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Dark rum is a very broad category. There are myriad variations — from Central American rums aged on volcano slopes to South American rums farmed deep in Amazonia to the iconic rums of the Caribbean to the new rums coming out of the Philippines, Madagascar, Mauritius, and other crafty distilleries in every corner of the world. And with rum finally starting to get the attention it deserves among lovers of aged spirits, rare barrels and expressions from those distant locales are more valued than ever.

Today, we’re talking about a very specific and very rare rum, this one from Jamaica: Appleton Estate 30.

Just to be clear, this is a collector’s item more than anything else. It’s an extremely limited rare release from 2018, when only 4,000 bottles were produced. Three years on, the number of available bottles is most likely much lower — with most bottles having been drunk and/or stashed away in vaults. As you might imagine, this is not a cheap bottle of booze.

Below you’ll find our review of this 30-year-old treasure. If you’re interested in adding this to your dark rum collection, click on the price to see if there’s a bottle available in your area.

Appleton Estate 30 Very Rare Limited Edition

ABV: 43%

Average Price: $530

The Rum:

This blend comes from the master of Jamaican rum, Master Blender Joy Spence. This release from 2018 blends rums that are at least 30 years old with some barrels north of 50 years old. Like all Appleton releases, the juice in the bottle is a cane-to-glass spirit with everything from the growing of the cane to the aging and blending happening in-house at Appleton.

Only 4,000 bottles were produced with only 900 of those allocated to the U.S. market.

Tasting Notes:

The nose is bold, with a mix of burnt pineapple rinds next to coconut charcoal, a touch of ripe plantain, and a hint of dry tobacco leaf. The palate calms down all that charred wood and fruit for a slow-sipping essence of pineapple juice tied to black molasses, cinnamon, and anise, rich and oily vanilla, rips of cedar bark, dry grass, butterscotch candies, and a slight note of that Jamaican rum funk on the end. The finish on this is very long and hits you with an almost creamy and soft pina colada vibe very late that turns into a mild mango juice, leaving you with a satisfied palate coated with lovely dark rum.

The Bottle:

Appleton’s new bottle design suits this rum. It’s sleek and eye-catching while the label remains very understated. The embossed label lets you stare into the depths of the dark rum in the bottle and get sort of mesmerized by it.

Bottom Line:

There’s a lot of dark and charred wood to get through on the nose before you get to the sweet fruits within this dram. But, wow, the mid-palate to finish of this sip is extraordinary. It’s nuanced, balanced, and very enjoyable.

Is it worth over $500 per bottle? If you’re a collector or rare bottles, then perhaps. If you’re a passive dark rum fan, then there are plenty of rums out there for far less money that are all perfectly good.

Ranking:

90/100 — this is good rum but the very distinct nose will turn some drinkers off.

As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.

Thursday was widely expected to be the start of a new era for Jeopardy! with its new full-time host running the show for Season 38. Filming was set to begin on Season 38, with new episodes starting on September 13 as Matt Amodio looks to continue his impressive run as champion.

But the controversy over Mike Richards’ selection as host continues to grow, with new details emerging about the selection process as well as his own offensive comments about women and Jews taking center stage this week. An exhaustive report from Claire McNear at The Ringer detailed some now-deleted podcast comments where Richards disparaged women’s looks and made other offensive comments, at one point being described as “a smile with sharp teeth.”

That report is the second distinct news cycle about Richards’ troubled past, putting Sony into an increasingly difficult spot with its most popular syndicated show. The announcement is official, and filming is set to happen this week according to multiple reports. But as Variety reported on Thursday, there’s “grave concern” among people at Sony about whether Richards can continue in his new role.

Sony Pictures declined to comment on the ADL’s statement. But multiple sources close to the situation say the discovery of offensive remarks from the podcast has sparked grave concern within the studio about whether Richards’ public image may already be too damaged for him to be the face of the beloved quiz show. There’s little doubt that Sony Pictures is starting to consider alternative scenarios for the host slot even as Richards begins taping new episodes this week.

For what it’s worth, Richards issued his second apology in as many weeks for his latest podcast comments, even as new organizations issue statements condemning his comments and his new job as the face of Jeopardy!

