Teacher who resigned after her OnlyFans page was discovered says new employer fired her for violating social media policy

captainred@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 648 points –
Teacher who resigned after her OnlyFans page was discovered says new employer fired her for violating social media policy
slatereport.com
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The important piece of this to me is this: She made $1 mil on OnlyFans and $42k/year as a teacher. She wants to be a teacher despite making plenty of money from other sources. This tells me that unless you have other evidence of impropriety she's someone we want in the classroom. It also reinforces my stance, along with plenty of other studies that have been performed, that a universal basic income won't stop people from working.

Pay people better and we'll just keep working because we like it. It's part of being human, but we shouldn't be suffering to survive at the same time.

$1 million = 23.8 years of teaching at $42K/yr.

Add in that id you don't blow it all, you get to count the interest income. A long term investment gets about 6-7% per year. That's actually more than the teaching job pay.

To go the other way, her tax bracket is a lot higher than the base salary alone would be. And if it's $1m in a year, almost all of that will be in the highest bracket.

If shes single, her combined effective federal and Missouri income tax is around 40%, so she took home roughly 600k. If she's married, then her total effective tax is 25%, so she took home 750k.

For the 600k investment at a conservative 4%, which right now you can get in some savings accounts, her interest alone would be 24k/yr. For the 750k, it would be 30k/yr.

With a more realistic return of 7-8% in today's high interest rate markets, both of those sums would net more than her old salary of 42k/yr.

A long term investment gets about 6-7% per year.

Much better than that in the current market

Brb selling pictures of my balloon knot.

In all seriousness though, I don't blame her one bit

People probably will choose to work on different things though. It's harder to exploit a workforce that isn't as desperate. That's the real reason why UBI isn't happening.

I quit a job I really liked for one I didn't like nearly as much because I hardly made more than minimum wage

If I won the lottery I would go back to that first job and work for free.

Ditto. Ive met countless older people now who kept up doing the work they were passionate about, even if it in time became a hobby that they did at a loss. People like to work. They like to see the fruits of their labor take shape before their eyes, and they like feeling like theyre doing something that benefits someone other than themselves.

As it stands, the rules we live by only reward the infinite pursuit of profit, but that doesnt align with the values people find themselves holding whether they like it or not.

Case in point to your last part:

I was fired at the beginning of the year. I had sufficient funds I coulda retired if I wanted to. I’m not quite 40.

It’s been 2 months and I am so fucking bored I got a job. I didn’t go get a part time job to fill my time, I got a job in my field continuing to work at “my level” because it fulfills me.

I’m now able to do what I want because I want to rather than because of some existential need. My work product is WAY better.

a universal basic income won't stop people from working

A bit offtopic, but I came to the same conclusion during a somewhat philosophical discussion with a friend who expressed skepticism with the increased automation aspect of the world, and we extrapolated this into a hypothetical world where almost everything was automated.

His concern was that one day humanity could find themselves dependent on an automated system over which they had no control.

My response, being a bit of a techno-optimist, was that:

  1. We kind of already do
  2. Someone has to keep this system running
  3. Even if I was paid an UBI, I would still like to be part of #2.

I'm the kind of guy who makes the little gears spin so that the cog can turn, and I derive entertainment from reviving broken complex systems, and I wouldn't want it any other way

There are valid criticisms to UBI (usually specific to each implementation), but "lazy workers" will never be one of them.

I completely agree. I tinker and change my PC to parts because it's fun. Did it make a difference to performance? Kinda. Was the effort put forth because of performance alone? No. People like making Legos and just put them on a shelf. There are consumer products where the customer is paying to do the work themselves for little gain above the fun of the journey. Why wouldn't it expand to many other areas? And if there's not enough people willing to do something, make it worth their while to fix it, but that's already a problem and UBI isn't the big smoking gun people claim it to be.

We ARE dependent on systems over which we have no control, since a LONG time, the hell are you on about? One cog in this machinery busts, and you die, and you won't be able to do a thing about it.

