The US created the O-1B visa system in 1972 after John Lennon was nearly deported, and it became clear that there was no immigration system to attract artists to the country. Lennon couldn’t possibly imagine what the system has become now – nearly half the applicants for the O1-B in the last year are OnlyFans models, according to a report published by the nonprofit Florida Phoenix.
This makes sense in the Trump 2.0 era, where the President is a game-show host, the War Secretary is a news anchor, Dr. Oz runs Medicare and the former first lady of World Wrestling Entertainment is in charge of the Department of Education. Our cinemas are empty and the average American reads negative five books a year. Bonnie Blue, there’s a luxury condo in Miami waiting for you.
O-1B applicants include Yanet Garcia, once of Mexico, now a resident of the People’s Republic of New York City, and several residents of the Florida-based “Bop House,” where foreign-born OnlyFans influencers live and bop together. “If you can make money there, suddenly it becomes a basis for a potential visa application,” Miami immigration attorney told the Phoenix, estimating that 65 percent of his O-1B clientele had OnlyFans accounts.
This seems to go against the original intent of the law. The US formalized the O-1B system in 1990 with the intent of keeping foreign visitors who had an “an extraordinary ability in the arts or extraordinary achievement in motion picture or television industry.” It gradually expanded to include titans of science, business, education and sports. Now it’s for “scroll kings and queens.”
“I knew the days of representing iconic names like Boy George and Sinéad O’Connor were over,” an attorney told the Financial Times. Certainly, Sinéad no longer needs a visa. Maybe there’s an audience for a Boy George OnlyFans? But anyone who’s alive in our current era, where Idiocracy has come to life around us, can see whose bread the government is buttering.
In the past, O-1B Visa recipients have included Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Katherine Langford (the star of 13 Reasons Why), Hugh Jackman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Charlize Theron, Adele, Drake, Lionel Messi, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the biggest daddy of them all, Elon Musk. We have O-1B to thank for the residencies of Brazilian sculptor Elena Costas and artist Esther Jang, a native of South Korea who survived the 2013 Asiana Airlines crash.
Now the US is honoring the work of China’s Joy Mei, O-1B recipient and former Bop House resident, who collects Funko Pop figures, lip syncs to Dua Lipa songs and once garnered more than a million views on TikTok for a video where she ate a chocolate-covered strawberry. Mei left the Bop House last year to start her own, Asian-themed influencer house. “Leaving Bop House was really about doing what feels right for me at this stage of my life,” she said. “I’ve been putting more energy into my modeling, my business partnerships and collaborations that challenge me creatively.”
And there you have it, the Trump immigration policy in one neat quote. “Officers are being handed petitions where value is framed almost entirely through algorithm-based metrics,” an attorney told the Phoenix. Well, duh! What else matters?
