David here. Just a quick psa before we start. From next Tuesday, flightless bird will only be available on the standalone flightless bird feed. It will no longer be coming out on the armchair expert feed. So if you aren't listening to this on the flightless bird feed already, I suggest you find it and hit subscribe. I've listed where to find it on all the main podcast platforms at bit ly Flightlessbirdpote. That's bit ly flightlessbirdpod. Or just search Flightlessbird on your podcast app and you should find it. Ok, on with the show. I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. A few months back now, we tried out a new thing called Flights of Fancy, where listeners got in touch with something they wanted to see explored here on flightless birdhouse. Something that grabbed our attention was onlyFans, the site that lets you sign up and pay money to get spicy content created by specific people. And while OnlyFans is based in the UK, it's predominantly used by Americans. Only 6% of its users are in the UK, while a whopping 43% are based in the United States of America.

And as of January this year, it had over 455 million visits from horned up american users, which dwarfed the 70 million from Canada, the UK, and Australia combined. I guess America's just hornier. I wanted to understand what OnlyFans is all about and why Americans love it so much. So grab your credit card and prepare to pay a random person on the Internet to take your loneliness away. Because this is the OnlyFans episode. Oh, a quick warning. This episode contains adult language and themes. So if you have kids in the car, maybe listen later on. Or don't. You're the parent, not me. You decide. But if they are my kids, I'd maybe hold back for another time. Like, just listen to something else, a song or something, and then maybe listen to this podcast later on. But it's up to you. Flybus, flyths. Flightless bird touchdown in America I'm a fly lisper touchdown in America. I wanted to warn people, you know.

I'm glad you did.

For one thing I've noticed about America. Monica, look, I don't want to get political.

Oh, God.

But America does have a really prudish kind of response to sex, doesn't it? Yes, it gets up in arms about sex. It doesn't mind violence, but sex. Mm mm. It's a no go. Which is weird, because there's a lot of sexy sort of billboards around. But then if you get too. If you insert a nipple or a penis or a vagina suddenly and you combine them together in the one place. Holy shit.

It's not allowed. I know. I never was aware of this, really, because indian culture is much more conservative.

Right? Okay.

I don't know enough to really say that, but that's my experience with it. And so when people would say, america's so conservative around sex, I was always like, not really, but definitely compared to Europe, probably New Zealand. What's happening in New Zealand?

Totally. I think New Zealand is a lot looser than the United States. I mean, I feel like just some while ago now that since Justin Timberlake got arrested and we got that amazing mug shot of him, people were sort of, like, relaying some of his history. And I just think of the Janet Jackson nipple slip on stage. She's performing, and that happens, and suddenly she's just sort of gone from the american psyche. That sort of thing seems to happen so, so quickly. People get so, so worried about it.

I don't get it, though. Cause then people are also secretly obsessed.

I mean, everyone is obsessed with sex. I mean, it's how we all got here, right? Like, someone had sex, and then we came out, hello. And then here we are. It just goes on and on. We die out without it. I also think of people debating different types of sex ed in schools. That's such a debate with parents what kids know or don't know. And I think that's where you get into something like onlyfans, and people have such strong opinions on it here in America. And yet it is used like pornography a lot.

Yeah, because there's a repression. They go to these very specific outlets, like porn and onlyfans and other places. It's like a secret. It becomes a kink because you can't just say it openly.

It's funny, as I sort of clock something coming into this, I've gone and spoken to people who are onlyfans users in different ways and creating content. And then it occurred to me, it's a little bit like the situation we had with Waffle House, where I just realized, as I've started recording with you guys, is I haven't tried onlyfans. And I say that genuinely. It's like. I feel like I've. I'm gonna be honest. I've consumed a lot of pornography in my lifetime, but I haven't tried onlyfans. Have either of you been on? Have you paid someone to make content? I have not Rob, is that nod? Are you nodding your head yes or no?

No, I am nodding no. I have a couple friends that are on it, though, so I know things about it from them.

Sounds like a story, but no, I agree.

But that's the other thing. If you're married or in a relationship, most people in America say it would be cheating to be on there. I bet a lot of people would say yes.

That is a very interesting question. And I also think if you're in a relationship, is it deemed somehow worse if you are on Onlyfans as opposed to a porn website? You know, is it different if you are paying a specific person for things, as opposed to for free getting a lot of different people doing a lot of different things?

Yeah. So, Rob, if you found out Natalie was on only page. She didn't have a page, but she was.

For the record, I meant I have friends. Are content creators not friends that use it?

I mean, you definitely have friends that use it. I know.

I'm sure I do have friends that use it. That's not what has been discussed.

Well, if she was using it and then you found out, do you feel like it was cheating?

It's tricky. It's weirder that it's an individual person and you're making requests, but I think you can use it without doing that as well, where it's like, subscribing to a specific porn star that you like without it having an individual relationship. Right.

Without talking to them.

Yeah. I think that's where it starts to potentially cross the line.

Is that right?

You're asking them directly for things that.

You specifically want to see. Or, like, what if Natalie's been asking you the whole relationship? She's like, rob, I just.

Armpit photos.

Yeah. Or even weirder, like, I just really want to watch someone pick their nose and then eat their boogers and then have sex.

And you're like, Natalie, the last time, I'm not doing it for you.

Well, I mean, not for you, not for anyone. My body, my choice.

And then you're going through the credit card statements, and you see onlyfans and then a hyphen and an Onlyfans performer's name, and you go to that person's page, and you see their specialty is nose picking.

Well, but that would be the difference if their specialty is that, and she's just watching them do that versus, like, she found someone and was like, hey, I want you to make this video.

Oh, so it's the request?

Yeah, I think so.

It's the interactions happening between the two of them, as opposed to finding generic content. Yeah, because Natalie could go to Pornhub and look for some nose picking porn and watch it that way. You're saying that's different to going to onlyfans and putting in a request for someone to do that very same thing.

Correct.

What if you say, no, my body, my choice. I'm not doing it, I'll never do it. And then she says, well, can I go on onlyfans and find someone who will do it?

I think it's different if there's a conversation, and I'm consenting that, I'm okay with it.

But would you ever think, huh, okay. There's enough distance there.

Yeah, I think if it's not a secret and it's not this thing that is being kept, there's at least a conversation there of, like, okay, cool. If you're requesting this, but then it's not turning into dialog and conversation beyond that. That's where a relationship could form. Like, that's where it starts to cross my boundaries.

If the nose picker on Onlyfans, for instance, was me, that would be a potential problem.

