A woman applies lipstick in the mirror in her underwear, seemingly unaware she’s being watched. Catching a glimpse of somebody loitering outside the door, she sighs, smirking. “Come on in, don’t be shy. How do we feel about a little dirty talk?” she teases in a sultry voice. “And how dirty are we talking, exactly? Because I can be so frickin’ filthy, I’ll even say words that are banned by the US government.”
Cut to the next scene, the woman is on her knees, gagged. “Climate change,” she murmurs. “Decarbonisation. Clean energy!”
You may have guessed this isn’t your typical porn film, and Jessica Riches isn’t your typical OnlyFans model. These are (a few of) the words that Donald Trump’s administration has removed from US government websites, Riches goes on to explain. Others, she says, gag back on, include “sustainable”, “green” and “emissions”.
“Some people have safe words, Trump has unsafe words, words that make him so scared,” Riches purrs at the camera. “They’ve literally removed all of these words from government websites, because their friends in Big Oil are scared too. But you can’t gag the truth, boys.”
This is Headline Newds, a new online video series by the non-profit studio The Yellow Dot, which uses exaggerated porn tropes and sketch comedy to deliver climate messaging in spaces traditional campaigns rarely reach, mimicking familiar adult-film setups before subverting them with climate facts and commentary. It’s deliberately provocative, using humour, intimacy and surprise to hold attention where standard campaign videos are quickly scrolled past.
We all know the climate crisis is accelerating – record heat, rising seas, new oil projects every week – but much of the messaging about it still isn’t cutting through. And if it doesn’t register, neither does political will.
At openDemocracy, our “media for movements” work focuses on what actually lands – how organisers communicate in ways that reach beyond their base, shift narratives and build power in practice. We spoke to Riches, a climate-focused filmmaker and narrative strategist, about why she turned to comedy, porn parody and OnlyFans to try exactly that.
Below, she explains what worked – and why.
Q: What pushed you to try something this unconventional in the first place?
Desperation, honestly – or at least frustration. I’d spent years working in climate narrative strategy and kept seeing projects with important messages prioritise everything except being interesting or entertaining – months of effort going into things people would never see, remember or act on.
I’d worked on projects like the UN and Purpose’s Verified for Climate initiative, and a storytelling fellowship at University College London’s Climate Action Unit, looking at how our brains process the climate crisis. Watching Don't Look Up – the hugely popular film starring Leonardo DiCaprio about scientists ignored as a planet-killing comet approaches – was a turning point. I felt seen in that frustration, that screaming facts isn’t enough, but also saw how genuinely funny entertainment can say essential things and reach huge audiences.
That led to conversations with Yellow Dot Studios, the climate-focused studio set up by the film’s director [Adam Mackay, who also directed the Oscar-winning The Big Short] to build on that kind of storytelling, about the need to try new tactics.
I’d also been researching fossil fuel propaganda and political messaging tactics behind Donald Trump’s campaigns – including “flood the zone”, a strategy of overwhelming audiences with constant messaging across platforms – and embedding narratives in entertainment spaces where people already feel connection and trust. I wanted to test a version of this for climate.
OnlyFans felt like the best place to start, because it’s where some of the most powerful parasocial relationships are being built, with audiences there for genuine connection. It came naturally because I have friends who use the platform – Meg Prescott and Bree Essrig, now co-creators of Headline Newds – and I knew it was largely untouched by campaigns.
This is intentionally provocative, and we genuinely hope it pushes others to try more unconventional approaches.
‘This is intentionally provocative – and we genuinely hope it's a push for everyone to try more unconventional things’
Q: What does ‘meeting audiences where they are’ actually look like in practice?
As people working in a specific issue space – in our case, climate – we’re often so inside it that we expect everyone else to understand, or assume the same facts and stats that moved us will move everyone else.
After an event at New York Climate Week, I accidentally went to see a psychic in the Lower East Side – a woman my age with two kids. She asked what brought me to town, and I said a climate conference. She had no idea what I meant. “You mean like the weather?” she asked, and it really hit me that we’re in a bubble.
When we said we were making content for people who would usually scroll past anything labelled “climate change”, we were acknowledging that most content is made for the same audience – in what it says and how it’s delivered.
That’s safe, but it leaves a lot of people untouched. Niche parasocial audiences, people who connect with a creator over a shared interest or vibe, are almost impossible to reach from the outside. These communities are strong, and it’s obvious when something doesn’t belong.
‘I came to town for a climate conference. You mean like the weather?’
Meeting audiences where they are means understanding the spaces they already choose – where they feel entertained or trust what they’re seeing – and finding a way in that feels like connection, not interruption.
When you work with creators, you’re not just borrowing reach; you’re stepping into an existing relationship, so it has to add value.
We didn’t start with OnlyFans. We started with climate, friendships and people who know what works.
Q: What were the biggest risks you were weighing, personally and politically?
Using women’s bodies as a creative and comedic tool is always a risk, given the history of violence and the male gaze. That context is always present, and we were aware of potential backlash, as well as stigma around sex work.
There’s a very specific humour required when you lean into porn clichés to deliver climate messaging; it has to be funny and sexy enough to work, without either overpowering the other. Too earnest and it’s cringe, too crass and it undermines the message.
We also didn’t want it to feel preachy or alienate our creators’ audiences. In a risk-averse space, trying something new means risking it going wrong and being used as proof we shouldn’t try at all.
We didn’t want to be held up as a bad example, but we knew we had the right team.
I also had to weigh my own career. I’ve always sat between indie filmmaking and narrative strategy, so I’ve never fully played the corporate game, but creating my own OnlyFans alongside the campaign was a bold step, and I’m not naive about the repercussions. The point is that traditional ways of communicating the climate crisis aren’t working, so we have to try something more extreme.
Q: What surprised you most about how audiences responded?
I’m overjoyed that audiences responded at all. I’ve worked on campaigns for 15 years and often been disappointed by how little impact they have. With this, we simply put the content out with our creators and watched it reach hundreds of thousands of views.
That speaks to the novelty of the idea, but also the quality of the content and how well it fits the platform. The response has been overwhelmingly positive – people calling it “genius”, saying they’ve never watched a full climate video before, or that they learned something new.
What really surprised us was the depth of engagement, especially on OnlyFans. It opened up a space for men to talk privately about their hopes and fears around climate – many saying they care, but haven’t had anywhere to express it before.
Q: What would you tell others trying to reach people outside typical activist or media spaces?
This project worked because it was a real partnership between Yellow Dot Studios and OnlyFans creators with the right communities. Having a professional production team also mattered. We know how to make real entertainment for audiences, which is very different from making NGO content that ticks boxes.
Most importantly, we have to prioritise reaching people outside typical activist and media spaces. Too much progressive campaigning still preaches to the converted.
We’re playing catch-up to a sophisticated ecosystem of influence serving extractive systems. Ignoring that – or failing to evolve – is dangerous if we’re serious about countering it.
It’s time for big swings.
