Fanvue, $22 Million, and the Day the Creator Economy Started Talking to Itself

Written by Ryder Vale, journalist and editorial writer for Only Fans Insider Magazine

When Joseph dropped the Forbes link in my inbox, it came with his usual half-joking, half-serious energy: “Read this. Then tell me what’s actually going on.”

I clicked it at my kitchen table with a coffee that had already gone cold, the kind of morning where your phone feels heavier than it should. The headline glowed back at me like a neon sign on a rain-slicked street: “Creator Startup Fanvue Raises $22 Million To Fuel The Future Of AI Influencers.”

That’s not just business news. That’s a thesis about where this whole industry is headed.

Fanvue is a London-born platform that, on paper, looks like it belongs in the same family tree as Patreon, Substack, and OnlyFans — a place where creators charge fans for access instead of chasing brand deals. But the more I read, the more it felt like something else entirely. This wasn’t just another subscription platform. It felt like the beginning of a different kind of creator ecosystem — one where the line between human and machine gets just blurry enough to make you uncomfortable if you think about it too long.

Joel Morris, Fanvue’s cofounder, didn’t come out of Silicon Valley. He came out of YouTube. He was 13 when he started uploading gaming videos, and by the time he stepped away, he had millions of subscribers. That matters. He didn’t build Fanvue from a boardroom — he built it from the inside of the machine.

In the Forbes piece, Morris says something that stuck with me: advertising is how creators make money, but it’s bad for their audience.

He’s not wrong. The creator economy has spent years training itself to annoy its own fans — endless sponsored posts, algorithm bait, forced authenticity, performative vulnerability, perfectly timed product placements. Fanvue’s original promise was simple: let creators make money directly from their audience instead of selling out to brands.

But the $22 million Series A changes the stakes.

That money isn’t just going into scaling the platform — it’s going into AI. Analytics that predict what fans want. AI coaches that tell creators what to post and how to monetize. AI agents that handle DMs so creators don’t have to. Voice cloning partnerships with ElevenLabs so creators can send AI-generated voice notes or even “calls” to fans.

On one level, that’s brilliant. Creators are exhausted. Fans demand constant access. AI could take the load off, letting creators focus on what actually matters.

On another level, it’s unsettling.

If an AI is chatting with your fans, flirting with them, answering their questions, and sounding like you — are they still talking to you? Or are they talking to a version of you that never gets tired, never logs off, and never tells the truth about being overwhelmed?

Fanvue says it isn’t trying to replace human interaction, just “create new experiences.” But once the machine is good enough, how many fans will even care?

Then there’s the other side of Fanvue’s vision: AI influencers.

Will Monange, another cofounder, says more people want to be creators but don’t want to put their face out there. AI avatars could let them build a persona without the spotlight, the harassment, the mental toll of internet fame. In theory, that’s democratizing.

In practice, it feels like a quiet shift in power.

If AI creators can post 24/7, respond instantly, never burn out, and be optimized for engagement, what happens to real human creators trying to compete? Do platforms eventually prefer the digital ones because they’re easier to manage, cheaper to run, and less likely to cause problems?

Fanvue takes a 20% cut on subscriptions, just like OnlyFans. They’re already working with real figures — athletes, influencers, public personalities — while experimenting with synthetic ones. They’ve partnered with moderation tools to label AI content, which is good. But transparency doesn’t change incentives. Money does.

And that’s where this gets bigger than Fanvue.

We are quietly moving from a world where creators make content and fans consume it, to a world where creators are brands, AI extends those brands, and fans interact with both humans and machines in the same ecosystem.

That shift is inevitable. But inevitability doesn’t mean it’s neutral.

For creators, Fanvue could be a powerful tool. Smarter analytics, faster responses, less burnout, more control over how they monetize. For agencies, it could change how talent is managed — fewer late-night DMs, more automated engagement, more scalable brands.

But it also raises a harder question:

If AI handles more of the interaction, will intimacy feel real anymore? Or will it become just another layer of polished performance?

This is where press — real, creator-first press — becomes critical.

Platforms like Fanvue, OnlyFans, Patreon, and others are rewriting the rules of the creator economy in real time. But creators rarely get to shape those rules. They react to them.

That’s why Only Fans Insider exists. Not just to celebrate creators, but to analyze the systems that shape their lives.

Fanvue’s $22 million raise isn’t just a milestone. It’s a signal. A warning. A promise. A gamble.

AI will be part of the creator economy — that’s no longer up for debate. The real question is whether creators will be in control of it, or whether they’ll slowly become accessories to the machines built around them.

As I closed the Forbes tab, I kept thinking about one line Morris said:

fans want to get “as close as possible” to their favorite creators

Maybe the future of influence isn’t about getting closer to people.

Maybe it’s about getting closer to the idea of them.

And that’s a future that deserves more than a press release.

Written by Ryder Vale, journalist and editorial writer for Only Fans Insider Magazine