Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Viewer Discretion Advised: The Story of OnlyFans and Courtney Clenney’ on Tubi, a True Crime-Meets-Naked People Documentary

Tubi original documentary Viewer Discretion Advised: The Story of OnlyFans and Courtney Clenney offers viewers the perfect cocktail of content: true crime and naked people. The film is from the director and platform that offered us similar deep-in-the-cable-listings fodder about Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez Brothers and shark attacks, so it’s going to be more Hard Copy than HBO-level journalism. I sat down to see if the doc could tell me something new about the social media site that’s known for its porn content, and how it was dragged into an ugly murder case – and ended up wondering if it was a paid advertisement for OnlyFans.

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: THE STORY OF ONLYFANS AND COURTNEY CLENNEY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: For the uninitiated, OnlyFans is a subscription social media website, founded in 2016, that allows creators to easily monetize their content – in a nutshell, OnlyFans offers them a platform, and they take 20 percent. It began as an anything-goes space where people posted videos about cryptocurrency, cooking and fitness, but it soon became ground zero for amateur porn; for a few bucks a month, users could access the sex workers-slash-influencers’ content, usually filmed at home, or directly purchase customized videos or other stuff (don’t ask about the other stuff). Not surprisingly, use of the platform exploded in 2020 when the Covid pandemic rendered physical proximity with other human beings a potential hazard. And now, as this doc reminds us many times, OnlyFans has nearly 200 million subscribers, generating more than $3 billion in revenue for two million creators. Are you impressed with those numbers? OnlyFans and this movie would really dig it if you were.

Although nobody who works for OnlyFans is interviewed for this film, it’s obvious that the platform is making our civilization a perfect utopia. BUT! In 2022, OnlyFans got caught in the crossfire when one of its high-profile porn creators, Courtney Clenney, was accused of murder. One day, she was making a couple mil a year on OnlyFans and living in a posh Miami condo with an ocean view, and the next, she allegedly stabbed her boyfriend, Christian Obumseli, to death. We see some pretty gross, exploitational cop body-cam footage of Clenney, covered in blood on the floor next to a dying Obumseli, and the film shares some details about how she wasn’t initially charged with a crime – she said she threw a knife at him in self-defense – but was eventually arrested after further investigation suggested she intentionally stabbed him.

Viewer Discretion Advised clunks back and forth between details of the Clenney case and the history and growth of OnlyFans. The former narrative doesn’t give us much beyond what we might’ve seen in news reports. But the latter includes interviews with sex workers who’ve used the platform to great success, e.g., the single mom who used it to supplement her meager income as a teacher, was fired by her school, then promptly went full-time on OnlyFans and watched her salary increase significantly (the doc puts creators’ user handles on the screen should you feel the urge to check out their stuff!). The two narrative threads spin into discussions about the stigma of sex work, racism and how the platform is helped and hindered by celebrity OnlyFans accounts. Commentators include a journalist (of course), an attorney (also of course), a criminologist, a psychologist and, for some reason, a Miami podcaster named Stunt Lifestyle. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Take sensationalist true-crime stuff like Dead Asleep, American Murder and Why Did You Kill Me?, add a layer of sleaze and make it feel like corporate sponsorship for its primary subject, and you’ve got Viewer Discretion Advised.

Performance Worth Watching: Out of all the “expert” commentators, clinical psychologist Dr. Kahina Beasley is the one offering the least-shallow analysis.  

Memorable Dialogue: “It didn’t take long for porn to take over,” says one commentator about OnlyFans’ launch. And one therefore wants to alter the old adage about the only certainties in life: Death, taxes and it never takes long for porn to take over.

Sex and Skin: Cheese-and-beefcake shots and videos with the naughtiest bits blurred out.

Our Take: At one point Stunt Lifestyle essentially says, and I’m paraphrasing, yo everyone in Miami just cray, in the context of a rather disturbing portrait of domestic violence between Clenney and Obumseli. Thanks for the analysis, Mr. Lifestyle! Very deep! Why are you in this movie again? Without his commentary, or nigh-endless repetitions of OnlyFans propaganda lines and gross security-cam footage of Crenney, Viewer Discretion Advised might not have as many opportunities to earn Tubi advertising income. Edit down this doc’s 70 minutes to its meaningful footage, and you might end up with about 45 minutes and fewer commercial breaks. When this doc isn’t banging the drum for OnlyFans being a great social leveler and one of the saviors of capitalist democracy, it’s crassly exploitationist. 

To be fair, the film stumps for destigmatizing sex work, and discusses the thorny optics of Clenney’s case (she appears to be the aggressor in their abusive relationship, which opens up a can of worms about the dynamics of not just a woman abusing a man, but a small White woman abusing a tall, muscular Black man). This is viable subject matter, but the doc never engages with it in a meaningful way. 

Instead, the emphasis is on true-crime fodder – for a case that hasn’t even gone to trial yet! – and unfocused blither-blather about various OnlyFans controversies. The doc slams Bella Thorne for teasing nude content and never delivering on it, raking in millions; it reiterates how sex work is hard work; it gets into how OnlyFans nearly banned adult content in 2021 before reversing its decision; it touches on how rapper Bhad Bhabie called people creeps after earning more than $1 million when she posted content mere days after her 18th birthday. The only firm point it makes is that OnlyFans shouldn’t be dragged into the murder trial any more than a construction firm should, if that had been Clenney’s employer. It’s a good point, but might be more effective if it didn’t seem like OnlyFans PR wonks had written the script for this doc.

Our Call: Viewer Discretion Advised is sensationalism, not journalism. SKIP IT. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.