Women’s financial autonomy is still a sore point in many countries. However, a whole new host of opportunities are being created for the portion of the world that has access to the internet. Some industries, such as influencer marketing, are overwhelmingly populated by women. In 2019, according to data from Statista, 84% of influencers making sponsored posts on Instagram were women.

Influencer marketing is nothing to scoff at, it’s an industry that favors creators who don’t have celebrity-sized followings, making it easier for people to get their foot in.

Bia Khalifa, the influencer, model, and musician from Romania, saw her start on Musical.ly — the platform that would later become TikTok. But, it wasn’t long before she switched to Instagram, where her following afforded her some unique business opportunities that included exposure on national television channels and networks.

Her business model, however, doesn’t rely on Instagram alone. “It’s 50-50 between Instagram and OnlyFans,” she says. “I’m the first OnlyFans model in Romania, which only added to the controversy surrounding me.”

Bia Khalifa’s brand of female empowerment and financial independence hits the hardest where the social norms are most vulnerable — like in her home of Romania. She’s a staunch supporter of minorities and people who do sex work and lets it show in the visuals surrounding her art.

“I have a tattoo that says ‘sex worker,’ and I’m always talking and sharing about those things,” she says. “People here can be very homophobic and classist, believing stereotypes about women, especially if they’re blond.”

Her attitude towards these issues often make Bia Khalifa a target of attacks. At this point, she’s almost used to people saying she deserved the hardships she endured because she had no parents or experienced other trying circumstances.

She’s also been constantly attacked by people trying to compromise her ability to support herself through social media work or OnlyFans. Her Instagram accounts have been hacked and taken over for years now.  Despite a lack of legal framework around online abuse in Romania, Bia was able to recover her account.

“All of my work is connected to Instagram, and it suffers when my account gets hijacked,” she says. “The worst part is that they’re doing this for fun.”

Bia Khalifa’s media presence also caught the attention of people interested in how she’s making money online. At first, Bia Khalifa thought they hated her, but that changed as soon as they started opening their own OnlyFans accounts.

“They were opening large accounts, not small ones. And they came to me for advice,” she says. “And it helped me so much when I saw people coming back to me, talking about how I was the first one to do it.”

Despite her success and recognizability, Bia Khalifa struggles with the bad sides of being a woman who works in visible professions that go against societal norms. With current plans to move countries and go to Spain and embrace trap and Reggaeton, it just might be possible that she’s had enough of the hardships she’s been enduring in Romania. But whether she stays or goes, she’ll be remembered — if for nothing else — for pioneering a new kind of digital entrepreneur.