There's no different than, like, her going and asking one of our random friends to send a video of that, too, or meeting someone at a coffee shop and asking to pick their nose.

Rob, what we're trying to do is we've got something to tell you.

You're making videos, huh?

David? You're making videos for a while now on OnlyFans specifically for one customer. Net h. No. It's funny that these situations, it's interesting. They are really interesting things to consider. And I think OnlyFans brings out so many of these things. And also, I do think it's kind of dumb. I haven't delved into OnlyFans as part of research for this episode. So after this, Rob, I'll get the armchair expert credit card off you and maybe do some research for a part two.

I also wonder if America, where it ranks on monogamy, being the highest standard. I kind of feel that we are probably pretty high on that scale, which is why sex is repressed.

Yeah. And again, not to make this political, but again, that's why it's so weird with this election, because there's been this whole criminal trial, essentially about monogamy in a way, or about, you know, having sex outside of marriage, which I would have thought Americans would have responded to in a much more negative way. But we're still in the situation where so many people support a candidate who has done that thing so America's morals are so confusing, and I also think it's so obsessed with its morals around sex, but when it comes to that actually playing out, they don't know what to do. Hypocritical, that is the word.

Yeah, it's weird.

It's really weird, this place we're in. And I mean, I find it NSC fascinating because I like trying to figure things out, and I can't figure this out. I don't think a lot of people can't figure this out. Anyway, should I play a little bit of this audio that I collected and see what you make of it?

Yes, please.

I'm in the park with Sarah, and we're discussing how those dumb social media names we gave ourselves when we were younger sometimes have this habit of sticking around.

I'm a Waco Sarah, which is a very long name. I made the name in 7th grade, was my first Gmail account, and it just stuck. So here it is.

Were talking Instagram because its how Sarah gets a lot of her OnlyFans clients. They find her on social media, then they find out she also has an Onlyfans, and thats where they go. I wanted to talk to an OnlyFans creator because there are about 2 million of them and theyre making content for the sites, 420 million users who are on there each month. OnlyFans is a $5.6 billion industry, and as someone who posts content on Onlyfansen, Sarah's a part of it.

I started modeling when I was 16, the standard modeling. It got me through college. It didn't pay great, and then I did odd restaurant jobs, that sort of thing. Lots of service industry work, and then eventually journalism. And then I got a divorce.

There's a tangent here that I'll save for another episode. Turns out her husband was in a cult. She just didn't know it at the time. Anyway, leaving him was a big change.

For her to got the divorce. It, like, crushed me financially, and I was like, okay, well, I can continue to make money for other people with my body, like modeling, and I can continue to participate in this. I mean, it's sexual currency. Like, no matter, like, you go to a restaurant and if the waitress is pretty and flirts with you, you pay her more. Like, it's everywhere. You go on a date and you pay for the bill, you expect something in return. I'm also a photographer, so I can self shoot. I take a lot of self portraits. I know how to model, and I know how to do communication pretty well. So I was like, fuck it. I'll start doing that myself. Why would I have someone else take money from me? I'm just cutting right through the politeness of it all and being like, you want to see me naked? Give me $80. You know what I mean? Like, it's easy, straightforward.

She started on onlyfans about two years ago, gently dipping her toes in first.

Yeah, I was definitely nervous. I mean, I started really quiet. I built the page, and I would send it to people if they were like, in my DM's hitting me up or something. I'd be like, I got this little thing. I was not really public with it for probably the first month or two. Yeah, it was definitely a nerve wracking thing. The first day, my mom texted me and she was like, you started a fans only. And I was like, mom, it's only fans.

Sarah describes herself as a freelancer. She does a bit of writing, some photography, and works for some car magazines. She describes her onlyfans as a safety net, a really hefty safety net. And she says the art of OnlyFans is sort of being able to tell who's there to spend money and how long they're going to stick around for, and then balancing all the things you need to do to be successful on there, from the photos to the videos to all the one on one chatting.

With her fans, there's a larger amount of just horny dudes who I don't really talk to. They show up, they buy stuff, they send me pictures of their dicks, and then that's it. And then there's a much more time consuming, less lucrative mostly, but sometimes way more lucrative groups. That's lonely. And I think those people, there's like a carrot dangle type thing where they're like, if you keep talking to me, if you keep talking to me, I'll give you this much money. And then you're like, okay, I did it. And then you'll get the money. And you're like, okay. But if you make them mad and they know they have the control of that, they're like, okay, well, if you don't talk to me all day, you don't get this money at the end of the day, right? And so that can be challenging. And I think for me, I just have to remember it's the business. I'm not gonna please everyone all the time. And if I lose some money for my sanity so I can go and hang out with my friends, I'm gonna do it.

Her Onlyfans days are spent making generic content that people will want, as well as custom videos for specific people, which she charges more for. For instance, someone might want a video of her doing something with her armpit. The way she sees it, only fans as a way for her to take the power back from men who might otherwise just be catcalling her. She's in charge.

But the truth of the matter is, I get harassed at least once a day. Some sort of thing happens, and it's like, you are pulling some power away from me. And with onlyfans, it's like they're doing that, but they're paying me so I have control, and it's a lot better. It feels almost like a weird, twisted reclamation. I'm like, okay, this person at the gas station bothered me, but you have to pay me to bother me. I mean, people are people. There's gonna be weird people. And a lot of them are super, super polite and super nice. And we have great dynamic. And I have some people I wouldn't. It's not a friendship, but it. As close as it could be on a platform like that.

Stay tuned for more flightless bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for flightless bird comes from Quince. I've got quite a few things from Quince at this point. A lot of outdoor clothing and a puffer jacket, which literally saved my life when in the snow in New Zealand. And also, it's been a busy season of events in travel, and your wardrobe's probably taken a beating. A total overhaul might not not be in your budget, but you can replace some of those worn out pieces with affordable, high quality essentials from Quince. Quince has all the essential must haves, like cashmere sweaters from $50, 100% european linen shirts and versatile activewear. That's the stuff that I really like from Quince. The best part, all quince items are priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. And by partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices, along with premium fabrics and finishes. I really love that. I'm about to walk up to the Griffith Observatory. I'm in a pair of shorts from Quince that look good.