Edit: jesus I was drunk when I wrote this shit, sorry

I can see a problem with kids in her school starting to see her as a sex worker rather than a teacher.

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A million dollars from OnlyFans and now she gets an employment law claim against the new employer.

This may truly be the only way to get ahead as a teacher in the US...

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Man ugly people truly are fucked in every sense.

People are all equal. But some people are more equal than others.

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The attractive teachers must have really been frustrated by me. I only cared if you were a cool teacher. Most of the time, the attractive teachers were not the cool teachers.

My favorite and best teacher was a 70 year old retired Catholic nun who was a big fan of rulers on knuckles. But my God was she a fantastic teacher.

There's so much to unpack there, but let's go out on a limb and bet you appreciate the skilled application of a little force to inspire accuracy and attention to detail.

I might be a stray data point, but I had a smoking hot partial differential equations professor who dressed for the weather during the summer semester. Didn't learn a damn thing.

For sure it's different when kids would just find out and start downloading her naked photos. Then parents would find out and be insanely mad that kids are viewing their teacher's naked photos. It's different case than secretly fantasizing about your pretty teacher lol

They're already watching porn and making nudes of their friends using photo editing software and AI tools. At this point I don't quite understand what does it matter if they're somehow able to find their teacher's OnlyFans pictures.

I know how the parents feel. That's stupid article didn't include a link. Journalistic malpractice is what it is

My hottest teacher was just for homeroom. Full package. Leather skirt, leopard print satin top, high heels...

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I love how the employer admitted to not checking her references or googling her beforehand.

Can't really blame her when they didn't do their due diligence.

Yeah, the ones who hired a teacher without doing any sort of a background check are the ones who really should be fired. Imagine if they hired someone who was actually dangerous to their students.

You only check references after there's a problem, everyone knows that

When I was in high school, my 11th grade biology teacher was let go after 1 week because he didn't have a teaching license

I'm a senior manager at a pretty big company.

That's something she does on the side, and if anyone in the workplace gave her shit, I would tell them to leave it the fuck alone unless they wanted me to bring HR in to the convo.

Can people please not be cunts? (I'm an Aussie...)

Edit: People need to disconnect things. Say there's leaked nudes (or even just public nudes) of a work colleague. Let's take it to they used to do porn. Yep, that's something they did. That has zero impact on their role now or who they are in their role. They don't deserve shame, or ridicule.

What would HR at your company say?

"We need to protect our innocent company from these scumbag workers at all cost!"

I assume, they don't exist to protect workers' rights.

Stop giving people shit about their "hobbies".

Are you saying that to me or as a quote?

HR where I work is excessively paranoid about terminations. They will want a paper trail of performance failures or argue to death that "then they'll be able to argue they were really fired for a protected reason. Get me a paper trail of performance failures".

Not saying our HR is worker-friendly. They're just VERY lawsuit-averse.

Flip-side, I worked at a company that fired anyone for any reason and just kept cash aside for wrongful termination suits. And they had a HUGE HR team, whose job it was to keep the employers happy.

If the actions of an employee will reflect on a company, why shouldnt they have the right to decide to work with someone that doesnt do those things on the side?

If an america employee went on the news yelling racist things (on the side), shouldnt they company have the right not to work with them?

Yes - and the company should then pay the employee for the termination unrelated in any way to their performance on the job. Keep in mind, the better solution would be to have racism be actually illegal in 'murica, so the employer fires that employee after they explicitly break the law.

he better solution would be to have racism be actually illegal

How exactly would you do this, and who gets to decide what is racist? Right now we have half country getting called racist on a regular basis.

You do what most of the world already did. Simple as that. Oh, forgive me - I forgot 'murica likes being stuck 200 years in the past at all times.

You mean the rest of the world where people get put in prison for having a bad opinion? If that is stuck 200 years in the past, I will take it.