“It is humbling to confront a terribly embarrassing moment of misjudgment, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity from nearly a decade ago. Looking back now, there is no excuse, of course, for the comments I made on this podcast and I am deeply sorry. The podcast was intended to be a series of irreverent conversations between longtime friends who had a history of joking around. Even with the passage of time, it’s more than clear that my attempts to be funny and provocative were not acceptable, and I have removed the episodes. My responsibilities today as a father, husband, and a public personality who speaks to many people through my role on television means I have substantial and serious obligations as a role model, and I intend to live up to them.”

Despite that apology, there are a number of reports indicating his future on Jeopardy! is now seen to be in doubt. Matthew Belloni of Puck reported on Thursday that we shouldn’t “be surprised” if Richards gets the gate after what’s become a protracted, multi-layered controversy and subsequent backlash about his legal history and statements on the record.

Sony is, of course, staying quiet about things as filming is supposed to start this week. But what was supposed to be a celebrated changing of the guard for the most beloved trivia show of all time has become nothing short of a nightmare, one that seems it could largely have been avoided with better vetting.

Justin Bieber is bringing his talents to Las Vegas and it’s not just for one night only. Rather, the singer has curated a three-day getaway experience in Las Vegas for he and his fans to enjoy, and Bieber won’t be the only one putting on a show there.

The Justice singer invited The Kid Laroi, Jaden, Kehlani, David Guetta, and others to perform at the experience, which will be held on the weekend of October 7-10 at Wynn Las Vegas’ XS Nightclub and Encore Beach Club. The entire getaway was curated by Bieber himself, who made sure to include some of his favorite activities in the Weekender’s itinerary.

The Vegas experience begins on Thursday night with an opening party at XS. The following day presents a pool party at Encore Beach, with Bieber’s activation arriving on the final day. There, attendees will be able to enjoy his favorite food and drink pop-ups, a half-pipe and skate park, and, of course, a show headlined by the singer himself. Troyboi and Eddie Benjamin also appear on the guest list for performers with more special guests set to be announced at a later date.

Bieber recently saw he and The Kid Laroi’s “Stay” collaboration spend a second week atop the Billboard singles chart. The track is their second song together as they previously collaborated on “Unstable” from Bieber’s sixth album, Justice. Jaden also appeared on the album while Kehlani can be found on “Get Me” from Changes.

You can view the Vegas weekender flyer above.

Kehlani is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Despite Tom Holland’s best attempts, Marvel has gotten pretty good about keeping some of its biggest secrets under wraps until they hit theaters or the Disney+ streaming service. For fans who don’t like spoilers, it’s great to see things unfold without fear that trade publications or fan sites will tell you what’s going to happen.

For the actors involved in the shows, however, things can be much more stressful. Movies and TV shows don’t air immediately after they’re filmed, leaving long periods of time in which a person cast for a role might not be able to even reveal that they got a huge opportunity to join the MCU. And then there are roles that are revealed, with actors inevitably peppered with questions about everything Marvel.

For Owen Wilson, who delighted in Loki, that promotional stretch was a chance to see just how serious Marvel is about keeping secrets until they air. In a profile for Esquire, the actor tells a pretty creepy story that, if true, really does explain why actors try to adhere to their secret-keeping for their own sakes. In the piece, Wilson called the embargoes involved “no joke” and told a story that might not have been a joke about just how serious they take things during press junkets.

“Well I’ll tell you: it’s serious, it’s no joke,” Wilson explained in a video that accompanied a lengthy cover story. He then, somewhat seriously, explained that he “let slip” that Agent Mobius would have a mustache and saw immediate consequences for that mistake.

“Even when I let it slip that I’m wearing a mustache, Agent Mobius, I got a ominous text saying, ‘Strike One,’” Wilson said. “I don’t know who that was from. We looked into it and we think it might’ve been Kevin Feige using a burner phone or something. But that was never confirmed.”

Given the “burner phone” joke at the end it’s entirely unclear if this actually happened, as the video is pretty loose overall. But it does at least continue to confirm just how seriously Disney takes these leaks, even if the example used here didn’t happen. Which is why he didn’t have much to say about a potential reappearance for his role in the future.

“I couldn’t even speculate – although now that we’ve sort of put that on the table, the whole time element, I guess Agent Mobius could show up anywhere,” Wilson said, joking about a Mobius reboot of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure or Back to the Future. “You might see Agent Mobius there. Like if they rent him out maybe.”

We’ll simply have to wait and see if Mobius pops up anywhere else in future Marvel projects. Unless Wilson wants to test things with potentially earning himself a second strike.