They breathe, they're active. I love them so much, I'm going to wear these things to death. Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with Quince. Go to quince.com bird for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q dash uince.com Bird to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Bird Flightless Bird is sponsored by Betterhelp. Now what are your self care non negotiables for me, I never skip a daily walk. It's where I process things and think about things. I listen to a lot of music. I can't skip a decent walk every day. Maybe for you. You never skip leg day or therapy day. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non negotiables like therapy are more important than ever for me. Therapy has helped me with so many things. I at times can be a pretty dysregulated person, and through therapy, I have learned to sort through my feelings at the time and not just react to those things in the moment, which has been a huge help. And if you're thinking of starting therapy, you can give betterhelp a try.

It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. So never skip therapy day with betterhelp. Visit betterhelp.com bird today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp. H dash e dash p.com Birdhouse talking to Sarah, I started to wonder about that other side to onlyfans. It's a smaller side, but it's still there. Males making content turns out producer Rob had a contact for a man called Jack Maddox, whose fan base is mostly gay men. I zoomed him just as he was getting ready for a shift at a bar in Philadelphia.

I didn't even mean to get into porn. It came to me by, like, accident. Somebody messaged me via Instagram because I did studio porn before I did onlyfans, and usually it goes to other way around. I did like all the big name studios and then I launched an Onlyfan. So I got reached out to. It was during the pandemic, wasn't working. I do need to pay my bills. This guy messaged me. He's a porn manager. He's like, hey, you got a great look. I think you would do this. Went over it with my boyfriend, who's now my husband, and I went over it with him at the time, and I was like, is this something that would bother you? Because I won't do if it will. He said no.

I was like, all right.

I'm gonna do it. Next thing I knew, I was on a flight, and then, like, I was working crazy. It was flight shoot, flight shoot, flight shoot. I shot over 100 films in the span of a year, and I was just a little burnt out at that point.

Jack said that his experience on the queer side of OnlyFans was making porn with other actors, which his fans would then pay for. There was less solo stuff, but the solo stuff he did do always kept him slightly surprised.

People would want me to, like, fart a lot. I sent, like, a lot of personal fart videos. They were very specific, like, pump yourself full of air and fart right into the camera. A fan that I had met paid me very well to wear my biggest combat boots and squash his balls, like, stomp really hard. And I watched him come after that, and that really surprised me, because I know that pain of just being kicked in the balls, and, like, I stomped really hard. So I was like, wow, this is different.

Jack did onlyfans for a couple of years. It got him through the pandemic, and he's glad for the experience and not just for the money. For him, it was a unique form of therapy, of working through some of his own issues.

I think it's like a season when it comes into your life. You have to strike when it's hot. You have to be in the right space. It's mentally a little taxing. I found it quite liberating in many ways, because prior to 2020, I had very dark experiences with sex. Sexual assault. When I was younger, I just got a lot of weird things when I was a teenager that were really uncomfortable. So, like, when I started doing this, really, everything's out there now. I just felt like, oh, okay. All that bad stuff was gone, and I really connected with my sexual self in a way that was healing, which, like, you don't need to go through that. You know, you don't need to go spread your legs on camera to heal from sexual trauma. But it did work for me in a lot of ways. But my advice to anybody that would want to get into that is to just make sure that it's your right season, because you strike when the iron's hot. And like anything else, there's going to be the next person. There's going to be the next thing.

Right now, he's happy. His season is over. He's studying pathobiology and heading to med school next year. Now, while researching the story, I ran into a lot of people who used onlyfans as a stopgap between other things. It's hard work keeping on top of it all, making the videos and talking to an endless stream of horned up fans. And this reminded me of something else Sarah had told me about a sort of secondary market tied to onlyfans of agencies that help run other people's accounts, for a small fee, of course.

When I first started I was getting multiple dm's in my inbox from these agencies and it's really hard to decide and decipher if they're real or if they're exploitative and strange. One of the agencies reached out to me and he facetimed me, the head of the agent, and it was like okay, it's me and my partner who's this guy gave me his phone number. We had a phone call and we have a team and they said they were going to be the ones mostly running the account. Those other people are just going to do like project management type stuff. And I was like I don't need to meet the project managers like you guys seem great. It completely screwed me over. It was catastrophic for me.

She thought having someone running her account would be helpful. So called chatters talking to men on her behalf. So she had time to do other stuff instead. The chatters the agency hired were all offshore in countries where wages were lower and English also wasn't the number one priority. Pretty soon it became obvious to her subscribers that they weren't talking to her, the person they'd signed up for. So Sarah promptly fired her agency. Unfortunately, that made the chatters unhappy.

One specifically one of the chatters posted on my main feed. This is not the real model. I'm a chatter and that destroyed me for a couple months. I had to regain it's actually me guys, I promise. I just tried it out. It didn't work.

It was a whole yeah, Sarah now runs everything herself. Shes learnt her lesson but id become fascinated by the side hustle of running someone elses account. The so called chatters employed to pretend to be someone else, someone sexy. There was a great piece in the August edition of Wired magazine about this called she contains multitudes. It pointed out the obvious imbalance with 420 million active users per month talking to only 2 million content creators. Even though thats a lot of creators, theres no way they can keep up with those hundreds of millions of fans. So a secondary market is created for chatters and I found one who agreed to talk to me.

So there was one guy, he probably spent a couple hundred bucks every day. Typically he would send a video every day at the end of his sexting session with him on his knees on his carpet coming. And I just could not get over the fact that he was jizzing on his carpet every night the same spot. And I remember one time just being like, I wish I was your carpet. Because I wanted him to, like, say something about it. But I didn't want to insult him, obviously, because he was actually nice. But he didn't really say anything. And I was super upset because I was like, I just want him to say, haha, babe, I clean it or something. Because it just really upset me more.

On that carpet and some other stories. Soon after, I check in with Monica to make sure she's okay. Hi, Monica. Are you okay?

I'm great. This is so fascinating.

It's a whole world out there. It is this whole alternate reality that people are in.

I mean, I will say about the woman with the carpet, that wasn't a good approach because that sounded like she's hot for it.

That's what I heard too.

Yeah. If it's like, I want to be your carpet, that's like, I want you to come on me, not your carpet's dirty.

If every day you're seeing this happen and you're seeing someone, this man, ejaculate on the carpet, what are you gonna say to him? You wanna find out whether he's cleaning up or not? What do you say to him so it doesn't sound insulting?

I mean. Well, first of all, I think you have to assume he's definitely not cleaning it up. Secondly, don't you have to be straightforward and ask? Or you could just make a joke about it, but there's no way he would hear, I wanna be that carpet and think that he has to answer for it. Being dirty or not. I'm not understanding the leap.