'murican being 'murican, as expected. "I don't wanna go to prison for being a racist cunt, I want black people to keep going to prison for literally no reason instead! wah wah wah!"

Oh gotcha you are just strawman guy... Sure dude, people are just going to prison becuase of their race, you are a genius! I guess you just want them to go to prison for say naughty things or drawing pictures of prophets.

Sure dude, people are just going to prison becuase of their race, you are a genius!

How much of a privileged cunt a person would have to be to think otherwise? Oh, my bad - your country prefers to shoot black people outright, huh?

Now you have switched to false narrative guy. You are very versatile.

Why is it always corporations that should get the slack. Aren't you and me more important, our rights? You're not a megacorp, why do you take their side? They're not on yours!

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Maybe we should pay our teachers so they don't have to do more work when they're done with work so they can do stuff like not starve to death or have a roof over their head?

I am not from US but is the same thing too. Teachers are paid so bad that doing videochat is actually good than just steal or something else.

We should. We should also stop punishing sex workers. Victorian morality needs to die already, this ain't Plymouth Rock.

The puritanism predates Victoria, but yes.

After her OnlyFans became public, Coppage told KMOV that she made $1 million on the platform. Her yearly teaching salary was $42,000, she said at the time.

Brb, going to go make an OF rq

Enjoy sitting at the shite end of the Pareto income distribution.

OF is a marketing gig, if you don't have a way to push your content and leverage network effects, you're not going to make any money.

The revenue from an only fans is the customer count × avg customer lifetime × avg subscription price, customer count is a function of your exposure to potential customers, and lifetime is a function of your content frequency and originality (I assume if you upload the same content types the fan base gets bored).

So, if you want a successful OF, you need to first focus on exposure, but the algos on most social media reward the haves, so your first issue is getting into people's feeds. The best way to do this is targeting niches, areas with lower volume or high demand for content.

Then you need to keep your audience by engaging with them but pushing new concepts, which will present it's own challenges. There's very much a quick copy culture on these networks that you'll probably have to emulate to keep on the front of the engagement curve, and expect anything you do that success to be quickly replicated ad infinitum until it doesn't anymore. I think this is a losing battle over time.

You can also offer whale services like "girlfriend experiences" to try and lock in big spenders, but first you need them on a hook.

It's not just snap some pics and you're good.

That's surprisingly detailed.

Now you know the unit economics of OnlyFans, and it’s an exercise to the reader to try them out.

Is this the part where you’re supposed to thank us for coming to your TED talk?

I would like to audit the OnlyFans 101, OF101 class please

It's also just common sense.

It's like trying to become a successful twitch streamer or YouTuber - it's a very saturated market. Think about how many articles we've all seen about someone or another getting flak just for having an OF at all, now multiply that by at least 1,000 and you have a rough starting estimate of how many people even have one, let alone how many are "successful."

The best way to do this is targeting niches, areas with lower volume or high demand for content.

It's Lemmy's time to shine! If my time here has taught me anything, it's that there's a surprisingly high demand for Star Trek and Linux. Time to paint a penguin on my dick and live long and prostitute my ass.

It has to be the first season TNG uniform.

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Yea I kno, I've looked into it before and it can be summed up as "it's a job with fun sexy bits, but lots of job bits still" LMAO

Considering teachers practically work 100% of the time, it seems it would be difficult to genuinely perform the duties required while still maintaining a flourishing side gig like OF.

My wife is a teacher. I see how much they have to work at home. She probably wasn't a great teacher in the first place.

I feel her point about the pay. Considering the hours worked, teaching is barely approaching minimum wage.

"140 subscribers and we do a grading in doggystyle stream! Who wants a sticker?" Throw in a couple A+ emotes, and you've got cross-career synergy. Depending on her grade level it might not be as demanding outside of work.

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You'll need a school full of students and probably some news sites to run an article about you in order to make those kinds of profits.

It also helps if you happen to look like that lady

Ya, Of would send me a bill for scaring people away from the platform if I tried that.

