A YOUNG woman found confidence by turning her love for superheroes and video games into a new career.
After launching an OnlyFans account during lockdown last year, 24-year-old Madelaine Booth has been able to quit her day job and focus fulltime on creating content for hundreds of subscribers.
Her most popular content features her dressed, and undressed, as Mary Jane from Spider-Man, Lady Punisher, and characters from games like Borderlands and Fallout.
But the boost has been more than financial. Madelaine says it has helped her overcome her low self-esteem, and she is now much more confident and happy.
Madelaine, from Prestatyn, explained that it was her love of comic book and video game characters that led to her career change. In fact, she first joined the platform as a way of paying for cosplay costumes and to help her attend comic conventions up and down the country.
Madelaine Booth’s love of cosplay helped her to become an OnlyFans content creator. Images: Madatops
She said: “For a couple of years now I have been a cosplayer known as Madatops. I have done a variety of different costumes from films, games, anime and some from TV series.
“I joined OnlyFans in March just before lockdown started. It was something that started popping up and appearing on my Twitter and Instagram. I noticed a lot of other cosplayers we are joining the platform to help go towards new costumes and conventions.
“After talking to my partner about joining the platform, I decided to start off making the account. I was just doing some casual lingerie posts and see where that would lead. Then I used the platform to extend the variety of costumes that I could produce to also fulfil passions and dreams that I’ve always wanted to fulfill. And year later I have gone a lot further with my content doing more x-rated content and I’ve never felt so confident and happy.”
Madelaine Booth’s love of cosplay helped her to become an OnlyFans content creator. Images: Madatops
She added: “Over the year, OnlyFans has majorly improved how I view myself. I feel more comfortable in my own skin and I know that there is hundreds and thousands of people out there that follow me that enjoy my content that I produce and hype me up even when I don’t feel like I love myself. This has made me believe that having low self-esteem is silly and I should feel empowered by what I do.
“The way I view my body is now to what I did over a year ago is completely different it’s almost like I don’t know who that shy and insecure girl was. That is absolutely incredible.”
However, even in 2021, sex work in whatever form is still sometimes seen as “not a real job”.
Like many women who have chosen to make providing lewd or explicit content their job, Madelaine has faced her share of criticism.
She added: “Everyone has their own opinion on the platform, there are a lot of people that think the subject is taboo but there’s also a lot of people that think it’s absolutely fantastic.
“I have lost a handful of friends due to having an OnlyFans account simply because they don’t view me as ‘that kind of person’. However, this industry has a lot of judgement towards it. But this is not affected my relationships with my family and my closest friends. If anything they are proud of me for doing something like this.
“My mum said to me that she feels empowered by me and finds me inspirational. It makes me overjoyed that women have said this to me.”
Madelaine Booth’s love of cosplay helped her to become an OnlyFans content creator. Images: Madatops
For many, the impression of being an OnlyFans model is that they take a few snaps and wait for the money to roll in.
But as with any self-employed work, it is only as successful as the hard work that is put into it.
Madelaine explained: “I don’t ever believe that anyone truly understands how challenging being a content creator can be. I’ve always believed that people think that OnlyFans is the easy way out of having a normal 9-to-5 job. I’ve always had the impression that when you have an account people perceive you as being lazy and it’s not a real job.”
Madelaine is hoping to do more cosplay at comic conventions.
She said: “I’m so excited for comic cons to be able to open up again. I’ve missed them so much, I’m so ready to go back. I still am a cosplayer and that will never change. Cosplay is something that will be a part of my life forever! hopefully in November I will be attending Liverpool Comic Con and I’m so excited to jump straight back into it.”
For those unfamiliar with cosplay, Madelaine explained: “Cosplay is just costume play where any person can dress up from any kind of character from a film or a book a TV show. For anyone who wants to start cosplaying, you do not have to make your costumes from scratch. You simply just have to find a costume or find anything that’s in your wardrobe put it on and just enjoy yourself.
“And don’t forget to take loads of pictures!”