Redditor I-Fap-2-Drawings — let’s call him Frank — used to regularly share Pornhub videos on Facebook. Perhaps a matter of connecting with people outside of his small conservative town in Kansas, the 24-year-old explains that he’d post them to private groups dedicated to the specific genre or pornography.
“At first, it wasn’t a big deal,” he tells me. “I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else seeing the content. But at one point in like 2014, they changed the site, and suddenly, random people on your friend list could see photos you liked, or things you shared to groups even if they weren’t in the groups.”
Unfortunately for Frank, it took him about two weeks to notice this change, despite a “mass exodus” of friends that he couldn’t explain. “Finally, someone in my group text complained,” he tells me. “They said they were tired of all the anime girl feet pics I was sharing.”
“The revelation,” Frank continues, “was a nightmare.”
But while he was sure to stop using Facebook, he still continues to share any piece of pornography that strikes his fancy without a second thought. “Not much goes through my mind when I share,” he says. “It’s a normal activity.”
Sex gifs
— Dean Norris (@deanjnorris) May 23, 2018
There are, no doubt, millions of Franks out there. Pornhub doesn’t publicize its data on social media shares, but its team did leak some intel during a 2014 Reddit AMA. In response to a question about how many people actually share their videos, the company’s VP of Product Brett Hall responded, “Thousands a day. You would be surprised. We get millions of social traffic visits a month.”
When another redditor asked how many share from LinkedIn specifically, Hall responded with a screenshot:
Pornhub didn’t respond to my request for an updated number, but if 15 shares to LinkedIn accounted for 0 percent of its monthly social shares in 2014, we can assume the numbers remain high. Not to mention, the share buttons are still there.
“People joke about it, but it’s the most efficient way to ask for sauce,” Frank says, referring to any attempt to identify the “source” of a clip he’s found. “If you come across a random clip, ad, image or anything and don’t recognize the actor, you could end up spending a lot of time trying to find out, especially if reverse-image search doesn’t give you anything substantial.”
Pornhub doesn’t have a Facebook share button — perhaps because Facebook blocks any and all direct links to any porn site — but there are still plenty of other social media platforms that can deliver the sauce. Whether it’s Reddit, 4chan, Twitter or Discord, Frank says he can post a clip and get all the particulars he’s looking for “within minutes.” “Especially on 4chan,” he tells me, “the coomers are incredibly fast. I once got a link in 10 seconds after having spent almost an hour searching on my own.”
For Ben, a 25-year-old in California, this becomes a masturbatory ecosystem all to its own. Seeing porn on secondary sources is a good way to separate the wheat from the chaff, he says. “Instead of searching almost an hour for the perfect porn video on Pornhub,” he explains, “I can go to various platforms where people who match my porn preferences have shared their favorite videos.”
Feeling indebted to their bravery, Ben says he’ll “return the favor by pressing share on Pornhub too.” “People assume that the share button is only for friends and family,” he continues, “but that isn’t the case. People like me share porn on other porn platforms.”
To that end, some people hit share on porn just to save it for later. “Sometimes I share the video to a private account, which can be a good way to save the link in order for me to get back to it in a short time,” writes redditor DanteNoZyro. Others, meanwhile, are simply fans of the actors in the scene, and view it as a way of supporting them.
Ultimately, though, some guys do, in fact, want to share porn with their buddies (typically via Discord, WhatsApp, text or group chats). “It feels like an odd act of charity,” Frank says, “like making a contribution to a friend’s spank bank.”
Tony, a 29-year-old in the U.K., hits share on various porn sites for the same reason. He and about eight of his friends have a group chat where porn is shared on a daily basis. “It isn’t that big of a deal,” he tells me, adding that they share other things, too. “[We comment with] stuff along the lines of, ‘Yeah, that was dope.’ There’s almost always someone rating it, and sometimes there’s a bit of conversation about how ridiculous some scenes can be.”
Frank knows that smashing the share button on porn “seems weird to some people,” but he argues that it’s just as good a way to make new friends as any other. “A lot of friendships spark when you share porn,” he says. “You talk to a guy in a subreddit or in a cam-show chat a few times, and you end up playing a video game together or something. Then boom! You have a cool homie that you share foot porn with sometimes.”
Quinn Myers
Quinn Myers is a staff writer at MEL. He reports on internet culture, technology, health, masculinity and the communities that flourish within.
