For foreign-born people looking for an easy entry into the United States, success no longer seems to hinge on merit, or even lady luck. Nowadays, it’s more about whether you flaunt your stuff on OnlyFans — and how many slobbering followers you can amass while doing it.
We wish we were kidding. Some downright bizarre reporting by the Financial Times found that when it comes to coveted O-1 visas, influencers and models — particularly ones operating on the adult-oriented subscription service OnlyFans — are dominating the government’s approved list. (These visas, categorized as O-1A for those demonstrating extraordinary abilities in science, education, business, or athletics, and O-1B for artists, have skyrocketed in popularity over the last decade.)
Between 2014 and 2024, the number of O-1 visas granted each year has increased by more than 50 percent, per the FT. Though the number of O-1s granted pales in comparison to the number of H-1Bs, the infamous visas for skilled workers, attorneys told the publication that criteria for artist visas has been updated in order to make it easier for online influencers to make the cut.
High follower counts and subscription earnings, for example, are easy to copy and paste into application documents in order to signify success.
“Officers are being handed petitions where value is framed almost entirely through algorithm-based metrics,” immigration attorney Shervin Abachi told the FT. “Once that becomes normalised, the system moves towards treating artistic merit like a scoreboard.”
As a result of this shift, immigration attorneys like Michael Wildes are no longer representing transgressive painters or influential musicians, but OnlyFans performers and TikTok stars.
“I knew the days of representing iconic names like Boy George and Sinéad O’Connor were over,” Wildes told the FT. Some attorneys interviewed by the publication estimated these kinds of influencers now made up over half their total workload.
Abachi didn’t mince words, explaining that the change represents a “structural shift” in immigration law. “What looks like a spike in influencer filings may be signaling a broader shift in how opportunity is allocated.”
More on influencers: Scientists Figured Out the Personality Traits of Influencers, and It Could Explain a Lot
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