Yeah, I think Kara was on the wrong trajectory there with the question. I think maybe just honesty being like, I'm stuck. I love seeing that for the hundredth time. Do you ever clean up the carpet? Like, what happens when guests come over? Is that an issue? Yeah, I think that would be a more straightforward sort of a case. Monica, I'm curious. Or, you know, Rob, this could be a scenario for you. Although I feel like we've really bullied you with the scenarios thus far. If you were paying someone to have horny conversations with you and they're not the person that you think you're talking to, but you're still getting off on it, is that a problem? Do you feel ripped off with your $10 monthly fee? Or is the fact that you. It's like being in the Matrix, isn't it? It's like you happy being in the Matrix, but it's not real, but you don't know it, so who cares?

This is complicated. Well, first of all, yes, I think it's unethical.

Could you be talking to someone a different person? They could be a different sex, they could be a different age. All these things.

Yeah. And you're paying, you are buying a product. So if they're not being transparent, that's very, very unethical.

It would be like me sending my newsletter out and having someone else write it and not telling them. It would be that. Right. And I would feel that would be ethically so dicey.

And even if they liked what they were reading, that's not what they're buying. They're buying your thoughts.

Yeah.

And your writing. And so, yes, it is very similar to that. So I think it's unethical. However, you're already using this platform to get some sort of pleasure something. And so if you're getting it, there is a, like, what's the harm? But I stand by. I think it's unethical. And I'd be pissed because I think.

When you are in, like, look, maybe I'm just thinking for myself. When you're in a horny mood, you are so stupid as well. Like, people do stupid things when they're horny. And it is an interesting thing where, like, just going on the stats of how many people, you know, you sign up for a popular person on fans, you're having these in depth conversations with them all day long. To think that it's them when they're also doing this with 10,000 other people. What world are you living in? But I think guys especially, we can be really dumb and we just assume that it's the thing.

It'd be one thing if they said openly, hey, you may get me, you may not, and you're rolling the dice there. But I mean, it's straight up lying. I mean, it's catfishing.

What I do like about it is that it provides work for people that might not want to get naked in front of a camera, but they're really good at horny conversations. It gives them a job. That's nice, I suppose.

I don't think it's unethical, actually, as the chatter. I think it's unethical as the creator.

Who'S hired to do it.

Yes.

Yeah. I think you bang on. Yeah.

If someone likes having sexy conversations, but yet doesn't want to be. The person wants to be a ghostwriter, basically. That's fine.

The other thing I found interesting about it is that, from what I can tell, and again, I haven't talked to a lot of people about this, but a lot of the female stuff is just solo, just a woman doing whatever, the male stuff and a lot of the queer stuff. It's more like regular porn, where people are here to always get other people in the scenario and shoot at almost like, more regular kind of porn like scenarios, which I found really interesting. It seemed like a lot more effort because I think the joy of Onlyfans is you can just shoot at alone in your room.

Yeah, but that's another ethical question then. Do you have to pay the person you're bringing in?

Totally. I assume you absolutely do in those situations. And I guess, yeah, if you have balls to crush, then you need someone else's balls. That you can't crush one's own balls, you know, you need someone else in that situation.

That would be hard to do. Yeah.

Yeah. That amazed me. I mean, anyone male who's playing sport at school and sort of been hitting the test, he was. It's a sort of a feeling I would avoid at all costs. But of course, for some out there, it's okay.

It feels like that would have, like, ruptured his testicle. Stomping on it.

Stomping is rough. I mean, they can go through. Testicles can go through a lot. I mean, they are just hanging out there on the outside, aren't they? I mean, they do go through a lot of trauma, but the testicles are hardier than you think. The pain is there, but they're squishy. And I think they can go through a lot.

This is where the conversation about when does a kink cross the line into.

Something damaging, potentially, like, or something medically.

Yes. Or dangerous or harmful. And if everyone's consenting, does that make it fine? Even though, like, what if it's like, my kink is I want you to hit me over the head with a baseball bat until I'm unconscious and everyone's consenting?

I stumbled on this really unusual sort of subgroup of people a couple of years ago who their kink is having bits of their body removed. Their whole thing is, I don't like my arm up to the elbows, or that kink is pirate, so they want a peg leg. So then they have to find someone who will. You know, it's difficult if you want to remove your leg below the knee. It's a really difficult thing. To do, you need someone to help you. And so one of the solutions these people found, you can't go to a doctor because, you know, the whole thing is, do no harm. You can't go to a doctor and say, hey, like, I would be so much happier mentally if I didn't have this bit of my leg. And so there was one story I came across where someone had kind of maimed their leg enough to, by the time they went to the emergency room, they had to amputate it.

Oh, my.

And that's the way they got their way. So, look, an extreme example of what you're talking about.

Yes. It's like, at what point does someone need to step in? Should there be rules? Like, it's. I don't know the answer to any of it.

There's a documentary, I think it was a british documentary about guys. Their kink was just having really big testicles, and so they would go and inject their testicles with, like, various liquids to make them. I'm talking, like, the size of, like, two basketballs. Like, really insane stuff. I'll send you the link.

Oh, no, I don't need to do that.

And, you know, again, you can't do that. You can't go into the doctor's office and sort of get a medical professional to do it. And so they'd inject all sorts of stuff that would leak into other parts of the body and would, at one point, killed someone, and that turned to this whole other story. Anyway, for the OnlyFans, isn't this crazy? But, yeah, it does raise an interesting point. You've got someone stomping on your testicles. I wouldn't be comfortable stomping on another man's testicles, put it that way. I would be worried about their house and about the long term benefits or lack thereof.

Yeah, but if they wanted you to crack an egg on their head, you'd do it all day long.

Yeah, that's my thing. It's a whole new angle to that. Stay tuned for more flightless bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. This episode of Flightless Bird is brought to you by booking.com. booking. Yeah. It's finally time for summer travel, and I am pumped because I like traveling. I like traveling for myself, and I like traveling for this show.

Yes. It is so fun. I do get very excited about summer travel.

Which your favorite place to travel to in America? That's not going home. Like, where would you. New York.

New York?

Yeah.

I think I am gonna go back in the summer very exciting.

Booking.com offers so many possibilities across the US. For all the travelers you want to be booking.com quote s wide breadth of places to stay across the US. Make booking whoever you want to be this summer so, so easy. From family friendly vacation homes to picturesque villas, there are so many great choices on booking.com. so what are you waiting for this summer? You can book whoever you want to be on booking.com. comma booking dot. Yeah, check out booking.com to book today. All right, should we go on to part two? Yeah, let's do it. As Sarah found out in part one, onlyfans agencies can be dicey. A lot of them use a workforce not based in America, often in lower wage countries like the Philippines. It's not unusual for some chatters to work brutal 70 hours weeks with hourly wages as low as two american dollars. On Reddit, the OnlyFans chatter sub is an interesting and sobering reach. A post from five months ago I found now deleted read. I just want to say that us chatters are not robots. We're humans. We feel, we have feelings, we have problems. We have family like you. Why pay us only one dollar fifty cents to three dollars an hour and make us handle multiple accounts and expect us to do as you say?