[via The Wrap]

Later this month, Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club will celebrate its 18th anniversary. The venue is one the Roc Nation founder opened back in 2003 with Roc Nation Sports chief Juan Perez and Roc Nation CEO Desiree Perez. In addition to being attached to the rapper, the 40/40 Club gained additional popularity thanks to multiple references in rap songs from the likes of Jay and more.

The venue flaunts itself as a space that combined “the lavish warmth of a New York City penthouse with the vivacity and glamour of court-side seats at a championship game,” as a press release reads.

In a little over a week, the 40/40 Club will commemorate its 18th anniversary with a celebratory event at the venue. The club reopened back in August after it was shut down in early 2013. Guests who received an invite to the celebration, which takes place on August 28 at 8 p.m., were gifted a special black and white hourglass that represents the time that went by between the club’s closing and reopening. Some of the names of the guest list include Diddy, Lil Uzi Vert, Bobby Shmurda, Rapsody, Remy Ma and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

The news comes after Jay-Z hired Tory Datcher, the former senior vice president and chief customer officer of Clorox, as the CEO of his Monogram cannabis company. This made Datcher the first Black CEO to lead a major public cannabis company in the United States.

Lil Uzi Vert is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

A brave woman in Sheffield, England stood up for herself on the floor of a dance club and not only was her reaction satisfying for many, it brought an ugly double-standard to light.

Harriet Bowley, 21, was at an unnamed dance club when a man grabbed her somewhere around the waist. Bowley responded by turning around and smacking the man who seemed “genuinely furious and shocked” that she would retaliate.

I smacked a lad last night who sexually assaulted me in the club, and he looked genuinely furious and shocked? Norm… https://t.co/fwT7PUQ54D

— 🌹harriet (@harribowley)
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It’s incredible the man was shocked that a woman would respond violently to being groped. Didn’t he understand that sexually assaulting her was an act of violence, too? Although she probably wasn’t physically hurt by his actions, the mental and emotional trauma of having a man touch you without consent is far more traumatizing than her response.

It’s also strange that he was “furious” that she retaliated. What did he expect?

It seems the man thought he was having some innocent fun and was awakened from his sexist fantasy by a slap in the face.

Bowley completely understands the double-standard. “So it’s absolutely fine for you, as a stranger, to touch me up without consent but not ok for me to touch you in self defence?” she asked.

Of course, there were some men who blamed Bowley for being groped because of what she was wearing. But Bowley points out that she wasn’t wearing anything revealing. Even if she was, that doesn’t give anyone permission to sexually assault her. Just because someone is showing some skin doesn’t mean it’s an invitation to be assaulted.

This guy clearly didn’t get the message.

Bowley ended her first tweet with a call to action: “Normalise girls standing up for themselves when they get groped.”

A large number of women responded to her tweet by saying they have no problem standing up for themselves after being groped at nightclubs. They shared vivid accounts of times they were groped and retaliated.

I must note that this post isn’t celebrating violence in any way. The story simply illustrates how some men feel so entitled to women’s bodies that they are genuinely shocked that one would have an aggressive reaction to being touched without consent.

These men were hiding behind the guise that groping is innocent fun and isn’t serious enough to warrant a violent reaction.

This post calls attention to a serious problem that needs to be stopped immediately. Men need to learn that just because they’re in a dance club where people are having drinks and dancing close together, that it doesn’t give them permission to try to inappropriately touch someone.

Groping is sexual assault, case closed. There should be no excuse for it and it should be taken just as seriously as any other form of violence.

As kids begin returning to school after a year that was disrupted by the pandemic, masks have become a hot-button issue. While a majority of parents (63%) believe their child’s school should require unvaccinated students and staff to wear masks, millions of kids will be attending schools where they are optional.

There is no mask mandate in most U.S. states, so districts are free to do what they choose to protect children.

Currently, vaccines aren’t available for children 11 and under and only 30% of kids 12 through 17 are fully vaccinated.

Due to the spread of the Delta variant, the CDC is recommending universal indoor masking for all students ages two and up regardless of vaccination status.

“I do think that mask mandates or universal masking in the school setting should be enforced … there are still a lot of very susceptible individuals that will be attending school in person,” Dr. Tina Tan, professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, said according to CNBC.

