Hey folks

A lot of producers make a few scenes and then close up shop.

What is the main reason for this?
- They get bored of the novelty of sliming hot models
- The returns are not worth the work
- Art moves on

What causes producers to pack up shop and close their store, so often?

I think for most that pack up shop it is piracy. People expecting something for nothing. It takes a lot of time and effort to make content, not to mention the cost of materials and those who have to pay a model. Just for the video to be bought once and shared on sites or amoung others.

This is not the only set of reasons (or only type of person making content out there) but what I constantly see happen are OF or just other fetish type models (or just cam girls) start a page and leave quickly. I think it seems like a good and easy way to make money and get attention on other platforms but they don't account for things like :
1 materials are expensive
2 shooting and editing (and prep and cleanup) take a considerable amount of time esp compared to other fetishes
3 The amount of mess ppl want on here is prob more than what they bargained for (not to mention can do damage to hair and clothes and any kind of professionally done eyelashes)
4 Piracy
5 Dealing with the community- most don't want to chat up folks for free but in a sense- you have to learn the community to get a feel for it esp if you don't have the fetish
6 its another animal in terms of what ppl want- its not just a bit of mess and pulling out a vibrator- the market for even PG and clothed WAM is fairly high and that's not what they are used to- which brings me to my next point-

I really don't see many models/producers thrive if they don't have the fetish- they just get lost and don't know what direction to take. It really takes a sig other/themselves/friend to have the fetish to know what the people want

I could do a whole TedTalk on this subject but I'll leave it at that for now

All of that and more. And don't forget: this shit is hard. Like physically. I'm struggling to think of another kink/adult/porn/whatever filmmaking genre that has unique but necessary steps that can really take it out of a producer who, more often than not, has to work solo.

Preparing the mess, spilling the mess, cleaning up after the mess, cleaning up even more after the models leave. And god forbid you actually choose to shoot at a remote location that isn't your own home. You have to build relationships with studio owners and make sure they're not pissed at you for trashing the place. Pay extra for cleaning fees. Make sure everything is spotless during your rental window. It's a lot of pressure that you can't afford to distribute among a crew because, even if you are bold enough to reach out to friends to help you make your slime fetish videos, you're still coming out of pocket for all the expenses. With little to no guaranteed return.

I had a little extra budget and wanted to play around with my camera gear a couple of months ago. When that happens, I usually do a WAM shoot. This time I did some simple vanilla boudoir photography. Why? Because whenever I sat down to think about how much time I would need to stir up slime, how many trips back and forth to the dumpster I'd make, how quickly I'd need to "reset" so that I'm not wasting the model's time, I eventually landed on "Forget this!" I was able to do a two-hour photo shoot, fit all the necessary equipment in a regular-sized sedan, be out of my rental space before time was up AND still had enough energy to hang out outside and enjoy the rest of my day when I got back home. It was a good day.

The body loses will long before the spirit.

Oh yes please! That would be amazing, "Chloe G On How To BeThe Slime Queen Bee"

Another reason is the overwhelming number of creeps in the wam "community." It's quite discouraging when the majority of the people you interact with, are just not good people. Whether it's piracy, overstepping boundaries, complete lack of respect for creators, demanding to meet up for a messy session without a vetting period, not taking "no" for an answer, etc.

Yeppppp. It's crazy how we have some of the greatest and most supportive folks but then the worst of the worst. And the latter GREATLY outnumber the good

Bless you

Does this fetish have a disproportionately higher level of creeps than other fetishes? I've always wondered. I don't have a strong enough interest in any other kinks/fetishes to read message boards about those to have a point of reference. It's been one of the main reasons that I have been hesitant to engage with this community in a meaningful way.

I remember it being really bad during the earlier years of YouTube. Plenty of people tricking others into engaging unknowingly into the fetish with slime and pie dares and challenges and then getting mad when they didn't "do it right." Or leaving really cringy comments on videos of people getting messy in completely nonsexual contexts.

I used to have an OF for dominatrix content. And my following was absolutely lovely. I never had any issues with fans not paying me, or being creepy, or overstepping boundaries. Whereas in this fetish, the difference is astronomical.

