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As March ended and COVID-19 swept across the world, the once-bustling streets were left empty except for the footfalls of essential workers. As millions of people hunkered down in their homes unsure of what would happen next, the uncertainty of their employment was especially poignant.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the civilian unemployment rate rose from 4.4 % to 14.8 % in April. This set a record as the highest rate and the largest over-the-month increase in the Bureau’s data history, which began January 1948.
Tao Chen Yeh, a clinical professor of economics at the University of Alabama, said she had seen how COVID-19 had significantly impacted lower-income individuals creating “permanent losses” for them when their places of employment closed.
Now almost a year after the pandemic pushed U.S. citizens into their homes and away from college campuses, social gatherings and jobs some restrictions have lessened allowing for the civilian unemployment rate to decline from the record high of 14.8% to 6.7% in January.
However with unemployment slowly sinking and workers heading back to their jobs many are still struggling to make ends meet while others have used the pandemic as a chance to evolve.
While quarantine's arrival created hardships for those with “nonconventional” jobs centered around an online platform, it also introduced new opportunities to flourish on newfound financial, professional and creative levels.
In entrepreneur Ruth Tolen’s case, as quarantine began, her custom wig and hairstyling business, “Constructed by Ruth,” slowed, and she felt the same anxiety millions of Americans felt about their futures.
One main component of Tolen’s business required her to be in close contact with customers, and when the strict stay-at-home order was put in place, that became out of the question.
“My business helps me put myself through school as well as paying my bills,” Tolen, a junior majoring in business management at the University of Alabama, said. “So, when [the stay-at-home order] first came, I was like, how am I going to do this?”
Tolen didn’t let those anxieties stop her. Though she was unable to style anyone’s hair, she focused on marketing. Then, two weeks after “the initial shock” of quarantine faded, she began to see an uptick in her custom wig unit sales since they could be shipped and then installed by the customer. She said she never succumbs to negative criticism and this showed her not to lose faith in herself.
“Millionaires are made in down markets,” Tolen said.
Brooks Charis, a Howard University senior majoring in public relations, also entered quarantine with the same positive sentiment.
Charis, who is a freelance graphic designer and copywriter, said quarantine has been a period when she has had the privilege to come home to her parents’ care and focus on her creativity.
She said she has been interested in content creation and graphic design since a young age, and as quarantine began, she saw the opportunity to indulge in it fully.
“Recently, since quarantine started, it helped me get back into what I loved,” Charis said. “You know you get lost in the sauce of college and scared of what other people think about you, but I don’t have to face all of that now because I’m not on campus.”
Now at home in Michigan, she has time to cultivate her branding. She has spent this time developing herself professionally and “[learning] how to not depend on anybody,” with an end goal of one day working for herself.
“I believe you invest so much money into your own education, your own knowledge, then you should feel empowered enough to do your own thing,” Charis said. “I believe that there [would be] a lot more entrepreneurs in the world if they would just have the courage to take a chance on themselves.”
Charis noted that times like these showcased the validity of creative online careers like graphic designing, social media managing and YouTubing.
“They’re chilling,” she said when referring to how online creatives have been able to seamlessly continue working.
Tolen agreed with this idea. She thinks YouTube is a lucrative industry that she wishes she invested more time in during the quarantine.
“I definitely feel like YouTubers have thrived off of the quarantine cause we’re all in the house bored,” Tolen said.
Lauren Norris, a sophomore at the University of Alabama and a college/lifestyle vlogger, also saw this opportunity.
“Whenever quarantine hit, I took that as the opportunity to grow myself and my brand more,” Norris said. “I knew that this was the time where people would be on their phones; they’d be on YouTube; they’d be searching for things to do and people to entertain them while they were stuck in quarantine.”
Norris initially started her YouTube channel in 2019 as a hobby. After amassing over 132K subscribers, it became a full-time position. Then as quarantine began, her relationship with the channel changed again.
When quarantine forced classes online, Norris dedicated more of her time to creating content for her YouTube channel. It became a way to “make [everything] as normal as possible in like the weirdest time [she’s] ever been alive.”