However, even though the country’s top doctors and scientists say that kids should wear masks in school to protect themselves and to prevent them from spreading the virus to others, millions will go maskless in schools this year.

Today Parents contributor, jthreeNMe from Tampa, Florida, wrote a powerful open letter to the parents who send their kids to school without masks. The message is even more important in her area because Tampa has recently hit its highest 7-day case average of the entire pandemic.

Hillsborough County’s COVID-19 data appears to show a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” according to Mike Wiese, an e… https://t.co/eEQubR7h4U

— FOX 13 Tampa Bay (@FOX13News)
1629387905.0

Over 1400 cases were linked to students and staff after school resumed last week.

Here’s an edited version of the letter, you can read the entire piece at Today.

Please rethink your decision. And, if you do, and you come to the same non-masking conclusion, I just ask this of you… Please encourage your child not to mock mine for wearing one.

Your kid is following your guidance, which is to trust that corona isn’t going to be the thing to take them (or anyone close to them) out. And mine is following mine, which is to be wary that it just might and to be understandably cautious … just in case.

The mother points out that asking your kids to be accountable to themselves and others is one of the most important learning experiences that children have in school. Sending them maskless upends one of the major goals of their educational experience.

Another school year tainted by corona gives each of us, parents and students and even administrators and teachers alike, another shot at proving just how capable we are of putting our dissimilarities aside and our strength at the forefront, zooming in and focusing on what it is we do have in common in order to grow — not just in relation to education but us as ‘whole people’ humans living as close to harmony as possible with one another.

One of the most important things a parent can do is teach their child that they are not the center of the universe and that they have a responsibility to others. If not, the child will grow up entitled and when they come to the harsh realization that the world doesn’t revolve around them, they’re in for some major pain.

Studies show that kids raised to be entitled wind up becoming unhappy adults.

If there’s anything to be gained from this difficult time as a parent is that it’s an opportunity to teach your child real responsibility at a time when it matters the most. Kids can tell when their parents are being part of the problem and they want to do what’s right and to be “good.” Give these kids the opportunity to stop the spread of the virus and let them know they’re doing what’s right for themselves and their community.

Sometimes you see something so mind-boggling you have to take a minute to digest what just happened in your brain. Be prepared to take that moment while watching these videos.

Real estate investor and TikTok user Tom Cruz shared two videos explaining the spreadsheets he and his friends use to plan vacations and it’s…well…something. Watch the first one:

What in the wealth is this https://t.co/NTPTKT5CZG

— Karim Alammuri (@Radio_Reem)
1629292830.0

So “Broke Bobby” makes $125,000 a year. There’s that.

How about the fact that his guy has more than zero friends who budget $80,000 for a 3-day getaway? Y’all. I wouldn’t know how to spend $80,000 in three days if you paid me to. Especially if we’re talking about a trip with friends where we’re all splitting the cost. Like what does this even look like? Are they flying in private jets that burn dollar bills as fuel? Are they bathing in hot tubs full of cocaine? I genuinely don’t get it.

But that’s not even the full spreadsheet. It might make sense if this guy was just rich, had always been rich, only knew rich people, and therefore having multiple millionnaire friends was his normal. Surely that’s some people’s reality who were born into the 1%.

That’s not the case here, though, because Cruz also has a Welfare 10 list. He says this group of friends who make less than $100K a year call themselves that, and perhaps that’s true. (If I were a part of this group, I might call myself a welfare case too because everything’s relative and some of these dudes spend more in an hour of vacation than I spend on my mortgage each month.)

@Radio_Reem Those that make less are called the “Welfare 10” 😭😭😩 https://t.co/7smW2Gz5pI

— Aïcha-Mira (@AyishaMiraClb)
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To be crystal clear here, the top 5 friends on the Forbes list are willing to spend more than double what the guy at the bottom of the Welfare 10 list makes per year on a 3-day guy’s trip. I don’t know what to do with this information.

It’s like we can see our society’s wealth gap all laid out nice and neatly in a spreadsheet, only these people aren’t even the uber-wealthy and uber-poor. This is just the range of this one guy’s friends.

I have nothing against people who build success and wealth for themselves, and even $5 million per year is hardly obscenely wealthy by billionaire standards. But Cruz says he’s known most of his “welfare” friends since college, which presumably means most of those guys have college degrees and are making pittance in comparison with the Forbes list. One could claim the guy making $5 million a year just works harder, but does he really work 100 times harder than the guy making $50,000? Doubt it.