Surely someone wants to pay to look at my nearly 50 year old hooty-hoo.

....have you been online long?

I cannot call myself someone who explores my options in this area, no. I assume there's something for everyone.

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They claim that I violated their social media policy, but will not respond to me with how I violated it.

This second part is what is going to get her a nice piece of damages. What was the policy? Was it spelled out when she started? Is Only Fans actually social media?

The answers are: There's a vague one that certainly doesn't cover the use of OF; she wasn't given it; and no, she's an actress.

Only if she can prove the firing was related to being a member of a protected class. Unless it was not at will employment but I’m not aware of any private sector jobs like that anymore.

Edit: people keep telling me I’m wrong so that may be true.

No, they gave a reason and that reason isn't covered under their policy, so she should still be covered.

If they let her go without a reason, then she would have to prove discrimination. But if they say "You violated our social media policy" and refuse to show how, and she can prove that nothing she did was on violation of the policy as written, then that is a clear case of unlawful termination.

Lots of teachers are part of a union. There's no mention of it in the article that I see, but union workers tend to be a little bit more protected than at will workers.

In this case, she seems to have moved into healthcare in some way or another and may no longer have union support.

As said below, they gave a reason. It has to be consistent with the actual policy and that policy has to be applied fairly and universally. If someone is making it up as they go, then they did it wrong.

I mean, you can do all the things on only fans you do on Instagram so I would say it's definitely at best social media, at worst porn platform

Hey, "A" for effort, but maybe next time you could turn in a revised and polished thought rather than the first thing that burbles to the surface?

Does the employment policy specifically make this distinction? Probably not. I can guarantee that they never thought of OF when the policy was written and OF may not have even existed back then.

If someone were willing to pay for pics of my ballsack and I made a lot more selling those pics than I make teaching in high school I would still miss my less-paying job

i have news for you.

If it's that pictures of my ball sack will earn me more than my current job, I'll need to go back in time and tell me how sooner!

Well what sort of talents does your ball sack have? I bet you'd make some money on Lemmy if you could document your ballsack installing arch on a computer it built.

You're on to something here... Currently the only talents I know of are replication via ooze and shape shifting.

Didn't work out for Randy in South Park either...

It will make you money in "addition* to your current job.

Unless they find out and shame you for your filthy immorality, because the economy will not stand for unnatural acts like sex or the human body. Well, apart from advertising its products, at least.

Wait, gay onlyfans pays bucks?

Do they pay extra for non-gays doing gay stuff? I'd do gay non-gay stuff for money. It's just dicks, oh no, so what if it gets stuck up my ass. I tried that as a kid, it's not impossible!

https://www.pornhub.com/model/bricoppage

About bricoppage: I am THAT Teacher from the News! Google me 🤫 OnlyFans.com/BriannaCoppage

  • Brianna Coppage (REAL teacher) does DP for the first time! 💦
  • Brianna Coppage Missouri teacher gives sloppy BLOWJOB
  • Brianna Coppage (REAL Missouri teacher) rides COCK until she cums!
  • Missouri teacher Brianna Coppage masterbates on camera

She's a teacher and a porn star, but she still can't spell masturbate...

smh my head

Fucking THANK YOU! Being in Missouri does not excuse such a faux pas. It is an insult to both of her professions.

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i can't click this link in my country. based if true.

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…”They claim that I violated their social media policy, but will not respond to me with how I violated it.”

KMOV reached out to Compass Health, but the company has not yet responded.

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We need a hero, to link this OF

Just google her name from the article and go to her Instagram. The linktree is in her bio.

Hell, it's just her name briannacoppage

The link

Bricoppage on pornhub. She has done hardcore videos with her husband.

You're welcome

It's probably on one of those disgusting porn sites!

It feels like she knew she would get fired from this new job, leverage it nationwide articles and get even more subscribers to her OF page. She even references the teaching gig in her bio, and the new job in her latest posts.