Making Porn ruins your personal love life.

'Quit' is relative.

But I can tell you why we stopped shooting (at least for now); Piracy.

This is definitely an immense reason. We've all seen it over the years and unfortunately it continues to happen.

Another reason, for me personally, is that it's so much work to prepare everything. Most of the time I make everything in one evening. I don't have a ton of counter space and can't store pies or crusts overnight. I usually start prepping for a video at like 5pm and I'm not done with everything until 1-3am. It's gotten to the point I just don't want to do the prep/clean up even if I feel like I want to have a session (not making a video).

The reasons will vary depending on the type of producer:

Someone long-established is most likely to stop due to falling sales, usually caused by piracy.
- They might also consider they've shot everything they wanted to, and it's time to move on.

Someone new, esp if a solo female producer on the other hand, it'll be a combination of:
- Lack of immediate return. It takes a long time to break even doing WAM.
- Obnoxious behaviour from the community.
- Piracy.

The only people who stick at it for any length of time are those who genuinely are into the actual fetish. I've often said if instead of spending it on WAM scenes, I'd taken all the money I spent in the early days and invested it in the financial markets instead, I'd have made far more profit. But if I'd done that I'd not have Lady Jasmine as a partner and would have missed out on several awesome friendships with multiple models and other producers. And I'd have missed out on being able to film the exact scenes I wanted to see.

Models who work for producers, and don't have to deal with the customers directly, tend to have a much easier time of it. There is a significant problem within WAM of people who don't understand boundaries or respect, and will push self-producing models to go beyond what they're comfortable with. Then there are the timewasters who'll pretend to be interested in a custom scene just to be able to have long email sex-chats with the model, until she realises she's being taken for a ride. Or who'll pay a deposit for a custom and then disaapear the instant it's shot (but before they've paid the balance) in the hope of picking it up cheap when the model puts it on their store to try and recoup something from it.

And on top of all of that, there's plain theft aka piracy. Every time someone "trades" a scene or watches it on a pirate site, they are effectively kicking the models in it in the head. Because in a niche fetish where the average scene sells less than 30 copies and barely breaks even, losing just one sale is the difference between there being any point shooting more, or just giving up.

To shoot three fully clothed scenes with two models, including supplies, model fees, transport costs, heat and light, and food and drink during the day, comes to between eight hundred and a thousand pounds, call it £900. Split between the three scenes that's £300 each that has to be made back before costs are covered, never mind making a profit. If those scenes are sold on UMD for $15 each, the producer gets $10.50 (70%) from each sale. At current echange rates that's £8.50 in UK pounds. Which means each of those scenes needs to sell at least 36 copies just to earn the costs back. Ask any newbie producer how many of their scenes have sold 36 or more copies. The answer will be very few. And that, plus having their hard work stolen and traded, is why so many new-starts bail out after a few scenes.

I've got three reasons

1. Piracy. Although its not as bad as it was around 2017. Sales have picked up a bit on older videos.

2. Taxes. Why should my money go to pave roads and build schools?

3. Lack of models. Somehow theres less talent in Portland than there was In Wilmington, NC. I think that has something to do with Only Fans. Why deal with producers when all you have to do is lay in bed and masturbate to make money? Get a tripod for your cellphone, decent lighting, and youre in business.

- Piracy

- Not having the WAM fetish and trying it thinking it's easy money (there are some exceptions of course)

- Buying products, writing scripts (if applicable), set up, the shoot itself, clean up, laundry, editing, promoting/having a forum presence all cumulatively take a massive amount of time for WAM

- Life changes

- For the average producer, a smaller profit margin in general:

The UMD takes 30% of all sales
Self Employment tax rate is then 15.3%
And in general, Federal Tax based on your bracket...
all this combined with the ever increasing cost of supplies, costumes, props and model fees...I cannot express to you how GIANT of a chunk all this cumulatively takes out of your profit. It's honestly staggering. Deductions on your tax return only go so far.

All this^

I knew well before going that we were never going to be a "spit them out" operation. Firstly, production takes time. Like A LOT of time. This isn't just shooting off a camcorder or iPhone, doing a few slices and sending it out.

