Match with as many people as you can on dating apps. Make sure your bio says you are “aspiring” to have some sort of job. Exchange a few messages with men before asking for money. Make a “menu” with your premium content offerings, from signed photos to an “unblocking fee.”
These are some of the tips that Autumn Johnson, a now 22-year-old social media creator who is the central subject in the new documentary Sugar Babies, shares with people hoping to follow in her footsteps. The movie premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
When the film begins following her, she is 18 and struggling to pay for her college tuition. She lives in Rustin, La., where the minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009. Everyone has a side hustle, from waitressing to renting out trailers — hers just happens to be providing digital companionship to men who pay her for it.
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Sugar Babies director Rachel Fleit, who also directed HBO’s Bama Rush documentary about the intense process of joining a sorority at the University of Alabama that became a TikTok phenomenon, told Yahoo Entertainment that she wanted to make a film about what it’s like to be a young person in the age of social media in a small city.
“I discovered this phenomenon of … women talking very openly about what they did as sugar babies. From there, we found Autumn’s video,” Fleit said. “Within 10 seconds of a Zoom call, I knew that Autumn was extremely compelling. I had a sense that behind that screen, there was a whole world to uncover.”
Rather than stitching together the stories of several sugar babies, Fleit zeroed in on Autumn — her close-knit friends and family and their everyday lives hustling to make money while still having fun. It makes it abundantly clear how difficult it is to get by in a rural area, where jobs are limited and the ones available pay very little for tough physical work.
“We started out looking at this online sugar baby operation that Autumn had constructed, but we found a really deep emotional core, which is the central theme of the film,” Fleit said. “What do you do when you want to make something of yourself and find your identity, but you are in a place that lacks resources and you don’t have access to things that people in wealthier states might have?”
Archival footage of news broadcasts declaring that the minimum wage would not be increased beyond $7.25 in Louisiana is interspersed throughout the documentary. Legislation by local lawmakers was rejected year after year.
The pressure to earn enough to make enough money to survive in this rural community is constant. Teenagers often set out on their own at 16 or 17 because their parents don’t make enough to support them, even when juggling multiple jobs.
“They have to take care of themselves because that’s just the way it is where they live, but they’re also kids,” Fleit said. “They want to have fun. They want to horse around, play volleyball and splash in the lake.”
Autumn in Sugar Babies. (Courtesy of LD Entertainment)
In one scene in which the teenagers are hanging out, Autumn’s friend Bonnie goes live on TikTok so she can make money through gifts from her followers. The women found that secretive men are more likely to send “diamonds,” digital tokens that can be exchanged for money, than they are to send money via more traceable apps like Venmo or Cash App. Even when having fun, Bonnie doesn’t fully separate herself from the need to earn.
Through Autumn’s work as an online sugar baby — or a “sugar baby without the sugar,” as she explains it — she was able to stay enrolled in college. She offers tips to other women hoping to get into that line of work, charging enough to get started running their own businesses. Autumn tells women who don’t have the money to invest in her class ahead of time to simply pay her back after they’ve earned money using her advice. She also recommends using various apps where women can sell used underwear, bathwater and lollipops for cash.
One of the moments Fleit knew she wanted to include in the documentary came from a conversation between Autumn and her younger sister, Hailey. Hailey admitted that sometimes, men send her money for content she never gives them. Then she blocks them or tells them that she forgot to respond.
“I’m gonna take y’all’s money, if y’all don’t wanna hire me,” Hailey says. “I really just scam them.”
The sisters discussed how the world is “set up for men to take advantage of women,” so it’s actually empowering for women to take money back from men. Fleit and her editor referred to this part of the film as the “feminist argument.”
When they began filming the documentary, Autumn mentioned that she wanted to graduate and leave her small hometown. Fleit thought that that might work as the film’s ending. Autumn does leave — she becomes the first person in her family to graduate college and moves a few hours away to be closer to her friend Bonnie, who had two children since they first began filming. Just weeks later, Autumn returned to Rustin. She missed her loved ones too much.
While battling depression, Autumn lost interest in being a sugar baby. The final scene shows her and her friends at a Huddle House, where a combo meal costs $5.99 — which is more than waitresses, who earn less than minimum wage because they get tips, make in an hour. The camera zooms out, revealing that it’s near a highway lined with several other restaurants just like it.
“There’s so much behind why [Autumn] came home, which I hope resonates with people,” Fleit said. “What they lack in access, they have an abundance of wealth in love, family and community.”