Maybe. It doesn't matter. Jobs shouldn't be able to fire you because you get naked on the Internet, which requires you to pay to even see in the first place.

Edit:

@meep_launcher@lemm.ee made a great point about teacher/student dynamics and I can agree with that in most circumstances (e.g. the students are underage). I still think it's ridiculous for her second, non-teaching job to fire her.

I'm a teacher and they specifically have guidelines on what you're behavior online should be. Keeping your socials clean. Making sure my interactions with students are kept professional.

The fact is that kids these days are nosey and great researchers. Having an only fans as an educator has a huge risk of students discovering it, and will ultimately change the relationship between student and teacher from a student/ teacher relationship to a viewer/ pornstar one.

This is the most sane, rational summation of this debacle I've read yet.

This thread seems to fall into the "people who have no idea about the realities of teaching being confidently incorrect".

As someone somewhere said; if you want to lose faith in comment sections, go to a discussion on a topic that you are an expert on.

Thanks for adding some sanity and nuance to this conversation. I agree with the general sentiment here that stuff that a person does on the side of their career should not affect their employment for most careers, but when it is a teacher, especially one that works with minors, it's a bit of a different dynamic.

That being said, we should absolutely pay teachers enough so that they don't have to get side gigs to survive. It is disgusting how little teachers are paid for the amount of work they do, and their importance to society as a whole.

This whole ordeal sounds like a classic reddit moment.

to a viewer/ pornstar one

And depending on their age, they might even have sex. People want one easy solution to all problems, but being a teacher and a regular office worker is not the same, hence the standards are different too.

Here's a wild idea that seems to never catch on in 'murica - have the parents actually educate their children about how socially unacceptable that'd be.

Eh I disagree with some jobs. Teachers are supposed to be role models to students and keep certain things private.

The problem is we aren't paying teachers adequately for that. It reminds me of essential workers during the pandemic. If we need these people so badly, or we're asking them to be role models and be private about certain things, then we should be paying them much, much more.

Even if teachers are supposed to be role models for students which I think is debatable it certainly is not applied outside the classroom. They will never be paid enough in any world to warrant them crafting their entire being as if they are some K-pop idols.

I'd take it a step further and say that nude modeling doesn't make a bad role model. People don't generally get into a line of work unless they want to or are pressured into it (directly or indirectly). Someone who doesn't want anyone to see their body won't start a nude OF just because their favorite teacher did it. They'll start one because they want to sell nudes or because they want to pay bills and have exhausted other options.

That last bit is more evil than any kind of voluntary sex work. People sell their bodies for worse things than sex work. Like mining, the farming work that depends on illegal immigrants (or legal ones whose bosses assume they won't raise a stink if labour laws aren't followed), or a bunch of factory or construction work that exposes people to fumes and dust they probably shouldn't be inhaling. Shit that leaves them broken, or with cancer or some other disease that shortens their life. If someone can sell pictures of their bodies to avoid that kind of work, IMO that's a good role model.

Is it, in your eyes, morally wrong to sell naked photos of yourself?

The porn industry has many, many problems, and OnlyFans has just recently been targeted by an investigative piece by Reuters journalists for doing little about people using their platform to sell non-consensual nude pictures, or even videos of rape, but as long as you yourself are doing it of your own free will, I don't see the problem, even if you are a teacher.

How is doing sex work being a bad role model?

I want you to know that I don't have an answer for this and that you've made me think about this from a different angle, which I very much appreciate. It's a very good point.

Thank you for saying so! I have to admit that my comment is almost adressed to myself as much as to you. I was raised with all the sexual hang ups of conservative Christianity. The idea of my daughter growing up and choosing to do sex work certainly makes me uncomfortable. But I also would like my daughter to be unashamed of her sexuality when she grows up, and I wouldn't want her to be judged no matter how she chooses to express herself. I also believe sex work can be an incredibly compassionate form of labor, providing human connection to people starved of affection.