Preproduction, shooting, post production all play an integral part of what we do and how we do it. Factor in the clean up and everything else no one sees, I was easily not seeing home until the following morning and we STILL have to edit!

Also, something that needs to be emphasized on is life sometimes happens. Sometimes we get pulled away. After 2 deaths in the family and a move, I can see this as a less than discussed reason mostly because producers are probably not so quick to discuss the personal details of their life on a fetish forum. Understandably so. I took a break primarily for this reason and to just get back to feeling like my old self again so I can pick back up shooting again.

I have to seriously highlight what Thespecialist stated which is the fact when faced with shoot ideas, it's just easier to work with models without the mess involved. Since I been on hiatus, I been really hammering down new techniques, new shooting methods, experimenting with exposures and flash photography ideas like shutter drag techniques. All things I would have never been able to pick up and learn if I didn't take a break from shooting WAM wrestling. I don't just think I am getting better. I KNOW I am getting better.

The result is I know my next run of shoots will set even a higher bar because I took a break to just be an artist again for a bit. Sometimes we correlate "not shooting fetish" as a bad thing and the fact is sometimes stepping away for a bit is the best thing we can do to develop a better product

This has been a really interesting read For us, it is life changes and piracy. As Nostalgic Erotica said, most people don't want to discuss their personal life on a fetish site (though I must say I have seen a lot of good support for the members that do ). I got injured at the end of last summer and have been working less since then, so we have far less discretionary income. Let's face it, messy shoots are expensive if you are doing it right And we don't have to worry about model fees on top of the supplies! And as Andi's college classes have gotten more intense, we just have less free time to do such things even when we have the spare money.

Then the other factor now is piracy. Just had a message from Pie Me Gently this morning about videos of ours that he found on a tube site. (On a side note, big shout out to those on here that try to fight piracy ) We put our videos up for free so it isn't a monetary loss for us. But now understanding how pirates use our videos to get access to other producer's stolen work, it makes us less likely to want to share our sploshing adventures

-JD

100% agree. The trading of videos is a massive problem.

Sometimes the person who purchased a show might (and it is only "might"!) feel some guilt about trading, so perhaps they only trade it with one person. But then that next person just sees that video as "free" since they didn't pay for it themselves - so they are far less likely to have any qualms about trading it as many times as they like!

Let's say eventually that video is paid for by 30 people but has reached another 300 through trades. That won't take long, if each person in the chain trades it a handful of times.

Even if only 10% of those 300 would have actually paid for the video (assuming we also fully believe the "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" common excuse from the other 90%), that's still another 30 sales the producer has lost out on!

Now just imagine all the amazing content that could be created if all 300 had paid fairly

I can say this: just getting started is difficult I find it hard to even want to continue. 4 years ago I tried to start, but the woman I was working with (my narcistic abusive exgf, ex friend now) we shot 2 scenes, but she didnt take it serious. she was deffintly not into it, but she always did the bare minumum (or less than that) with the 2 scenes we did. She was rude during production, unwillining to follow script, always tried to minimalize it. and the worst part is, she collected money from her instagram followers (and myself) for their request and never planned on doing fulfullling them (I know times are difficult, but scamming folks out of money 4 your hotel room so u wont have to get a legit job, or resort to other types of work) i tell ya, my experience with working with her, damn near killed my goal of starting a store, almost made me want to leave the community all together. THe piracy is deffintly an issue. I have had to alert a few poeple about their work being on pornhub or xvids. found one of my customs online, had it removed and the channel shut down.

I have deleted everything I have ever made. (photos and vids) ( due to not wanting to associate with the ones who I worked with, or dissastisfied with the quality of them)

its also difficult to find willing ladies in my area, (fuckin craiglist be flagging my shit, hell I couldnt even sell a flat screen tv without a flagger) at best I get the ad removed, at worse I get a scammer, time waster or some dude offering to crossdress and give me head (sheesh, ladies I dont know how you put up with thirsty ass men, but considering Ive had my share of pranksters or thirsty dudes...shit Ive gotten thirsty comments from guys at the job.....had to have few male costomers removed for their behavior. I can only imagine what you women go through on a daily basis, especially in this comunity.

not to mention, its still a very niche fetish and activity, its still looked down upon or weridly even by the more extreme fetish activities or kinks.