In third world countries, power outages happen frequently and you tell us to find a way or fire us just because we can't control what's happening around us. In the third world country, we do not have a fast Internet like you guys. How do you expect us to reply fast? This post goes on and on, just setting the situation that this particular chatter found themselves in. Their post ends in all caps. If you guys can't understand this, do not hire us Filipinos because we cannot stand agencies bosses who exploit us. But not all chatters are in this position. Some agencies hire people at better rates, some of them employing Americans like Kara, not her real name.

So I live in Detroit. I previously worked as an OnlyFans chatter for two years.

Kara is no longer a chatter. She's got a new gig now, but she agreed to share her experience with me to help paint a picture of what it's like to pretend to be someone else.

It works in a few different ways. So in my situation, I was working for a small team. We would range from two girls to six girls who we would represent. They were all fairly mainstream porn actresses, some of them very mainstream, others maybe were just getting started and we would run their accounts for them. So we would essentially pretend to be them and interact with them kind of arrange their skypes, handle all their sexting appointments, get the men who are online excited, basically just spam them with content. Always try to upsell them to do custom videos, custom voice notes. It's a lot of dick ratings. So men will pay for you to, like, rate their dick. I would say that's the main thing you're doing all night, is trying to get them to, like, send a picture of their penis, and then you send a rating. And whether or not it's good or bad, you kind of have to vibe that out in terms of if they want a good rating or if they want you to, like, embarrass them.

I was fascinated by the fact a big part of her job was just receiving dick pics. I guess men just really like sending pictures of their dick. Back in 2019, the Journal of Sex Research published a study about dick pics, and it suggested the main reason men send them is because of a transactional mindset, as in, if I send you some of my nude body, you should show me some of your nude body. The study also found men who sent unsolicited dick pics demonstrated higher levels of narcissism and hostile sexism.

They do want you to rate it, and it's always funny. So we would have a standard of what they would rate it by, like, girth, cleanliness, or I think I would say maintenance most of the time.

How many dick pics do you think you've seen in your career as a cheddar?

A lot. I mean, I'd probably say at least ten a night for two years. I worked probably like three to four nights a week and some nights way more. I really think I could have diagnosed some serious skin issues.

Let's not go there. You can imagine. Anyway, Cara got paid hourly for her work as a chatter, which, as I learned, was a lot of rating penises, because as well as sending penises, men love having them rated.

So I worked for the small group. There was one girl who ran it. I got paid hourly, so I got paid $20 per hour. And then we get bonuses based on how much guy upselled.

How did you get the job? Was it a friend of a friend? Was it a listing? It's a really unique thing to be doing.

Yeah. Honestly, I found it completely randomly and I had never been on Onlyfans. I didn't really knew really little about it. I had previously done phone sex for some time when I was living in Australia, actually during COVID because I, like, really needed money.

What were you doing in Australia? This is relevant to my interests. Very close to New Zealand.

Yeah, I lived there for six years, and I did my studies there. Have a really bad private us student loan to, like, go to college in Australia. So all of a sudden, Covid was happening, and obviously the australian dollar crashed. And I was like, ooh, how can I make us dollar? Oh, I'll do phone sex. And it worked out really well because I would often get callers who were american who were calling this phone sex line, and they were always really happy because I was always really awake because it was midday for me. And, like, usually they're calling, calling people, and they're, like, dead ass asleep.

With time zones in her favor, she excelled at talking dirty over the phone, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours.

My first call I remember was 2 hours long, which is not common at all. Most of your phone calls are, like, five to ten minutes. And this man, for an hour, was just edging, I'm assuming, and just wanted to listen to me scream. I was like, this is really exhausting.

While she was screaming in the australian outback, she learned a lot of skills that helped when it came to Onlyfans, especially when it came to talking to people. I mean, there's a reason OnlyFans chatters are called chatters.

I mean, a lot of the, like, OnlyFans girls will offer that as well, either through Skype audio or they'll use one of those hotlines. It's a really good way, I think, for them to also make fans. One thing I found, it was really easy to get regular callers my first two weeks. Then I had guys who would call every day for five to ten minutes, but they would call every day because they want to talk to the same person.

For her, OnlyFans came with a bunch of advantages over straight phone sex lines. Mainly, she was more in control, and there were more protections in place. There were less shocks in her day.

It was definitely better than phone sex, because when you're on a phone sex hotline, you pick up and you don't really know what somebody's going to say to you. And it's a lot more personal than a screen being in between, because you would pick up, and on your listing, you might have, like, I don't do x, y, or z. And then the first thing out of their mouth is something pretty heinous. Oh, this is one of the other reasons, actually, why OnlyFans is better than the phone sex hotline was on the phone sex hotline, men could send me pictures, and there was no blur over it. So I would get pictures from these men that were them and their wife in bondage, or honestly, worse, pictures of their families. Like, do not want to see that. But on onlyfans, it's at least blurred. First, OnlyFans has a lot of things you can and cannot do on it anyways. And the girls don't want to get in trouble. So they're pretty strict. You definitely can't talk about pee or poop at all. People talk around it. They'll say things like waterworks. Poop's definitely just like a no, though.

Are the rules logical, or are they sort of America's weird, puritanical arm coming?

I think most of them are pretty rational. A lot of times it blocks you from using certain words, like, you can't use the word school, you can't use the word young, you can't use the word meat because they obviously don't want escorting on the platform, which definitely does happen, which I don't have a problem with, but obviously they don't want it on their platform for probably a multitude of legal reasons. But, yeah, you can't use that word. Most of them are pretty logical, I think the pknorthen thing, I'm not into it, but, you know, I don't think it's that bad.

Take me through what it's like to sort of jump in and inhabit someone else's Persona.

When I first started, I was only running two girls accounts. It definitely was important to kind of sound like them. One of them definitely had strong opinions on whether you say dick or cock and really wanted that to be super consistent. Didn't like Internet speak at all. She was like, I don't use it, so you can't use it, that kind of thing. Other girls really don't care, though, so.

It ranges, and the audience, which is over 60% male, they mostly don't cotton onto the fact they're not chatting to the model they're looking at.

