State of the Adult Industry and what needs to change
I have been in this business now for about 3 years as a distributor/retailer of DVD’s. This is not my full time job or only source of income but its something that I enjoy and I’m able to have a backup plan if necessary.
Since the day I started I have noticed many troubling things that I believe are contributing more to the downfall of the industry than all the piracy, OSHA/AHF issues, and filming moratoriums combined. It can all be summed up by the attitude/ego of many (not all) in the industry and this train of thought manifests itself in many destructive ways in which I will outline.
Typically when a business or an industry is in decline, it’s time to hunker down and have some humility. Realize things aren’t going your way, try to cut back, make changes, whatever it takes to survive. So why do people in this industry insist on fooling themselves by adding more glitzy award shows and other events instead of spending that capital on things that matter. I will be the first to say nobody gives a flying crap about porn awards other than people in the industry. “The Oscars of Porn” is not something the general public takes seriously, it’s more of a punch line in someone’s joke. Yet instead of putting off ludicrous events like this or not attending, studios will pay big money to be a part of it, but what is the ROI? Also, if we are holding part of this event for fans (customers) I would like to know what the average yearly spend is of the fans in attendance. If they are simply watching movies on tube sites and not paying, yes they might be fans but they are not customers as no money is being transacted.
Why do we have to get a 10 mile long red carpet to go through the Hard Rock casino to prop up the self-esteem of these actors/actresses of which 95% will be leaving that night in a ’95 Honda Civic (or a leased Rolls Royce). Again, it all comes down to attitudes and perceptions. Are we going with the “let’s go out with a bang” theory of business management here or something?
I know this might sound bitter but just walking around the convention and seeing all the “too cool for school” attitudes flaunting all this fake status just gets disgusting after a while. Only to someone on the outside does it look daft to walk around like you are rolling in it when in fact you might not be able to last another year. For all the “mainstream” stars out there, booking two episodes on HBO playing a stripper does not make you mainstream. I’m really sorry but no porn actor or actress will ever achieve the mainstream status they dream of when getting into this industry. How many roles has Sasha Grey booked in big time studio movies lately? In fact name one star that has ever been in a leading role or even supporting role of a major Hollywood production.
This ego driven obsession with trying to be part of the mainstream entertainment industry is at best a distraction and at worst extremely destructive. The Adult Industry will never be accepted by the mainstream no matter how many ridiculous college lectures performers give or how many 50 Shades of Grey movies and books come out. You need to face facts that this is a prude Judeo/Christian based Country that will never openly admit to liking porn. Maybe instead of going after the unattainable the focus should go back to the fan base that is not paying for product right now.
I’m not saying that we all have to walk around with frowns on our faces but maybe, just maybe, if the industry would come together and actually do something more meaningful at these conventions then the innovation that put this business sector at the forefront of technology might once again flourish.
For my other business I travel all over the world and deal with hundreds of companies every month both foreign and domestic. When the textile plants in Southern China were falling on hard times a few years ago, the realization was that the number of companies needed to shrink if they were to survive at all. They certainly didn’t run around throwing parties for each other and handing out awards saying how great everyone was doing at having mediocre revenue streams and losing money each month.
I want to keep this relatively short but I hope Mike will let me write more on this subject in the future. I also hope that some companies and individuals will read this and maybe think about their attitudes and make the necessary adjustment. I’m not overly optimistic this will happen as the same people with attitudes that persist today will read this and say “fuck this guy, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” You are entitled to your opinions of course, but many businesses and industries pay me a lot of money for mine, what about you?
Tony
35 Responses
State of the Adult Industry and what needs to change – Reader Mail http://t.co/ThBYljtriT
RT @MikeSouth1226: State of the Adult Industry and what needs to change – Reader Mail http://t.co/ThBYljtriT
I question the people that believe they are gonna cure piracy and bring the paying fans back like in the 70s and 80s. There is a whole generation of porn fans that have never paid a cent for their porn and don’t intend to ever pay. The industry needs to realize that the DVD sales ship has sailed and the industry needs to come up with new avenues of income. To some extent the girls are trying to evolve and are now making their own content, cam shows, and escorting. Speaking of escorting the vast majority of porn girls that have any kind of name recognition and good looks are escorting. As Tony says some things need to change.
I’ve been involved in the adult biz, on the Internet side, for a bit more than 17 years now. It has always been short term self interests over long term financial stability. A few thousand dollars today wins over the hundreds of thousands that could be earned down the road.
RT @MikeSouth1226: State of the Adult Industry and what needs to change – Reader Mail http://t.co/ThBYljtriT
I endorse you fully. Maybe it’s really time to start joining voices. Mike has my contacts, if interested. Same for anybody else on the same page.