I'm surprised no one's uttered the "burnout" word yet, since it seems to sum up a lot of what has been brought up. Anything with the kind of attached workload that WAM has must have producers asking themselves, at some point, "Do I really want to keep doing this?" I would hazard a guess that a number of content producers who over the years have just vanished without explanation have found themselves answering, "No." Or they instead decide to just take a break until the enthusiasm builds up again...which might just never happen.

Ours is a culture of burnout. Success can be a motivator, but it increases the risk of monetary satisfaction overwhelming sexual satisfaction, which can leave a person feeling empty. Failure can be a motivator, too, due to the Sunk Cost fallacy (ie. "I've done all this work; I can't give up now!), which is a hellacious downward spiral. It's kind of amazing that we've had some hang around for as long as they have, but that's something to be grateful for.

As a final note addressed to our friendly neighborhood producers - if you think you might be on a track to burnout, reach out to someone who can help you balance out with some self-care. A lot more can be ruined besides a business, otherwise. Your health and well-being matters more than a shooting schedule.

My simple answer, divorcing your model, lol.

For us it was a combination of increasing costs, finding suitable models and above all else time and space. We had our 'studio' for quite a few years and found that the sessions did help towards the cost of that. To some degree the customs and sponsors helped towards the costs of models, equipment and the studio but the films don't really make a profit on their own. When the studio rent doubled overnight we had to give the studio up and then concentrated on the films in the garden which were the ones in the marquee. It's not ideal working like that some our filming sessions with the Dunk Tank were not happening that often.

We moved a few years ago and no longer have the big garden so it's even more difficult to film although never say never. We still have 2 dunk tanks and 2 gunge tanks, I did get the second tanks specifically for filming but have just not had the time.

So, I guess some producers just take extended breaks but may well return.

Huh.

I thought they were just getting hired to direct Marvel movies.

I think this forum is an easy place for creeps to feel safe and normal: it is perfectly possible to enjoy this kink on a purely visual level and never, ever have any real interaction or relationship with another person. I suspect there are many people on this site who've never been with another person, and don't know how not to be a creep. People who struggle to make the distinction between 'humiliation' as a form of role-play and actual real humiliation, because all they have ever done for sexual gratification is watch videos of people getting messy.

What would seem a normal thing to post on this site is completely vile thing to post on a youtube post, but these people can't see the difference.

I suppose it isn't possible to keep coming up with ideas indefinitely. Everyone is going to get to a stage where they're effectively just repeating previous work.

Yeah cost is a big factor and like what was said above people want for nothing, but when you factor in time of making films, the buying of gunge, the cleaning up and maybe rent of the venue it all comes to bare.

Plus I know from producer friends they are sick of the amount of time wasters begging to be in a video of there choice then either not turning up or being different to the photo's they have sent in

They sent me the script for "Eternals" but I thought it was hot garbage, so I let Chloé Zhao take it instead. Seemed to have worked out well for her!


2015 for me.

Well I hope she was grateful enough to let you chuck a few pies at her. Cute pigtails!

I'm probably going to echo a few replies, but...

- Thinking it's easy money. It's not particularly if you don't understand the fetish. And if you don't have an actual business model.

- Thinking it's easy money when it's actually seriously hard work--prepping, cleaning, and then more cleaning because models and bathrooms are a whole thing on their own.

- Thinking it's easy money, but being self-employed, even as a side hustle, is its own set of challenges.

- For the women producers... online creeps. They have to have the ability not to take it personally and to be brutal with ignoring/blocking etc, which is not fucking easy for anyone, let alone if you're putting your face and body out there.

- Real life. Not many partners are going to be okay with this being your job--men, women, or anyone in between.

For me, it was simply being offered a lot more money to do something more rewarding in the long term. This was awesome for my twenties and early thirties lifestyle, but life can change along with priorities. But... that doesn't mean I'm completely done. It's hard work, but so much fucking FUN. Also, the studio is due to get cleared out this year...