You'll definitely get message from guys and being like, hey, I know you're not blank. Can you let them know this? A lot of people are very with it. They're on Reddit. They know if you go on Reddit, the girls have different reviews. So people will be like, I think that they have chatters. I think somebody's running their account for them. It's not really them. Other times, I worked for some smaller girls accounts, too, and they definitely think they're still talking to the person. Sometimes they will catch on, especially if a new person gets hired and don't check the notes on the person and don't know what their dog's name is all of a sudden or don't know what they do for a living. And you're supposed to know that. So there is a lot of relationship building there to avoid that from happening because, yeah, a lot of people still think that they're chatting to them, which I think is wild because even my friends who have onlyfans, who, you know, maybe don't have that many fans, still have their friend do it for them.

Why did you stop?

I didn't need the money anymore. I got a better full time job, and for two years, I was doing it pretty much every single weekend. And it's a lot of. It's a lot to be, like, really glued to your screen like that. It's a lot to take in. It's a lot of porn because you're also selling their full porn videos. And after a while, I do wonder, what is that doing to my brain? And I'm not really sure. It definitely varied. I think it took a lot of sexual energy away because I was just consumed with it so much while I was doing it. I definitely had a more negative opinion of men overall. And honestly, I think it was less because of the dick pic thing. It wasn't all the fans. Cause it definitely also varied by girl. Like, what are their specific fans like? But some girls have fans who are real assholes and are really cheap and are calling you a. Especially if a girl doesn't get them what they want in time or what they've decided that they've paid for and just that kind of entitlement got really old. But, yeah, some guys would just be like, randomly, you're a bitch.

And it's just like, okay, well, even if it is through a screen, I don't really want to deal with this. And also just.

And with that sentiment in mind, I just had one final question left for Cara. As someone who'd spent years talking to men, talking to men who thought they were talking to someone else the whole time, what a weird job. Did you come away from this with any thoughts about american men after dealing with all of these people?

I mean, I think it was just like, wow, everyone's so lonely. Mostly it really is loneliness for a lot of people, especially the big spenders. They are talking to you all day. They are spending a ton of money on these women in some cases. And it's like, why are you doing that? And the only thing I would have is that they're lonely.

I'm sorry to end on such a downer. But american men, probably no surprise. Lonely. No, I'm an american man. Am I an american man? I'm lonely. We're all lonely.

Yeah. I think men are lonely in general, but also definitely here.

Just so much typing as opposed to just images. And that's where these chatters come in, because that's the time consuming part of the gig.

Yeah. And I can imagine you would fully get desensitized. I have no energy to invest in a sexual relationship of my own when that's what you're doing all day.

Totally. And I think once a pandemic, she other work, and the world started opening up again. Yeah. She just sort of had enough of it. But was the perfect insight into, like, what that world was like because she did it solidly for years. And the thing that surprised me was the. I guess it's that transactional nature. Just how I was really fascinated by how males have this urge to send a dick pic. Like, that's something I hadn't thought about. And I was like, you poor woman. That being part of the gig, that's so annoying.

That's what I heard from both of my friends on Onlyfans, that it's a lot of. Of dick pic ratings.

Wow.

I mean, that is part of the culture now. I guess I just thought people would want other people's nude bodies. I didn't think that this transactional nature of sending Rome, but I guess that's part of the danger and excitement of it all that comes into it.

Well, it is, and I think even deeper than that, and this is a bummer, but I think is true. Sex is a lot about approval, your own approval. Percentage wise, I think it's often more about that than it is the other person.

Yeah. In general, it comes down to what we talked about, another episode about, let's say, a little brother energy. Right? Pick me. You know, I'm okay. Like, you've had sex with me, so I'm okay. Like, give my dick a good rating. Although she did say for some people, they wanted to be humiliated until they had, like, a very bad, gross dick.

My male friend that's on it. He's straight, and he said he gets a lot of requests from gay men asking him to say derogatory things to them.

Huh.

That's sad.

How people. Interesting.

Okay, we have to talk about pee and poop. What the fuck? I'm shocked that that's banned.

Me too.

Especially pee.

Yeah, pee seems harmless, common.

So I jumped on the onlyfans Reddit about this. It is a super unusual thing. And apparently it's because it's a violation of federal law because you get into obscenity law. And so pornography is legal, but obscenity is this other thing. And obscenity in pornography is things like peeing and bodily fluids. Blood, pee, semen. That's okay. That's not obscene, apparently. But, yeah, when you get into human waste or human blood, that gets into obscenity. And that's where it becomes a federal matter. And that's why onlyfans has to ban it. So I'm sorry, Monica, but onlyfans might not be where you get your stuff that you want.

Now, I know you have to go.

Somewhere else to get your poop videos.

Yeah. I just find it so weird. Again, back to what we were talking about earlier in the episode where the line is getting drawn. To me drawing the line on pee and poop. I mean, I know you're saying that's federally mandated, but. Versus slamming your foot on someone's balls is like, what?

Yeah, it feels like some random person has come in and drawn a very random line in the sand. Right?

Yeah.

And gone like, this is okay, but this isn't okay. You can see some side boob, but you can't see enough on stage.

Right.

I've always thought, thinking about sex and bodies, the female nipple is always the thing that just sums it all up about how crazy these laws are. That you can have a male nipple on a beach and it's fine. A female nipple, and suddenly you're violating the terms and conditions of being on a beach in America and a lot of places in the world. It's wild.

It is wild. It'd be one thing if yours look completely different, but it's the same thing.

Pretty similar. Nipples, nipples and nipple.

We've all got them.

Yeah. Just these odd rules that are put out there. I was very confused originally when she was talking about meat. You can't use the word meat because I was thinking, like, lamb chop or something. I was like, what's wrong with that?

But I thought about cannibalism. I was like, oh, it's because of, like, cannibalism or something.

That would be an obscene. That would be an obscenity law. But it is that thing of. Yeah. Not turning into solicitation, that not being allowed. And I guess that also bleeds into this other problem that some creators and chatters have where the people consuming the content think that they are in a relationship with them. And then the natural thing is you want to go and meet up with them. And I remember that dumb mindset the first time. So this is slightly. Oh, he runs on it. I went to a strip club in my younger days that was in Vegas, and I remember very specifically thinking, this just said so much about the male brain, and certainly my brain. I was like, oh, I think the stripper likes me. Like, they actually like me.

Oh, my God, David.

