Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Twitter has become a way for adult film stars to define themselves

Social media is helping the industry go mainstream, experts say

Many porn stars post mundane or funny tweets about their everyday lives

'Twitter is like an instant focus group,' says a social media strategist in the industry

Denver (CNN) -- Once relegated to sleazy red-light districts and the darker corners of the Internet, porn stars are now gaining followings in a surprising place: Twitter. They are using the social media site to engage directly with their fans and build their individual brands

"Twitter has opened up these porn stars fan bases like nothing the adult film industry has ever seen before," said Dan Miller, managing editor of XBiz, an adult industry trade publication. "Since most mainstream pop culture publications don't cover the porn industry (and) porn movie reviews don't generally appear alongside reviews of big Hollywood movies ... the adult industry has embraced Twitter as a way to reach out directly to fans beyond the typical porn consumer."

Miller estimates that 90% of porn performers are on Twitter, and he believes it is essential for new performers to use social media effectively to promote themselves and build their "brand."

Porn stars showcase all-American success?

"If you're not on Twitter, you are definitely at a disadvantage right out of the gate," he said.

Alexander Raymond Palumbo was one of the first executives in the adult entertainment business to embrace social media, first on Friendster, then Myspace and now on Twitter.

"Via our social media platforms like Twitter I'm trying to establish brand loyalty, like people have for a company like Disney," said Palumbo, a social media strategist at Digital Playground, an adult movie production company.

Palumbo holds seminars for adult movie actors, helping them set up their accounts and guiding them on how to tweet in a way that will connect them to their audience by engaging directly with fans and showing some of their personal sides to their followers.

"I try to instill in performers that you should let people know who you are, invite them into your interaction," he said.

Palumbo begins his work day by logging onto Twitter to gauge reaction from the fans to his company's movies and performers. If viewers of a new movie trailer tweet that there is too much emphasis on male characters, Palumbo will make a call to the edit department asking for changes.

"Twitter is like an instant focus group," explained Palumbo. "It's not going to go away, it is the future. From our company's point of view, it's pure customer service."

Social media is profoundly changing the porn business, according to Chauntelle Tibbals, a visiting scholar at University of Southern California who studies the porn industry.

"Before it was about pure fantasy: you didn't have enough information to be real fans of performers," she said. "But now you can become a true fan of a porn star."

The performers who are successful on Twitter are the ones who open themselves up and share parts of their non-professional life with fans, allowing followers a window into their off-camera personalities.

"That kind of interaction is something you don't see mainstream celebrities doing to the same degree," according to Tibbals. "You don't see Angelina Jolie tweeting directly to people."

Many of the performers are surprisingly funny, smart and engaging on Twitter. While they all promote their movies, most focus more on their hobbies, current events and personal lives.

"You are seeing a different kind of relationship that a viewer has with a porn performer," Tibbals said. "One of the things that comes with social media is the deconstruction of stereotypes."

Social media has the power to change how the public views porn stars, according to Tibbals, and it may ultimately make porn more mainstream and socially acceptable.


Here are a few of the most popular porn stars on Twitter right now:

James Deen is arguably the hottest male performer in the porn industry. At 26 years old, he has already appeared in over 1,200 movies.

Sasha Grey made her entrance in the pornographic film industry just after she had turned 18. By 21, she had become a veteran and won several Adult Video News awards. Then in 2008, Steven Soderberg cast Grey in the feature film "The Girlfriend Experience." Since then she has starred in "Smash Cut," modeled for American Apparel, started her own industrial music group and even had a brief supporting role in "Entourage" in 2010. In April 2011, Grey announced her retirement from porn and is scheduled to appear in several upcoming films.

Ron Jeremy, also known as "The Hedgehog," is considered one of the most successful porn stars in the industry. Adult Video News even named him the No. 1 porn star of all time. While Jeremy holds the Guinness World Record for starring in more than 2,000 adult films, he has also starred in mainstream movies such as "The Boondock Saints" and "The Chase." In 2008, he released a book about his career, "The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz: Horny Women, Hollywood Nights & The Rise of the Hedgehog!" He recently spoke with CNN about his return to work after a heart scare.

Before Jenna Jameson starred in her first pornographic film in 1993, she had been a dancer at a strip club and had posed in Hustler, Penthouse and Cheri. By 1996, she had become a well-known star and got a minor role in Howard Stern's feature film "Private Parts." Since then, this former "queen of porn" has done guest voice-over work for "Family Guy" and has released a New York Times best-selling autobiography and created a horror comic book.

Traci Lords was underage when she appeared in her first pornographic movie. She went on to make more than 100 adult films by the time she was 18 and even stripped for Penthouse magazine. Lords was eventually arrested and many of her "hits" became illegal. She left the industry and would go on to appear B-movies and TV shows such as "Roseanne," "Melrose Place," "Married... With Children," "MacGyver" and "Gilmore Girls." Lords also had roles in movies "Virtuosity" and "Blade."

Jenna Haze broke into the pornography industry in 2001 at the age of 19. She went on to win numerous adult film awards, including multiple female performer of the year awards. In 2007 Haze had a small role in "Superbad" and then launched her own production company in 2009. She announced her retirement in 2012 and recently appeared in a photo shoot for FHM magazine with Taylor Momsen.

Ginger Lynn got her start in pornographic movies in the mid-1980s. Around the early '90s, she quit and made appearances in several B-movies and mainstream ones such as "Young Guns II" with Keifer Sutherland and Emilio Estevez. Then in 1999, Lynn returned to the adult film industry and starred in a porn film with James Deen in 2008. She has been ranked No. 7 in Adult Video News' greatest porn stars of all time list.