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Well, I finally succumbed to my baser impulses this week and created an OnlyFans account. <\/strong>I just couldn\u2019t resist anymore. While the platform has existed for many years, a new OnlyFans account recently appeared, offering \u201cunfiltered content\u201d that I had to see for myself.<\/p>\n So I bravely typed in my work email address, verified my email, and then verified my age \u2014\u00a0all because I couldn\u2019t resist the temptation to see hidden videos of the fat, furry objects of my desire.<\/p>\n I\u2019m speaking, of course, about marmots. <\/p>\n Exclusive videos of these adorable mountain critters are now regularly posted on this platform, best known for its spicy adult content. And why, exactly? Because researchers are desperate for financial support in the wake of White House cuts to scientific research.<\/p>\n Last month, the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) announced the launch of its \u201cOnlyMarms\u201d account. RMBL is essentially a research project created by researchers at UCLA. The project\u2019s scientists have been studying yellow-bellied marmots at a field station near Crested Butte, Colo., since 1962. But \u201cthe state of funding is so bad,\u201d they wrote in a June post on Instagram, that they decided to take drastic measures: an OnlyFans account with \u201cuncensored marmot content!\u201d<\/p>\n The results have been more fruitful than these researchers ever imagined. <\/p>\n (Photos\/The Marmot Project)<\/p>\n Researchers have been studying yellow-bellied marmots for a really long time. <\/p>\n The Marmot Project \u2014\u00a0based at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory near Crested Butte, Colo. \u2014 has been studying the furry rodents since 1962. That makes it the second-longest-running study of wild land animals in history, after Jane Goodall\u2019s groundbreaking research about chimpanzees. Researching marmots isn\u2019t just about understanding the rodents\u2019 behavior; it also gives scientists a long-term picture of changing weather patterns and its impacts on animals.<\/p>\n But times have gotten tough as the Trump administration has made deep funding cuts to scientific research and higher education. The Marmot Project is based out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which lost a third of its funding for graduate students over the last year. <\/p>\n Those graduate students are the researchers who spend 5 months a year at the Colorado field station \u2014 the ones who keep the project going. To try to bridge the funding gap, UCLA Professor Dan Blumstein, who heads the Marmot Project, decided to get creative.<\/p>\n \u201cDan got the idea for OnlyFans after watching Margo\u2019s Got Money Troubles,<\/em>\u201d Katie Adler, a PhD student and Marmot Project researcher, told GearJunkie. \u201cAnd he was like, \u2018Well, marmots have money troubles\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n So Blumstein \u2014 with the help of his grad students \u2014 created an OnlyFans account to post exclusive videos of marmots taken in the field in Colorado. More importantly, it would offer a fun way for people to donate directly to the Marmot Project. It\u2019s called OnlyMarms, and it didn\u2019t take long for the internet to fall in love. <\/p>\n (Photo\/The Marmot Project)<\/p>\n The marmot videos posted to OnlyFans are undeniably cute. The most recent one, posted Monday, Aug. 3, shows a pair of marmots cavorting among small rocks, illustrating the animals\u2019 \u201csignature bounciness.\u201d Another video captures a marmot distress call, which sounds like the incessant chirping of a smoke detector on low battery.<\/p>\n So far, the OnlyFans account hasn\u2019t actually generated too many donations. It\u2019s already in the top 5% of the platform\u2019s creators, yet has generated only $5,000 in gross income (and that\u2019s before taxes and the cut taken by OnlyFans).<\/p>\n But thanks to the internet, the irony of sexy marmots has become popular enough to generate a \u201cmeme coin,\u201d a type of cryptocurrency. The internet community created the $ONLYMARMS coin, which has already raised more than $14,000 in donations for the Marmot Project\u2019s research. A GitHub page collects many of the OnlyMarms memes that have helped generate interest in buying and selling the crypto coin.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was a scam at first,\u201d Adler said. \u201cWe\u2019ve made more money from that in four days than we\u2019ve made from the OnlyFans. It will last as long as we\u2019re relevant in the news cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n A Marmot pup; (photo\/The Marmot Project)<\/p>\n The sudden spotlight on the Marmot Project has had other benefits, too. Despite the project\u2019s long tenure, it was never able to receive donations directly \u2014 until now. UCLA recently created a donation portal that allows anyone to give money to support the project.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to see how much people care about the marmots,\u201d said Emily Renkey, a UCLA master\u2019s student and project researcher. \u201cIt makes us feel like what we\u2019re doing is valid outside of the scientific community.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite all the attention, marmot researchers like Renkey and Adler remain cautiously optimistic about the project\u2019s future. They spend long workweeks in the field doing research. The work of online promotion happens after that work is done, and they\u2019re still uncertain if private donations will allow them to continue funding graduate students to keep the project alive.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re researchers. We\u2019re not employed creators,\u201d Adler said. \u201cI\u2019m going through hundreds of camera videos with my team for this. Occasionally, I\u2019ll have capacity, but we\u2019re already working 60 hours a week in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n Chubby marmots are ready for their time in the spotlight with the launch of Fat Marmot Week on Aug. 24; (photo\/Marmot Project)<\/p>\n Despite its long history, the Marmot Project could easily lose its decades of progress. The current situation is \u201creally scary,\u201d Renkey said, because the project relies on the transfer of knowledge between graduate students each year. After three seasons at the Colorado field station, this is Adler\u2019s final year. If there\u2019s not enough funding for Renkey to get into UCLA\u2019s PhD program, there won\u2019t be anyone next year with previous experience collecting data.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are the marmot boroughs? How do you handle the marmots? There\u2019s a lot of information you need to remember. Writing it all down isn\u2019t sufficient,\u201d Renkey said. <\/p>\n To keep the project going, the Marmot Project team continues to get creative with its online presence. They\u2019re also launching a Fat Marmot Week this month: a social media-driven voting contest similar to the ever-popular Fat Bear Week. Without a significant amount of donations, however, Renkey isn\u2019t certain it will be enough. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not quite as hopeful that things will get better in the next few years,\u201d Renkey said. \u201cI appreciate people giving money, but I wish we could give science to the public without asking them for money.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tA Unique Take on OnlyFans<\/h2>\n
The Charm of OnlyMarms<\/h2>\n
Scientists as Publicists<\/h2>\n