On the other hand, I do have some reservations about sex work, particularly when it comes to outright prostitution. Can someone have sex with so many people and still maintain the ability to have a full, healthy relationship with a partner? What are the consequences for social stability of making it so easy for men to cheat on their partners?

I think I'm in the exact same position as you. Generally speaking I tend to be personally conservative about sex and relationships -- not really into hook up culture, thinking sex should be with someone you deeply love, etc.

That said, as a single, nearly 30 year old dude, I do watch porn, and it's usually by independent content creators, not studios. I find the idea of maligning those women for what they do to be utterly reprehensible, and peak hypocrisy. If I were in their shoes, there's a decent chance I'd also post nudes and try to monetize it.

Yet, at the same time, I don't like subscribing to only fans, because it just feels wrong, like on a core level personally. On some level, I'm wary of getting overly invested in someone and having a weird parasocial thing. I'm glad that I've given them money in the short term though.

Human sexuality is really weird, and the way society plays into it makes it nigh incomprehensible sometimes how we feel and act about it.

Human sexuality is really weird, and the way society plays into it makes it nigh incomprehensible sometimes how we feel and act about it.

I couldn't agree more

Gonna get roasted for this, but why?

I think it's pretty reasonable for an employer to fire someone for posting racist things on the Internet. I think we can all agree on that. Actions outside of work can have an effect on work and so I think it's reasonable to make employment decisions based on how the employer acts outside of work. I would argue racism is morally wrong and sex work is not, but I don't think it's possible to define employment laws in a way that fits a universal moral code.

I love the protected classes we have for employment now: age, gender, color, religion, etc. I think these protections are valuable to employees everyone, and I think they make sense because they don't affect your ability to do the job. I having "does sex work on the side" on this list makes much less sense.

I think many, maybe even most, jobs wouldn't be affected by an employee having an onlyfans, and so in my opinion someone shouldn't get fired for it most of the time. But I think there's a clear line between the protected classes and people who post on onlyfans.

Simple answer. Most of us (and most of the world) thinks At-Will employment is barbaric.

It is entirely reasonable to require some substantive effect to warrent termination, even if that substantive effect is not directly the teacher's fault. Her having an onlyfans account, not grounds for firing. Her onlyfans account passed around by students? Grounds for termination.

There's a (not so new) trend in the US for companies to crack down on side gigs. Yes, sex work is a politically charged side-gig, but we shouldn't ever be supporting a company's right to fire people having side-gigs without a very good reason. So long as your side-gig never encroaches into your day job in any real (not hypothetical) way, there really isn't a good reason.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond so thoughtfully.

I hear what you're saying about not firing someone until an actual effect on the business is felt. I think that makes sense in this situation but there's certainly situations where you could find something out about an employee and should be able to fire them before it's affecting the business. Maybe my accountant committed tax fraud when they filed their taxes. That's totally in their personal life and if no one finds out about it, then it doesn't affect the bussiness. I still think it would be totally reasonable to fire that person.

I've worked my whole career in salary positions where side gigs are against my contract/need special approval so I think I'm just used to that way of thinking.

It makes me all warm and fuzzy to see people have respectful disagreements!

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Her job doesn't get to decide what she does in her off time. Of course on the streets of the real world they definitely try and succeed. I'm saying that they should not.

God i just want the world to change for the better. This is dumb

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Her teacher salary was $42k. She made a million off OF. If she puts that into index fund she can replace her teacher salary at 4% WR.

Oh! Thats awful! What sites did she post her nudes to? Like which specific ones?

Edit: this is a joke. Im devastated that i need to say this. How is it no obvious? Please do not send me links to her porn.

Is there a reason to downvote me other than thinking im being serious? This is a serious subject, she should not be fired for having a hobby. I 100% believe that.

I was just making a joke.

  1. I know how to google, if i wanted to i could probably find YOUR nudes (even if they dont exist)

  2. Its a reference to a tv show. Im personifying the joke performed by the character Mac.