Foot fetish industry an online money-spinner

Feet are apparently one of the world's most common fetishes. Photo / 123RF

What if we told you it was possible to earn about $90,000 a year and all you need is a smartphone with a decent camera?

The catch is you need to be willing to appeal to a booming fetish on Instagram.

Don't worry, you get to keep all your clothes on — well, you might have to remove your socks from time to time. Welcome to the lucrative online economy of foot fetishes.

The strange community is generally broken down into buyers, sellers and aggregators.

At the backbone of the industry are the buyers, who usually have Instagram accounts devoid of any identifying photos, which are used to interact with sellers.

The sellers generally operate with two models depending on whether their account is private or public.

Those with private accounts make money through a subscription-type model, which requires people to pay a set fee before being given access to the account.

Or there are accounts like KehlaniFeet, which asks people to buy items from her Amazon Wishlist for access to the account and more personalised content.

"I spoil anyone who spoils me. Gift me with something on my Wishlist and I will gift you back," the account states.

For those with public accounts, money is made by selling custom photos and videos directly to buyers using Instagram's direct message feature.

Owner of foot-fetish account parkfeetdaily said public accounts are almost like catalogues for the product they sell, with customers generally asking for custom orders.

"Let's say you like step-sister/step-brother porn, she'll f***ing act like she's your step-sister telling you to smell her feet, or something like that, and she'll send you that video for X amount of dollars," the page admin told The Outline.

The account admin said videos range from three to 10 minutes in length, with hefty price tags often attached.

"I've only spent about a hundred dollars in the last year," he said. "There's only one person that I actually talk to [in this community] because he actually has sent me a couple of videos and photos sets and stuff that he's bought, just to kind of like show off.

"He spent $400 with one girl. He spent, I think, $1500 dollars with another girl — and I wouldn't believe him if he didn't talk and send all that stuff my way to prove that he did."

Instagram foot model Jessica Gould said she was taken aback when first exploring the subculture.

"It took some time to understand the depth and detail of the foot fetish fandom — like particular parts of the feet such as arches or soles, all the way to men and women who wish to virtually serve at my feet, known as 'footboys'," she told Cosmopolitan.

"This was when I began to realise that many were willing to pay for the honour. From there, it didn't take long to learn how to use my personal image to tease and lure potential paying clients."

The Canadian model, who operates under the name Scarlett Vixen, takes about four photos a day for her account and earns close to $90,000 a year from men buying additional content.

Although lucrative, it's not without downfalls, explained the model.

"One by one I slowly read each direct message that comes through, [weeding] out the unrequested dick pics and inappropriate comments that anyone who works within any realm of the sex industry are bombarded with," she said.

Buyers and sellers play a vital part in the economy, but aggregators act as a connector between the two groups by sharing non-original content from different sources.

Many of these aggregator accounts will either post pictures sent to them from sellers looking to gain more followers or will trawl Instagram looking for pictures to share — with or without permission.

"I get it, it's creepy," said parkfeetdaily. "I'm just stalking your f***ing Instagram asking if you will just 'show me your feet, please'. I get it.

"However, foot fetish is — if you look it up — the most common fetish. It is everywhere. It's ubiquitous. Every culture everywhere, that is the most common one. So yes, it's creepy for me to do it. But at the same time I'm a normal guy."