, and expecting those creators to do marketing in order to build their following." But the marketing has to happen on other platforms — whereas you can join Vylit and create an audience.
"We really think about what's stopping people from becoming creators, and it's like, well, they don't feel like they have a big enough following to monetize," she continued. So, they're building Vylit to allow creators of any size to thrive.
And there will be monetization tools. Vylit creators will be able to offer subscriptions, content pay-per-view, and tips. Magder said they thought about creator pain points and how they can reverse engineer the platform to support everyday creators — whether they're small and trying to become a creator or they're a big creator who's been in the space a long time.
This month, though, most creators will have to watch Vylit develop from afar, as it's invite-only.
