Pornhub Continues Its March to the Mainstream as Streaming Stars Make Fashion Week Debut
The YouTube of porn is a privately owned behemoth. Now fashion brands are seeking to cash in on the brand’s ubiquity.
Ethan Miller
Pornhub’s march to the mainstream continues with the news that performers on the site are to walk the New York Fashion Week runway for the first time.
Page Six reports that porn stars made famous by the “YouTube of Porn,” including Asa Akira, Marica Hase and Jade Kush (note, these may not be the names they were given at birth), are set to strut their stuff in a show Sunday for Berlin designers Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl of Namilia.
The designers’ collection is called Herotica, and the designers say their runway guests are a feminist statement.
“The cosmos of sexual pleasure has been restricted to a few boring and chauvinistic narratives for the pleasure of the male gaze,” Li told Page Six, “Porn isn’t something existentially male. Most women just have been excluded from determining the narrative.”
The arrival of porn stars in the once-exclusive environs of Fashion Week is just the latest evidence of the porn giant’s increasingly successful quest to conquer the mainstream.
Last year, more people (141 million) voted for their favorite videos on Pornhub than voted in the 2016 U.S. presidential election (139 million).
Since at least 2014, the company has pursued a strategy of marketing itself to the mainstream via “SFW” ad campaigns, including billboards in Times Square and tongue-in-cheek Christmas ads.
Last year, former Disney Channel star Bella Thorne directed a pornographic take on Romeo and Juliet for the site entitled Her & Him, which featured music from Thorne’s ex-boyfriend, the rapper Mod Sun.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version incorrectly stated the ownership of Pornhub. It is owned by Luxembourg-based international tech company, MindGeek. Our apologies.