Zara Dar’s STEM videos find lucrative audience beyond YouTube

TEXAS: Zara Dar, a former PhD student who earlier quit her academia to work for OnlyFans, disclosed that she uploads her STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) instructional videos to Pornhub.

On social media, Dar said that Pornhub gives her a lot more money than YouTube. “I publish the same STEM videos on both Pornhub and YouTube, which people might not be aware of,” Dar added. “Ad revenue on “Pornhub” is almost three times higher per million views, even though YouTube typically generates more views.”

She used screenshots from her “What is a Neural Network?” videos on both platforms to support her argument. Dar says that whereas YouTube pays $340 for every million views, Pornhub pays $1,000.

Earlier, Dar, who went viral after sharing a video explaining why she left her PhD in engineering to pursue adult content creation, said in her YouTube channel: “Leaving my PhD was my choice. Money was only part of the reason—the state of academia today was the main factor,” she said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

In the same post, she addressed the misinformation about her origin. Dar clarified that she is not Pakistani and that people are confusing her with another influencer named Zara Dar (@ZaraNaeemDar).

“I am American, born and raised, with a mixed background: American, Persian, Southern European, Middle Eastern, and Indian”, she clarified.

She revealed that when deciding to leave her PhD, she weighed the benefits of an academic career against alternative paths. However, she felt that the academic world did not align with her expectations, making the decision to become a full-time adult content creator easier.

She emphasized that this kind of financial freedom would not have been possible in the academic world or corporate jobs.