Which is so deeply. But I remember thinking it, you know, I'd had a few drinks, and I was like, wow, this person really likes me. This. This whole person likes me. That's how the whole system works. And I think on onlyfans, there is that tendency where some people think, oh, I'm actually in a relationship with this person. It's not transactional. And so a question like, can we meet up somewhere, become something people actually want to put forward?

Wow, this is such a fascinating topic. And I love that it came from flights of fancy.

Yeah, I want to give a big shout out. Sarah reached out for that episode. She was the one that I met in the park who had a very funny Instagram name. And so, yeah, she told more of her story. And then I just found all these other amazing people in this world, and it's an interesting world. And favor duo part two. As I say, I will jump on there and have some firsthand experience. Maybe I'll join up and do what the person in that wired article I mentioned did and become a chatter. Get hired by one of these agencies and just see what that experience is like.

Have you thought about becoming a creator yourself? You're a public figure.

Yeah, that's not. It's not for me. The New Zealanders in me makes me far too shy to even consider something like that. But I would do a chatter, and I can't wait till a nat h comes on requesting some. Some booger content. That's what I'll be waiting. That's what I'll be waiting for.

Fingers crossed. Well, we're definitely more american and more sexual. I hope this made everyone very horny. I hope people did make. Well, God, I was gonna say, I hope people heeded the warning and didn't listen around their kids, but that might be my american repression.

I think maybe it is. And maybe me even bringing up the content warning, maybe that is a sign that I, David Ferry, are becoming. Becoming more american, more puritanical.

Congratulations.

More worried about sex. Block the kids ears. Don't let them hear it.

Don't. Can't. So, that was onlyfans. That was a great episode.

Look, if it all goes belly up. There's always onlyfans. That's what I always think.

That's right. That's good to know in this life. So, yeah. So onlyfans is gonna be our last flightless bird under the armchair feed. So reminder to go to David's new feed.

The link is bitly flightlessbirdpod. So bit ly flightlessbirdpod. That's all the places that you can listen to. Next Tuesday's episode goes out. New feed. Sign up all there, and you can.

Just go wherever you get your, like, go if you're on Spotify, if you're on Apple, whatever. And just type it in. Just type in flightless bird. It's easy.

Me and Rob are gonna be producing that show, and every week, I will continue to dive into the depths of american culture. It's good sides, it's bad sides, and it's in between sides. But we've had some rollicking times, Monica. We've discovered some shit. I mean, I still feel like my heart is recovering from that frozen foods dinner at your house, you know?

Yeah. God, what a time. You know, I feel guilty because I did end up throwing so much of that in the garbage. Yes. So I'm not gonna be on. I mean, maybe I'll pop on. Who knows? Who knows what you'll be doing? Maybe I'll pop on in the future, but I won't be a consistent member of the new feed. So I wanted to ask you about your favorite episodes we've done. Can you even remember?

I think if you stand out, I think leaf blowers is really fun because episodes that seem to strike a chord with people in the show are not necessarily ones you'd expect, but leaf blowers. Everyone really had some strong thoughts. Toilets was good. Investigating the water level of american toilets. I enjoyed that. I like it when we hit the road with the show, and we'll continue to do that. I liked being in Florida because Florida is full of a lot of interesting people. And I remember going out with a Gladesman out into the everglades as he talked about wrestling snakes and stuff. And I love that. I was like, I am in America. This wouldn't happen in New Zealand. I'm out in the Evergreendez brigades with a man who wrestles snakes. And that's pretty cool. Do you know what that is? No, what the hell is that?

It's a Taylor Swift song.

Oh, I'm sorry. I loved our Taylor Swift episode.

Yeah, looks like it didn't really stick.

What about you? Like, I feel like we also enjoy very different things. What has jumped out at you and. Or maybe what ones have you been like? Oh, God, what is David going on about?

Sometimes you present the topic, and I do think, what is this? But then it always ends up super fun. Always a fun chat. The ones where we did excursions were great. Yes, frozen food was super fun.

Remember, you went to Disney as well?

We went to Disney. Disney. Teaching you how to drive.

Oh, yeah, that wasn't good for me.

That was a couple parters.

Your disgusting car filled with shit and, like, covered in dust.

God, that car has gone through so much. I feel like it's kind of the Mother Teresa of cars because it gives and gives and takes nothing for itself. And all of you guys have used this car up. And then it could not hold battery anymore. It's just sitting. It's sitting in my house out of battery. And then I had to get it re registered. It's been a whole ordeal. I had to get it re registered. But in order to get re registered, I had to get a smog test. But then I went to go get a smog test, and it was dead. So then we had to jump it, have that running. Go get the smog test. It failed the smog test. I mean, it's been through the mirror. It's a mess.

So it's just sitting there, this relic, gathering more and more dust.

It is currently, as of, I think, two days ago, re registered smog check. And it's ready for its next new adventure. Next new owner, next new person to give to.

I'm glad I got to ride shotgun, you know, it was quite a beast.

Yeah. So that was very fun. Yeah, it's just been very cool getting to see you become more american over time. I mean, you've become less of a tall poppy. You've become a shorter poppy. You've become more confrontational. You've become more sexist. You've become more capitalist.

You've become all those things. All those things have been brought out in me.

But you're, you know what? You also dream bigger.

Oh, thanks, Monica. Thanks. Thanks, Juan. I dream of owning multiple possums. A lot of cats and dogs, all that kind of stuff.

I just got a vision of all those baby possums. Although I did see the thing you posted that that episode helped.

Yeah, it was really nice. A lot of people out to the possums episode sent in photos of just possums. They'd literally rescued the week that episode aired, and they knew they weren't scared of the possum. They were like, oh, we can approach the possum. We've got people going through Possum road. Cool. Checking for babies. People are out there on the highway, you know, running onto the road.

If anyone gets gangrene or scurvy or.

Something, or hit by a. Feel free to sue as they go through road. Yeah. Please do be careful out there.

Yeah?

Goddess, please. I really like talking to your parents as well about the y two k bug because your mom worked on that. That was really fun.

That was a live show we did.

It was for the live show. Yeah. That was really cool. Talking to your mom.

That was for armchaired and dangerous.

Oh, maybe it was. Maybe it was for that show.

Yeah, it was.

Made an impact.

They're nice.

Dude, your mom's cool.

You ran into my family, actually, the other day at mess. Yeah.

You were having dinner next to. I looked up and there you were. And there was your entire family. All these people I'd heard about. Your brother was there, your dad was there, your mom was there. It was really nice.

Yeah. And you recognized me, which was shocking.