Money makes money, and after a certain threshold of wealth or income, it’s actually quite easy to get and stay rich without actually “earning” more money, assuming you’re reasonably wise and responsible. So maybe the guys who are willing to shell out $125,000 for a week-long trip should offer to pay the travel expenses of the friends they “hang out with regardless of income” who don’t even make that in a year, since that’s probably just the interest they’re making on their wealth anyway.

But what do I know? This is like an entirely different world to me and probably 99+% of Americans, as evidenced by some of the responses.

@araless Broke Bobby every time it’s time for a trip https://t.co/VTUf3xW1DW

— __iTweet__ (@__iTweet__)
1629346502.0

@AyishaMiraClb @Radio_Reem Also NONE of these guys could hire Ramen Ryan??? Ramen Ryan needs new friends, & frankly… https://t.co/0VdKMYiQVY

— Nope (@Aye_Scotty)
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@_jasminwats @Radio_Reem I noticed everyone with PTO has less than is legally required in the U.K., crazy!!

— Danielle Walsh (@DanielleLoWalsh)
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@SooSankofa @Radio_Reem Yep – I noticed that as well. Very telling.

— Gillian Rosheuvel (@gillianroshe)
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Naturally, there will be a range of incomes in any group of people, but 1) most of us don’t actually know how much our friends make, and 2) even fewer of us make spreadsheets with that information in order to rank our friends and figure out who can go on which vacations.

People are just endlessly fascinating. That’s all I’ve got.

As we watch reports of thousands of Afghans fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of a Taliban takeover, the question of where they will go looms large. The world was already in the midst of a refugee crisis, with 82.4 million people forcibly displaced at the end of 2020—double the number there were just ten years earlier. Of those, more than 20 million are official refugees registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Between ongoing civil wars, increasing disasters driven by climate change, religious persecution, and more, humanity has more people in need of a safe country to call home than at any other time in history.

The dramatic and visible nature of the dangers facing Afghans targeted by the Taliban has prompted an outcry of support for refugees, which is heartening to see. The U.S. has a long and proud history of welcoming refugees, right up until the Trump administration drastically slashed the refugee ceiling—the maximum number of refugees we resettle—to historic lows.

Even with the Biden administration raising the refugee ceiling for 2021 from Trump’s 15,000 to a much larger 65,000, we’re still below our historic norm. According to experts interviewed by The Guardian, the nation’s refugee resettlement infrastructure was nearly demolished during Trump’s presidency. Those systems will take time to build back up again.

But successfully welcoming refugees requires not only systematic logistics but social and political will, which can be hampered by misinformation and fearmongering. It’s vital to have the facts straight before listening to people saying it’s too expensive or too risky to bring refugees into the country.

FACT: Refugees and migrants/asylum-seekers at the southern U.S. border are not the same thing.

I often see people say “We already have too many refugees coming across the border already,” but the vast majority of people trying to cross into the U.S. from Mexico are not official refugees. They are migrants or asylum-seekers, which means their claims for needing refuge have yet to be vetted and processed. “Refugee” is a specific designation under international law, and refugees are processed through a different protocol than migrants and asylum-seekers at the border.

The refugee ceiling is for legally recognized refugees. In the past decade, according to State Department data, 28 percent of refugees have come from Africa, 63 percent from Asia, 5 percent from Europe, and 4 percent from Latin America and the Caribbean.

FACT: Refugees are the most vetted people to ever step foot in the U.S.

A common myth is that refugees pose a security risk to the country, but that’s not backed up by either logic or evidence. The vetting process for refugees (which you can see in detail here) is the most stringent of any group to enter the United States. It can take up to two years for a refugee to get cleared to resettle here. If someone with ill intent wanted to enter the country, going through the refugee resettlement program would absolutely be the hardest and longest way to do it.

Additionally, refugees (and all immigrants, actually) are not the ones committing terrorist attacks in the U.S. A 2017 Cato Institute study found that the chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack by a refugee is about 1 in 3.86 billion per year. Immigrants of all kinds are also less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.

FACT: Resettling refugees is good for our economy.

Another common myth is that refugees are a drain on our resources. While there is an initial cost of bringing people in and helping them get on their feet, analysts have found that refugees actually have a net positive impact on the economy. One reason is that refugees are more likely to start businesses than native-born citizens or even other immigrants. And in an analysis of Census data, Economics professor Ramya Vijaya found that refugee women were more likely to be working or actively looking for work than native-born women.

