Apple TV’s hottest new shows explore both sides of OnlyFans

Apple TV has long been synonymous with sci-fi epics and comforting sitcoms, but lately the platform is telling a different kind of story. Two of its most talked-about shows are diving headfirst into the world of OnlyFans creators and cam models, and their release timing is almost too perfect. As one series wraps its first season (Margo’s Got Money Troubles), another is just getting started (Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed). According to Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed creator David J. Rosen, the overlap is partly coincidental, but it also reflects a cultural shift. “I think it’s in the air,” he says. “There’s just more and more acceptance of finding companionship and friendship and relationships through our computer screens and through our phones, and it’s natural that there’s going to be more storytelling that way.”

Despite sharing a thematic foundation, the two shows couldn’t be more different in tone. Based on Rufi Thorpe’s novel of the same name, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a dramedy starring Elle Fanning as the title character. Margo is a college student and aspiring writer who gets pregnant after an affair with her professor. Forced to drop out and fired from her part-time job, she turns to OnlyFans to support herself and her child as a single parent. The show balances humor with heart, often leaning into absurdity , Margo’s OF persona is a clueless alien, and she offers a service where subscribers pay her to describe their anatomy using Pokémon names. But it also tackles the realities of sex work, including stigma and danger. In one harrowing scene, Margo is doxxed at a party and must find a way home safely. The season finale escalates further, putting her in a contentious custody battle where her line of work becomes a central weapon against her.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed takes the opposite approach, centering not on a creator but on a subscriber. Paula (Tatiana Maslany) is a recently divorced mother who turns to a cam service for companionship. She forms a deep, emotional bond with a cam boy (Brandon Flynn), spending most of their time talking about her life rather than engaging sexually. The relationship takes a dark turn when Paula believes she witnesses a kidnapping during one of their video chats, only to discover it’s an elaborate scam designed to extort money. What follows is a tense crime thriller, as the scammer , armed with intimate knowledge gleaned from their conversations , infiltrates every corner of Paula’s life.

Rosen explains that the show’s origins weren’t rooted in OnlyFans or cam sites, but in the explosion of virtual relationships during the pandemic. “I’d been thinking a lot about this epidemic of loneliness that we’re living in, brought on mostly by technology,” he says, noting the irony that the same tools connecting us to loved ones can also isolate us. He wanted to explore a single mother turning to technology for companionship, and then “suddenly she’s looking into a [computer] window, turning it into her own modern-day Rear Window story.” Rosen was careful not to demonize sex workers, even as the plot centers on a criminal scam. “It was about looking for companionship, and this one moment, and this one particular sex worker who is pulling a scam,” he says, “as opposed to saying the industry itself and all of the people in it are out to get you. Obviously that’s not true.”

These aren’t the first shows to tackle online sex work , HBO’s Euphoria featured Kat as a virtual dominatrix and Cassie as an OnlyFans creator. But Apple TV’s entry into this space is notable given the company’s historically strict approach to censorship. Apple has long kept adult content off the App Store and even forced OnlyFans to launch a SFW version. Its streaming service has also largely avoided controversial material. Yet with OnlyFans now a multibillion-dollar business and celebrities joining the platform, the topic has become impossible to ignore.

The close timing of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed and Margo’s Got Money Troubles may be coincidental, but it signals a broader normalization of these conversations. “It’s one of the biggest industries in the world, or at least online, and so it just seems like it will become more and more a part of our storytelling,” Rosen says. “It’s an endless well of human emotions, made small on the internet where we can all find ourselves.”