Once upon a time porn stars usually dated other porn stars. Civilians, they’d say, can’t deal with the life of a porn star partner. (Unless the civilian was also their drug dealer, of course.) Then came rock stars and wrestlers. I was once, in the late 1990s, assigned to escort old school porn star Tonisha Mills during her feature performance at a Manhattan strip club. That got me a lot of free drinks from fans when we went to the bar across the street between her on-stage shows. I hoped that if I stayed up long enough it would turn into other bennies from dancers I chatted with and invited to party with us in her hotel room later. But the 3 a.m. dark night of the soul arrived and an entourage of pro wrestler friends of Tonisha showed up at the club. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up with this crowd so I passed the baton. SHIFT CHANGE! After all, I had to work the next morning.
Recently a new romantic partner for the female porn star has emerged: the alt-bro YouTube pod/video-caster. Maybe “alt-bro” isn’t the right word? I’m talking about dudes in their twenties and early thirties who are a bit like frat guys (well, they say “dude” a lot) but much cooler, who aren’t in college. They’re athletic but not in the conventional way; they are skateboard champs, MMA boxers, BMX bikers. They have lots of tattooes, dress casual and wear hoodies and lots of logo-bearing t-shirts. Most importantly they are solid entrepreneurs who can combine their publicity and programming talents with a girlfriend’s career to create a mutually-enriching, highly viral phenomenon.
YouTube personality Adam22 recently introduced a premium feature for his popular show “No Jumper.” In each episode of “Plug Talk” he and his fiancé Lena Nersesian (known professionally as Lena The Plug) interview an adult film star and then have sex with their guest. The sex part of the show is only available on their OnlyFans channel. Their first guest was adult superstar Adriana Chechik. The couples’ close relations with their guests makes for some very intimate and fascinating revelations by the porn stars and the sex (at least in the shows I’ve seen so far) is very hot. In this first show, Adriana reported that she makes out with all of her fans at shows (note to self: buy EXXOTICA tix!), even during these days of COVID! Lena, who was visibly pregnant during this episode gave birth to their daughter in mid-November.
38-year-old Adam John Grandmaison (AKA Adam22) grew up riding BMX bikes and loving hip-hop. The future title of his show, “No Jumper” comes from a line in a Gucci Mane song: “I’m ballin’ like an athlete but got no Jumper.” After being a blog on Tumblr, “No Jumper” became a YouTube podcast in 2015, devoted to covering below the radar hip-hop. Rolling Stone named Adam “underground hip-hop’s major tastemaker.” [1]https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/meet-adam22-underground-hip-hops-major-tastemaker-203781
The world of underground rappers who often release tracks only on Soundcloud was covered in a 2017 NY Times article that references Adam’s key involvement in the scene. [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/arts/music/soundcloud-rap-lil-pump-smokepurrp-xxxtentacion.html:
Its stars are internet celebrities, fashioning themselves into outlandish characters in the anime that is modern hip-hop: the theatrical Florida tag team Smokepurpp and Lil Pump (who perform solo, and also together as Gucci Gang); the anguished heartthrob Lil Peep; the problematic outlaw XXXTentacion. The aesthetic is high-end streetwear meets high fashion, with face tattoos, hair dyed in wild colors and a prescription-drug ooze. The music is low-fidelity and insistent, throbbing with distorted bass, like trap music reduced over a hot fire to its rawest component parts.
–NY Times June 22, 2017 [3]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/arts/music/soundcloud-rap-lil-pump-smokepurrp-xxxtentacion.html
In that same year Adam22 made his first appearance in a porn clip with Lena, an Instagram influencer and porn actress he was dating then. That led to adult star friends of theirs like Riley Reid being interviewed on the show. It became obvious quickly that Adam and Lena were partying and having threesomes with most of the porn guests.
In one outrageous episode of “No Jumper,” Instagram model Celina Powell‘s friend Aliza blithely admitted to having sex with seven members of an NBA team in a hotel room. Celina later performed sex in an episode of Adam’s “Plug Talk” show.
Jake and Logan Paul are brothers in their mid-twenties who grew up in Ohio and became involved in the worlds of entertainment and boxing. Both cruiserweights, Logan fought some amateur rounds but his younger brother Jake is a professional, currently with a 4-0 record. Julia Rose, co-publisher of the adult entertainment digital publication “Shag Mag” and co-host of the YouTube show, “The Sh*tshow“, has dated Jake Paul on and off in the past few years.
Logan Paul hosts a popular YouTube podcast called “Impaulsive.” After many bad pranks and stunts that damaged his reputation, in 2018 he hired Mike Majlak, a former marketing manager at LoveSac, a manufacturer of large bean bag chairs, to help polish his reputation. This led to Mike becoming a co-anchor of the show.
Majlak’s winning combination of good natured charm and marketing acumen boosted the show’s numbers. He also began dating adult superstar Lana Rhoades. Known for her striking bedroom eyes and smoldering performances, Lana was a top performer in the industry who retired in 2021. She has appeared with Majlak on “Impaulsive” and Mike has also been a guest on shows like “No Jumper” and “The Sh*tshow” to discuss life with Lana.
These partnerships between alt-bro YouTube podcasters and porn stars have produced some of the best and most revealing interviews with adult film stars ever. We will be following this fascinating intersection of talents closely.
Have we missed anyone? Is “alt-bro” an accurate or inaccurate description of these podcasters? What do you think about this phenomenon? Post your thoughts on our twitter feed!