Obviously, we have to have the budget for the initial investment, but that’s essentially what resettling a refugee is—an investment. We don’t seem to have a problem finding money for guns and bombs, so finding money to help the people who end up paying the price for our wars seems like it shouldn’t be too hard, especially when we know we’re going to get that money back in the long run.

FACT: Refugees in general have the character qualities we want to see in our country.

I know some Afghan refugees who have been stuck in Jakarta for years, waiting for a chance at resettlement. (Indonesia allows them to stay but they can’t work or get a bank account and are basically just living in limbo relying on the charity of others.) And honestly, they are some of the kindest, most hard-working, earnest, smart, and resourceful people I’ve ever encountered. I have often lamented that I couldn’t bring them here myself (or trade them for some of my fellow Americans who could use a change of perspective).

Every human being is unique, of course. But the nature of being a refugee means having to overcome incredible difficulties. It means having to problem-solve and find a way, even when a situation seems impossible. It requires courage, resilience, and fortitude. These are all qualities of character we value as a society.

And what better way to build goodwill and loyalty around the world than to offer people fleeing danger safe refuge and opportunity? Refugees who get resettled are grateful when they are welcomed into a community and usually want to repay the generosity offered to them.

Seriously, refugee resettlement is pretty much all upside for the U.S., unless you’re afraid of diversity or have some irrational fear of foreigners.

If you think the U.S. should try to bring in more refugees than the current refugee ceiling allows, sign this petition from the International Rescue Committee.

OnlyFans is known primarily as a place where sex workers can earn money for their services and performances, but on Thursday the company abruptly announced that it would ban the very content the platform became popular providing.

The platform has been in the news over the last year as its user base has grown away from the thing that originally made it the Patreon of sex work, more or less. While that ubiquity has made the term “OnlyFans” synonymous with direct-to-subscriber adult content. But in recent years it’s shied away from that label. Actress Bella Thorne, for example, made a big splash on OnlyFans with content in 2020, sparking a flood of non sex-workers (mainly celebrities) using the platform to further monetize their content.

But many feared that movement could drive those already using it — in many cases as their primary form of income — off the platform. Sex workers were outraged and now, less than a year later, their worst fears seem to have been realized. OnlyFans currently bills itself as a “subscription social platform revolutionizing creator and fan relationships” and touts many of those non-adult creators on its social media, but missing from it was an announcement that it would be banning sexually explicit videos on the platform According to Bloomberg, the platform’s terms of service will change in the next month to limit the kind of sexual material those using the platform can publish.

Starting in October, the company will prohibit creators from posting material with sexually explicit conduct on its website, which many sex workers use to sell fans explicit content. They’ll still be allowed to put up nude photos and videos, provided they’re consistent with OnlyFans’ policy, the company said Thursday.

The popularity of the social-media service exploded during the pandemic as sex workers, musicians and online influencers used it to charge fans for exclusive access to photos, videos and other material. OnlyFans has attracted more than 130 million users.

The changes, multiple reports have cited, come as a result of pressure from banks as OnlyFans tries to grow as a more diverse platform. An Axios report from earlier in the week notes the “porn problem” that OnlyFans has as a company trying to adhere to the startup company concept of exponential growth.

In short, OnlyFans has a porn problem, even though it never once mentions porn in its pitch-deck (something that multiple investors called “disingenuous.”).

– Some VC funds are prohibited from investing in adult content, per limited partnership agreements.

– Several investors are concerned about minors creating subscription accounts, although the company says it has controls in place to prevent that.

– Some investors say they could get past the porn, but worry that the company’s reputation would prevent it from attracting brand partners (despite this week announcing a “safe for work” product that features its growing number of clothed creators).

In other words, for the company to grow it needs to leave behind the many users who have made that growth possible in the first place. Which, given the outrage that Thorne’s appearance and the like caused, only begat further outrage on Thursday.

Phrases like “ManyVids” and “Patreon” trended on Twitter in the wake of the announcement, as people commented on where sex workers could potentially turn to continue their work or mentioned other monetization platforms that have made similar decisions over the years. And while OnlyFans tried to hedge the news by noting the changes are minimal, it’s clear people continue to feel slighted by the path the company is taking, for better or worse.