A search engine to find the lookalike of your crush on OnlyFans? This is the promise of Doppelgänger, a new weapon launched by Presearch, a decentralized and anonymous search tool, to help adult creators emerge from the shadows, without going through the deepfakes illegal and unauthorized.
After joining OnlyFans in 2017, pornographic content creator Alix Lynx has 2 million followers on Instagram, TikTok and X. “I do a monster job of marketingshe confided to the American magazine Wired. The big misconception about OnlyFans is that creators think it’s going to be easy. But without being a genius at social marketing, it’s hard to get noticed and build an audience.”
Alix Lynx is not alone in complaining: among the 4 million content creators present on the platform, many deplore the faulty internal search engine. “It’s frustrating, she admits. In an ideal world, there would be a real search function, because that would create equal opportunities for creators. OnlyFans limits its search bar for security reasons, to prevent users from stumbling upon unexpected content. It is this void that Presearch wants to fill with Doppelgänger.
Using the service is simple: we upload a photo of a celebrity that is the subject of our fantasies and the artificial intelligence (AI) refers to OnlyFans profiles of similar creators. No deepfakes, no unhealthy stalking: just a connection between fans and consenting professionals. “We try to offer a space where you could be discovered by chanceexplains Brenden Tacon, product manager at Presearch. On OnlyFans, that doesn’t happen. If you struggle on Instagram or Reddit, it’s hard to break through.”
Porn is just the beginning
With 300,000 daily searches on Presearch, Doppelgänger relies on decentralized indexing which unearths content censored by Google or by commercial AI. Strict age verification, no monetization of data, the company behind the search tool claims to do it clean. “It simply returns visually similar public profiles based on image characteristics, making it structurally more limited and, in many ways, more privacy protective than a standard reverse image search”assures Brenden Tacon. But the tool is still slipping. If he excels for female doubles, he totally screws up when it comes to proposing men.
Presearch sees bigger, hoping to free itself from porn: the idea is to create an internet optimized for creators, not for ads or app stores. “We want to boost creators’ subscriptionscontinues Brenden Tacon. We start with adults, but we target all journalists, the Substack scribblers who struggle on Google. We refine things first with adult content creators.”
However, voices are being raised to denounce the ethical flaws inherent in such a service. Lauren Craig Tilton, professor of digital humanities at the University of Richmond (Virginia, United States), warns of potential unhealthy uses: “It’s one thing for famous people, used to imitations and deepfakes. But for an average citizen, a kid or a loved one, it’s scary.” Presearch claims to ban minors and promises reporting, but Lauren Craig Tilton doubts the long-term societal impacts.
