Adult content creator and 90-Day Fiancé star Stephanie Matto was so committed to the business she sent herself to the ER — but a pivot to NFTs is taking the pressure off
The Marxist political scientist Michael Parenti once wrote, “The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital.” Perhaps no one knows this more intimately than 90-Day Fiance star Stephanie Matto, a YouTuber turned adult content creator who claims to have made upwards of $200,000 selling her farts in jars.
Perhaps best known for being one-half of the TLC reality show’s first same-sex couple in 2020, Matto went viral on TikTok in December by documenting her lucrative fart-selling business, garnering hundreds of thousands of followers with “day in the life of fart-jar girl” content, such as videos showcasing her diet (lots of protein shakes and cabbage stews). As an adult content creator who launched her own OnlyFans-esque platform, Unfiltrd, Matto receives dozens of requests for custom content per day, ranging from photos of her uvula to vials of her own poop. Yet she’s been shocked by just how high the demand for her jarred farts has been, as well as surprised by the reasons her clients cite for purchasing her fart jars for $1,000 a pop.
“People really like the idea of spending an exorbitant amount of money and kind of being — I don’t want to say ‘swindled,’ but it’s like a financial domination thing for a lot of men,” she says.
As a self-described “fartpreneur,” however, Matto may have girlbossed a little too close to the sun. On Christmas, she says, she went to the ER with what she describes as heart attack-esque symptoms, which doctors promptly diagnosed as severe gas pain as a result of her diet. Matto’s visit to the ER, which she recounted to a journalist from the U.K. outlet Jam Press, was aggregated across news outlets across the globe, prompting fervent social media debate as to whether Matto’s fart-selling enterprise was a savvy business move or a cultural death rattle resounding from the bowels of late-stage capitalism (pun very much intended). Yet Matto is unruffled by such critiques, and has harnessed her newfound virality into promoting her newest venture: selling fart jar NFTs for 0.05 ETH (a little less than $200) each, though she has significantly reduced sales of her physical fart jars following her ER visit.
Eager to learn the inner workings of a thriving fart jar business, Rolling Stone called Matto up at her home in northwestern Connecticut to discuss online sex work, the economics of selling a smell, and whether or not she plans to pivot to selling her queefs. She also threw in a plug for what is, in her educated opinion, the best flatulence-inducing pastry on the market.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
So can you start by telling me why you decided to sell farts in jars?
For years now, I’ve been getting a lot of requests from guys saying that they just want to inhale my farts. And I always thought it was kind of a joke. I never took it seriously. I thought they were just blowing smoke up my ass. So I’d laugh it off and just let it go. But one day I was thinking of different ways of making money and boosting my income with my platform, and I decided to try to actually sell fart jars as a joke. But then they actually started selling. So it kind of snowballed from that point forward. I mean, it’s just one of many weird requests I’ve gotten. I get weird-ass requests on a daily basis on my platform.
What kinds of requests?
There’s one guy who routinely pays me to make videos of me squishing my face. So there’s that. There’s one guy who has a uvula fetish, the little dangling thing in your throat. He pays me for pictures of my uvula. People have asked me for panties, bras or lingerie, toenail clippings, all sorts of things like that. But farts are a big fetish online — there’s sites that are dedicated to that specifically. So I always knew it was a thing. I just couldn’t believe that people actually wanted to smell my farts.
But I think there’s a lot of different elements in buying a fart jar. It’s not just the scent. People really like the novelty of it. Some of them do have fart fetishes, and a lot of them asked me to make videos of myself farting in the jar before I send it out. But I think a lot of them just want the full experience. They like the idea that they’re receiving something that’s just from me, that I took the time to write a letter for them, I include a photo. I leave a nice little kiss on the photo for every customer. With the packaging and everything, I take a lot of pride in it, and I do put a lot of effort into making everything look and feel special for the people who are ordering it.
Why do you think so many men are willing to spend so much money on your fart jars, if it’s not about having a fart fetish? What’s the appeal?
A lot of men like financial domination. They want to feel like they’re being taken advantage of. Even though I don’t feel like I am, but they’re like, “Oh, that’s so much money, but okay, I’ll spend it on you. Just bleed me dry.” So I think a lot of that is the financial domination aspect for men…. There’s also the ones that just do it for the novelty. It’s like, “Oh, look, what I bought. I have so much fuck you money that I could buy this reality TV star’s jar farts.” So, you know, I think there’s various reasons. Maybe some even just want the girlfriend experience, where they want that close, intimate feeling without the actual commitment to a relationship.
I don’t know if that’s necessarily the girlfriend experience, though. There aren’t that many girlfriends who fart in jars to give it to their boyfriends to smell, like, “Here.”
There’s a lot of girlfriends who fart in front of their boyfriends, and some of them might think it’s hot or cute. So maybe that.
I think it’s really interesting that sex workers get harassed for quote unquote “exploiting” these men. Like Belle Delphine, who got so much hate online for selling her bathwater. But as you point out, oftentimes, the exploitation is the point. The men are paying to feel like they’re being exploited.
Yes, exactly. And a lot of them are. And I don’t think it’s exploitative at all. I think like it’s it’s a super, super honest transaction. People know what they’re paying for it. They’re willingly inputting their credit card information, knowing what they are getting. There is also the potential that I could have just sprayed fart spray into that jar, or I could just be sending an empty jar. But I’m not. And they’re putting their faith in that.
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A TikToker Made $200,000 Farting In Jars. Here's How She Did It - Rolling Stone