I did. I reckon I didn't sit the whole meal there, not seeing you, which I feel. That sums it up. You've cut through the face blindness.

Oh, that's so cute.

That's huge.

That is huge.

Monica, after three or four years, I recognize your face when I see you in public.

That's all I really need. I feel like I can really go out on a high now after that. Except I do wonder, have you added me into your phone?

Oh, the message I send when the plane's going down.

Yeah.

To die. I haven't touched the list since we raised it. No one knew was on there. I'm just. It's out of laziness more than anything.

Okay, well, I just told you my heart might explode at any moment, so it might be the time. It is my birthday, I think.

It sounds like you're gonna be working on your list when your house starts exploding. Like, you've gotta give out.

I know. I mean, I think about this. You either have to be very meticulous about creating this list or it's no one and I have no one. I'm going the no one route. Like, no one gets a note from me.

I also think it's something you decide as the plane's going down, the name will enter your brain. At that point, you'll know whether it's this person or that person. And that's who you send your final message to.

But then there's no time.

Yeah. Look.

Oh, God.

Hopefully we never have to do this.

Knock on wood. If you have wood nearby, everyone should knock on it.

Are you confessing your love at this point, David? Like, you're realizing who you should have and then you do it?

No, that's essentially what it is. I think it probably would be, if you're going down, the person you text probably is that person you love, and maybe that hasn't even been acknowledged, and maybe that's the person you send to David.

No. How about you think in your living time here about who that person is, and then tell them while you have the chance?

Oh, my God. What would be the point of that? Having a happy life.

You're not american. I take it all back.

You can't take the kiwi out of a kiwi. You know, we're always going to be flightless down deep.

It's true. How sweet. Well, I mean, is there anything else?

Yeah, I just feel like I've had a lot of adventures, and thank you for joining me on those adventures. And there are a lot of adventures to come, because I've discovered America is very big. It's a very big place. And when we started the show, I was sort of thinking, will we ever run out of ideas? And it's like, oh, no. Hell, no. It's just endless. You should see the Google Doc of stuff. Places I need to go, things I need to investigate. It's endless, and it's terrifying.

Yeah. Do you wanna drop any hints?

Well, what I found out the other day is that slime, you know, like, slime that kids are obsessed with.

Yes.

It was started in America. It was sort of invented as a toy here, and then Nickelodeon through gunking slime on kids that sort of took it to the world. And so I thought of this. Cause I was in New Zealand a couple of months ago, and all my littlest niece wanted was slime. And as we were getting the slime, I was looking at this disgusting slime that every kid is obsessed with and a lot of adults, and I realized, this is America. My niece is squeezing America in her hands. And so I'm going to go and look at slime and why slime is such a big deal and very certainly pop cultural origins, and it's all in the United States of America. So I'm excited to investigate slime.

That sounds fun. Yeah, it definitely is a rite of passage to go through a slime phase here. Rob, did you have gak? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were gak.

You just say gak like that's a normal thing.

Gak's better than slime. It's less messy. I think it contains its form a little better.

That's true. It's a type of slime, but it's of our generation. It was the big thing gak. Now it's more homemade slime. I feel like people are making it a lot.

People are making it. There are these amazing TikTok accounts and Instagram accounts of people with custom slime. And you look at it, and it's just beautiful. You've got this urge. You just want to reach out and touch it. It's something about it, because slime is disgusting. Like, it's a snail crawling across the ground and leaving this slimy trail that you don't want to touch. And yet, slime can also be this really attractive thing that every part of your fiber wants to grab it and squeeze it, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, maybe it represents us having access to the gross parts of ourselves.

Is that because we're all slimy inside?

We're all slimy inside. But also in our private lives, as we just listened to on onlyfans, we have weird thoughts, we have weird desires, and that's okay.

We've all got things.

Yeah.

I was just editing an episode of Armchair Anonymous, and in it, I say out loud, I keep this in because I'm very vulnerable. I was like, my fingers smell. And then, like, then we start talking to someone. So it's a big cliffhanger. And then we come back and I said, oh, I didn't say why my finger smell. It's because I've been touching my foot this whole time. And then I smelled my fingers. They smelled like sweaty foot. Yeah, but then there's something we like about that. We like weird shit. And so maybe slime is, like, a safe way to explore that.

I like that theory a lot. It's like smelling that fart under the bed sheets. You know, it's disgusting, but you want to do it.

What is that?

Oh, that is sick, isn't it? Because it's always like, your own is so satisfying, but someone else's is a lot more disgusting. Partners somewhere between.

I think it's weird. I wonder if evolutionarily, it's like, we need to know our own fart smell in case if it's wildly off, we know something's wrong.

Yeah, completely. There's lots of things to push into and investigate here, so that'll be a future slime. Cool slime episode. I've got a lot of things, so stay tuned.

My God, that would be fun. I'm excited to tune in. And this was such a fun ride that took a lot of turns, and we learned so much, and it has been really, really fun. So I do thank you.

No, thanks for having me. And, yeah, the show will continue on next Tuesday, but the trick is it's just going to be on this new flightless bird feed. It won't be on the armchair expert feed. So ideally, people listening on the armchair expert feed will also start listening on the flightless bird feed. They'll make that jump to the new feed and have both things going.

Go check it out.

Yeah. So just plugging, you know, one thing New Zealanders are bad at doing. If ever I have to feel like I'm plugging something, every part of my core wants to shrink into the ground.

It's hard.

It's so weird. It's such a weird thing. But I want people to keep listening to flightless birds. So here's my plug. Just go to any podcast platform search for flightless bird. It'll be there. That's where you listen to it from now on.

There you'll be.

And if you're bad at searching, because I know technology can be hard if you go to the website bit ly flightlessbirdpod. So. Bit ly flightlessbirdpod. We've listed them all there where you can keep listening to the show. So come over. If you don't come over, be a disaster. So please come to the new feed. That would be wonderful. Well, thanks, Mon.

Thank you.

Mon. Is Mon okay? Mon? What the hell is that? Monica. Thanks, Monica.

You've said it twice.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on.

You caught it. Now that you recognize my face, you're allowed. I'll give you the pass.

Thanks for being my guide thus far, and we'll catch up soon. It's your birthday today, by the way. Happy birthday. As we record this.

Thank you. It is my birthday, and I will continue to follow this flightless bird in my ears. And I'm very excited to see what you do.

Send me your abuse via text if you disagree with what I'm saying. What the hell is that? Just text me.

Don't you worry. You'll be getting texts.

Okay. Okay.

Okay. Bye.