I don’t think there really is a U.S. adult industry, which is most, if not all, of the problem. There’s a mish-mash of companies, a lot of scumbags, and now ZERO TALENT.
American porn started going down the drain around 2006. It seemed to be OVER around 2010. Nowadays if they release a porn vid with “tight teens” in the title it means the “teens” are fat-assed, tat-covered, hooks from the streets.
Fuck me.
The AVN awards are on Showtime , that called PUBLICITY.
LOL! This is just more bullshit. The only thing true in this whole article is the fact that porn stars don’t make it in mainstream. lol! no kidding! we in the public, who live in the real world, already know that fact.
the only people who don’t are the mentally ill delusional performers who joined the industry.. as a matter of fact..it’s one of the tactics the heads of the industry used to lure them in. no joke.
Anyway, I am just going to go out on a limb and say it’s a good thing that tony has a backup plan/ it’s not his only source of income (whatever that means in this industry. lol) because tony will be out of a job real soon (if he’s telling the truth) since no one (except maybe a few morons) are paying for something they can watch for free ( by the way..the real morons, once again, are the performers who actually work for the very people who profit off the piracy of their work and then cry on social media about piracy. lol. I couldn’t make this shit up) oh, and people are certainly not buying DVDS. who in their right mind would buy the kind of vile, violent, garbage they produce in this industry today anyway? certainly not the women hating, pedophiles the industry caters to. lol!
so, to sum up…this is Tony’s recommendations for fixing this joke of an industry run by lowlifes and the mentally ill? yeah, I’m sure any of the heads of this industry just happen to come across this article and happens to read it they will realize that tony is right and wake up and change their evil ways for the better first thing in the morning . LOL!!! 🙂
#onlyinporn
You are right. There is zero talent. And the women today all look like lesbians and the so called men all look like thugs that belong behind bars. Oh, wait, they are a bunch of thugs who belong behind bars… 🙂
There are not stars any more. Just mostly tough looking women that look like junkies with lots of tats, piercings, and rock hard implants. Gorgeous natural looking women in porn (that look like Seka, Kay Parker, or Christy Canyon) are harder to find then an honest lawyer.
What was the point of this? Attitudes? Really?
RT @MikeSouth1226: State of the Adult Industry and what needs to change – Reader Mail: State of the Adult Industry and what needs to… htt…
common sense, every reply you make sounds identical regardless of the subject. Idiots, low lifes, law breakers, mentally ill, broken women, men that hate women, closet gays, pedophiles, thugs, mentally ill #onlyinporn. It really sounds like you’re describing yourself. But where else could you go to ” rub elbows” with the people you detest so much? Its a good thing we have such low standards.
@ Tony, I agree with what you said. But the biggest problem porn has today is the public. In the article Addie Juniper wrote she mentioned all the different fetishes and sub fetishes out there today. Think back 15 years when dvd was still most of the porn sold and the internet was just starting to become another source of distribution. We controlled what people watched… abc porn. John Q public had those dark fantasies in the dark corners of his mind but he had a very very difficult time finding that material and so he was mostly satisfied with the abc porn. Then the internet took hold and those dark corners of the publics mind is only a few keystrokes away, they can find anything they want. We don’t have control over content anymore and I think that makes things more difficult than anything. Sure you can make money in niches, but porn studios are mostly a thing of the past.
@ Sabrina, I think I may have an idea for you. Email me or you can get my phone number from mike.
Tony, if you’re so down on the industry, why don’t you leave ?
There is plenty of talent in porn nowadays, but I feel that it has become more of a front for escorting then it has making a quality film. Then again, why would you want to spend tens of thousands of dollars making a quality porn film, only to have it pirated and stolen?
I’ll give you an example of a transcendent talent in porn right now. CARTER CRUISE. This girl is everything you could possibly ask for in a starlet and more. She is honest about things, and actually brings good ideas to the table, unlike some girls who just cry about it even though they already got their one time paycheck.
Porn will always be around, but the key nowadays are live shows. Look at numerous sites like Immoral Productions, Kink.com, CherryPimps, and while none of these sites are rolling in the dough, they are doing okay with their weekly live shows.
I will conclude by saying the escorting aspect of Porn is going nowhere. Many of these girls make 50%-80% of their income escorting and good for them. The best thing the porn industry could do is somehow work with the brothels in nevada and set up a system where the porn stars escorting is taxed and the girls are taken care of properly as opposed to being sent over to Dubai where they may never be heard from again.
http://t.co/iaE1SeSNLc
Just what we need, advice from someone who has been around for a whole 3 years and not even full time.