Out of her dedication and consistency with her social media, she started to see her platform grow; currently, she has 182K subscribers.
“Before quarantine, it wasn’t a very steady stream of income,” she said. “But whenever quarantine hit, I was able to really start promoting myself and putting my all into my business, and everything skyrocketed: my views, my subscribers, my pay, everything.”
While she thought it was a blessing to have a stable income source during the time, it was hard for her to watch others, like her parents, lose their jobs because they weren’t considered essential workers.
“Seeing the world turn upside down like that with no preparation … it was very devastating,” she said.
Like Norris’s parents, a young man, who wishes to remain anonymous, also lost his job due to quarantine. He didn't begin to struggle financially until he went back to waiting tables.
“When work opened back up, and I was serving again, it was really slow, and I wasn’t making any money, at least not enough to pay my bills,” he said. “I couldn’t even pay my rent with the money I was making.”
So, to help support himself, Anonymous began to post to an Only Fans account.
“It was kind of nice to have such an easy source of income because obviously over quarantine if you weren’t getting your unemployment you were basically flat broke because you couldn't pay your bills, so it was nice to be financially independent,” he said.
Anonymous said Only Fans helped him pay off multiple debts while also saving money for his future.
Although working on Only Fans has been a mainly positive experience, he still deals with the occasional online troll, but it doesn’t get to him.
“I think that there is a huge stigma around [Only Fans] that just needs to stop because if you’re not doing it, then it shouldn’t affect you,” he said.
He noted how Only Fans has developed a reputation of only being for sex work, even though it has many other uses. Still, he said, regardless of those other uses, “sex work is valid.”
Anonymous said he doesn’t consider what he does to be sex work because it’s just him alone.
“Some people have like full-on productions, which is awesome,” he said. “Really [Only Fans] was just kind of like to help me get by, and now it’s like my biggest portion of income.”
Yet no matter the perceptions of the platform, Anonymous highlighted the positives of the platform. Not only does it provide a stable stream of income while everything continues to change, but it also allows him to keep a positive body image and create lasting bonds. He noted how he has made friends through the platform who talk consistently and offer support and positivity to one another.
Not only have these "unconventional" careers allowed for finding financial stability and a creative outlet, but they've also created spaces to give and get positivity and support.
“My parents lost their jobs when COVID hit,” Tolen said, but because of her business, she was able to offer them some support.
In some instances, the support offered isn’t monetary. For Norris, the support is more psychological. With her YouTube channel, she wanted to create a space where others didn’t feel alone during these times.
“Mental health is going to suffer a little bit, but you have to find tips and tricks to make yourself happy again,” she said. Norris hopes to offer a bit of hope and escapism for her “friends,” as she calls her viewers.
Not only does it help her viewers’ mental health, but Norris finds her channel helping her’s, as well.
“So many people in the comments of my YouTube and in my Instagram DMs have said how much they’ve struggled through quarantine … they’ve had loved ones pass away from [COVID-19] or they lost their job ... and they didn’t know what to do,” Norris said. “And they’ve said, 'watching you, seeing you; it helped me get through one of the hardest times in my life.'”
While COVID-19 and quarantine was something none of these creators and entrepreneurs wanted nor expected, they’ve been able to find moments of light and hope in the darkness. A hope that has allowed them to learn new things about themselves.
“I think for me a takeaway would be if you’re happy with what you’re doing, then you should do it,” Anonymous said. “I’m happy doing Only Fans, I like meeting people. I like posting things; it's sexually liberating; just do what you want to do no matter what anyone says.”
This idea of focusing on personal joy is something that Charis also took away from quarantine.
“I believe in myself a lot more now,” she said regarding her new sense of “shamelessness.” “Being so separate from everything that I was so wrapped up in has helped me to create my own voice, and that’s the one thing you have to have if you’re going to create content or if you're going to put a message out in the world that will actually mean anything.”
One source asked to be anonymous while he is not ashamed of the work that he has done with Only Fans he would like that part of his life to stay separate to not hinder any future professional endeavors.
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