Racy startup Arsenic heats up social media, gives men's magazines like Playboy competition

In the hills above Hollywood, a team of 12 is building a media powerhouse called Arsenic, a social media platform featuring sexy women that is based on being real, raw, and edgy. In the last two years, Arsenic has transformed from being one woman’s hobby to an online movement where women of any shape, size, skin colour, or location submit their own photos and videos for free just because they want to be a part of it.

The startup, which officially launched in June 2015, currently has over 960,000 followers on Instagram, more than some of the leading men’s magazines combined. Arsenic’s Snapchat channel has around 500,000 people clicking on every photo and video its models post. Co-founder Amanda Micallef says, “The women on Arsenic wanted to push the envelope. They liked the idea of owning their sexuality. They liked being provocative, but they didn’t want somebody to tell them how to do that.”

Arsenic allows women to take photos of themselves, posing however they want. Women wanting to feel sexy in their own way, whether that’s lounging by a pool or buying candy at a grocery store, are crowdsourced to “take over” the platform’s account and post pictures.

“From the early days, we were about making noise, not being meek,” co-founder Billy Hawkins says. “Our theory is that these are the real people, and we don’t want to water it down to make it appealing to everyone.”

The beauty of the platform is that it features ordinary women. “If we had a version of Maxim’s top 100 sexiest women, we would ask our audience who they think [should win]” Hawkins says. “And it could be anyone.”