It used to be that some performers were escorts/prostitutes on the side,,,now, it escorts/prostitutes who do porn on the side. EVERYONE knows that the industry, actually the agents, are using porn as a kind of cover for their real business. How many agents are there now,,,remember when all the Medical Supply place scams started popping up,,,at one time along Hollywoo Bl. there were like 9 along a single two mile stretch of the street,,,,of course no one is doing anything about it,,buy the are fooling no one.
There will probably never be another porn STAR again. In hindsight I would say that Jenna Haze was probably the last porn STAR,,not crossover or anything like that,,,just a widely popular, sought after performer and a huge hit with the fans, with a ten year career. Very few girls today make it past the “Flavor of The Month” status, an very very few of todays girls will be around in ten years,,most wont be around antoher ten minutes, but thats par for the course. Speaking of par for the course I sunk about a 30 foot put on 14, chipped on from off the green on 16, and hit the longest drive of my life on 17, unfortunately it was a slicing balistic missle that went so far out of bounds I didnt even go retrieve it even though it was a brand new Titlest, dt 90,,but dang did that thing fly a mile,,with a 3 wood, I cant hit the driver, and apperantly I cant his the 3 wood to great either.
I dunno considering the state of the biz these days I consider help wherever I can get it and he is for sure right about one thing, we spend way too much time money and effort rewarding ourselves for our abject failures
BRAVO!!! I could not possibly agree with any more with this entire post. This is the attitude the industry needs to develop. The “crossover star” thing has always been complete bullshit. The only thing pornstars ever play is a stripper, escort, or a pornstar. Not really much acting there. And frankly Sasha should have stuck to porn. Not to say it can never happen (first time for everything), but as of now there are no real crossover stars. I guess James Deen would be the closest thing.
I forget who posted it on Twitter, Quasar I think, that not every girl who exits the trailer park needs to be in porn. And that seems to be the case right now — the quality of girls going severely downhill.
And the “Oscars of Porn” point…. THANK YOU. It is a complete JOKE! In my entire time in the industry I went to AVN once by choice, I was supposed to be a trophy girl one year put pulled out because Penthouse offered to pay me to go with them, pay for my room, expenses, etc… AVN wasn’t offering to pay ANY of that. They were pissed but offer nothing and my loyalty ain’t gonna be to you. The red carpet is the most ridiculous thing in the world — I’ve walked other red carpets and they go FAST! No one wants to be there! Why at AVN does everyone think they are so special they need to spend a half hour on about 100 feet of carpet? I didn’t even sit through that entire AVN, it was so poorly executed. An embarrassment. The entire show is an embarrassment. And these girls spend 3 months of income on one dress they will never have the opportunity to wear again.
With that all said, for performers the “ego” is a coping mechanism and one shouldn’t expect that to change as long as porn is somewhat of an outlaw society. That ego is all insecurity, putting up a wall, self-protection. It would be nice if everyone didn’t need that, but to expect that to change in performers is not workable at this time.
@jilted I don’t think you’re being very fair to Bree Olson or Hillary Scott, but I will not disagree that Jenna Haze was probably the last porn star that had the “it quality.” Jenna was always really good at on screen energy, and she had that young and innocent look and was able to pull it off to a tee. I’ll always remember a Jenna Haze video where the director asked her what did the cum taste like at the end. She replied, “tastes like boy.” #perfect
As for girls to look out for like I said previously Carter Cruise is going to make a huge run in 2015 and I’m calling it right now. As long as she doesn’t get a contract to work for a single company, and doesn’t get burned out she has the potential to really be a huge star.
I was just wondering, when someone in this industry wins one of these porn awards who do you thank? Your parents? do you say if it wasn’t for your mom and dad…You wouldn’t be the delusional, mentally unstable and/or lowlife criminal and/or woman hating degenerate dirtbag that You are today..
I can just hear the speech now….
Therefore, mom and dad… I certainly would have never dreamed of joining the porn industry and be co starring alongside some of the biggest vile scumbags on earth who beat the shit out of me both on and off the set while I smile and take it like the feminist trooper that I am..
Oh, I also want to thank you guys for the fact I prostitute myself on the side because I make very little money in this industry..(even though a. porn performer is a prostitute but in California apparently adding a camera means it isn’t. Lol)
oh and Shhh.. That’s a secret about the lack of money .. The industry pays me an extra 5 bucks if I lie to the public and say I make lots of money and I also have to say that this is the greatest job EVER! I have to say it’s just like any other job! Well, I don’t have to I CHOOSE to because I like to lie and I could care less about anyone or anything. If I ruin someone’s life? ain’t no big thing!!! lol!
Yeah, it’s just like any other job except for the fact that we fuck on film and get the shit beat out of us and its posted online forever so everyone can see whatever freakish act we perform…Including you guys! Proud HUH? And our chances of finding another job is slim to none. I will never be able to leave ..and if I do …like Arnold schwarzenegger says…I’ll be back if not it’s probably because I’m dead.
No we in the industry don’t talk about that…. But the real joke is on us because everyone in the public who is thinking clearly already knows this stuff but We in the industry are too delusional to understand that as We spread our propaganda around…
Oh, mom and dad? even prostituting, oh and camming ( another great job that’s not prostitution LOL!) I am still poor and I have to beg people for money online every chance I get..as a matter of fact, the only thing I and the others really get out of these job are lots of Bruises, name calling and lots and lots of STDS.. Oh, and let’s not forget Loser boyfriends who don’t work and live off our meager wages….One girl has to even pay for her boyfriend/husbands wig.. He works on some blog TR something…
Yep, and just to be able to function and be able to look in the mirror at ourselves we have to drink and smoke pot among other things everyday! We in the industry can live without a lot of things but booze and pot aren’t two of them. They are a MUST HAVE!
Lastly, thanks again, mom and dad.. for if it wasn’t for you guys I wouldn’t have this great life and be standing here today collecting this worthless award for best double penetration sex scene. Thanks.. I love you.. You’re the greatest? *standing ovation*
A sad but TRUE story Written by common sense. 🙂
@commonsense you thank Mark Spiegler.
Right now his girls dominate these awards. And it’s not even close.
As long as the gals don’t thank mom for being the role model they try to live up to, or thank Dad for teaching them everything they know, we’re probably OK.
Jenna Jameson was probably the last adult star, in that classic sense. Maybe Jesse Jane. Someone who had people on the edge of their seats, or keyboards, waiting for their next scene.
There are no stars today and there will probably never be stars again. There are sensations who embody someone’s jerk-off fantasy until someone else comes along. Even someone like Bree shined pretty brightly for awhile – but I guarantee you she’s long forgotten by most porn fans. If she made a come back today, she’d just be in the mix at Brazzers or Naughty America. There are just too many girls, too many scenes, too many niches, too many websites, too many of everything for one girl to be a star.
Actually, probably never thought I’d say this, because he’s a dude, but I think James Deen is the closest thing the industry has to a bona fide star today.
BT that speaks VOLUMES I think….
Thats a good point BT, but that also has to do with the fact that James Deen has been around almost as long as anyone in this industry at this point.
I think the root reason why many of these girls can never make it over that super-stardom hump is because they retire so early. Most girls have a shelf life of like 2 years at most, some are done after a couple of months.
This is pushing it. For me personally. I kind of want to analyze your life now; I have a degree to that end. Whatcha say?
I wrote over a year ago,that james deen being the biggest star in the industry was a testament to the death of the industry. How fucking funny is this, really?
yeah, It’s hilarious. I LOVE how this joke of an industry puts this woman hating, human piece of excrement, Deen, out there as also being extremely popular with women (I don’t know one woman who likes or can stomach that piece of shits face) and say that he is oh soooooooo popular in mainstream. Lol. Yeah right! he made some shitty movie that no one went to see and it was the biggest flop ever.. thats how popular he is with the public… And he hasn’t done anything in mainstream since….but that’s ok..because According to Deen he doesn’t want to work in mainstream.. He just LOVES working in the porn industry OH SOOOOOOOO MUCH.. Why he is just turning all those mainstream roles down.. Lol!!! More lies the so called talent loves to spew. The truth is he ain’t getting any offers.. No big celebrity is going to star with a porn performer especially a POS who promotes and glorifies violence against women..
Oh, and its also hilarious watching him act all tough and beating up on the unstable women who film scenes with him in this industry. This loser looks like a concentration camp survivor ..he’s about 5’5, 130lbs. I am POSTIVE that any woman in the real world could beat the living shit out of him..LMFAO!!! So bizarre. #onlyinporn
@commonsense
You are getting worse and worse. Now you start calling people names. If you think someone is dumb, feel free, but calling ppl piece of shit…you sound like one of those girl you call mentally unstable on Twitter calling each other names over who’s dressed better…This is not my blog and i’m always against any kind of censorship, but honestly it starts feeling like you are just here to troll and derail interesting conversation without adding anything to it. It makes it hard to follow the discussion when every two comments there is one of your crazy name-calling rants. Respect should never come less, even in disagreement. Get a tabor, a camomile, some sex…
@CommonSense
To echo SabrinaDeep sentiments …Or your own blog to showcase the byline you tacked onto comment.
The amount and extent of your derogatory belittling demeaning attacks (individual & wholesale) begs the question of why you bother trying to couch them in occaisionally brilliant insightful witty phrasing.
Regardless I have no use for anyone casting the stones that have become your trademark.