Amid moody Lana Del Rey lyrics and digital “Polaroids” lived a mecca of diverse gay porn on Tumblr. The endless erotic blogs were an alternative to the staid, oppressively white videos by more mainstream studios like Sean Cody and Broke Straight Boys. Tumblr offered porn for every kink or fetish from feet to armpit licking to even basketball shorts.
Then, in December 2018, the grunts and groans fell silent across Tumblr. The site’s overloads issued a devastating wipe of all adult content, shutting down NSFW accounts left and right. Tumblr porn had finally climaxed, and Tumblr’s fatal decision still haunts them as 30 percent of web traffic fell in just four months.
As for gay porn bloggers, one who went by the Tumblr handle of Cockdays tells me, “I was really sad after the ban because people used Tumblr as a way of expression, not only through porn but through art and other things that are now considered NSFW.”
But worry not, because the world of amateur gay porn is chirping once again. Twitter, in fact, has been erected as its new go-to home, serving as a melting pot of Tumblr refugees, OnlyFans stars and horny-on-main users. Case in point: Nearly a year later and now fully on Twitter, Cockdays goes by @MALEXAFFECTION and doesn’t miss a thing. “I’m happy here,” he says. “I wouldn’t go back honestly.” Meanwhile, @cocks4cocks already has 115,000 followers since moving over from Tumblr. He hasn’t changed his formula either, still sharing content he finds “SO HOT” or “UGH always worth a retweet .” (This all makes sense as Twitter has always been a place where anything goes — including, unfortunately, all forms of hate — while Instagram and Facebook are quick to censor any queer content, even queer history foundations.)
“The gay porn Twitter community is — for the most part — very uplifting and powerful,” Cock4Cocks says, adding that it’s also easier to interact with his followers on Twitter than Tumblr, and that the porn that appears on his timeline is a little more diverse, too.
Better yet, old Tumblr accounts are finding more followers than they ever did in their old stomping grounds (even if they’d been established there for a decade or more). For instance, Canadian porn blogger Topper couldn’t reach 500 followers on Tumblr, but on Twitter, he’s garnered nearly 11,000 followers in under a year. “Twitter not only brought me a wider audience, but also some true friends. That was a really great surprise,” he says. One guy has even become a pseudo-brother. “We talk every day, and he knows more about my life than many people I grew up with.”
Moreover, Twitter combines nudity with humor. Some of the most popular porn accounts there are original content creators testing out jokes about being a tall bottom, reviewing PSL poppers or even advocating for presidential candidates.
tall bottoms act like ur sisters in the struggle and will be the first to jump on the man you were locking eyes with all night yeah i SAID it
— ty mitchell (@TyMitchellXXX) January 5, 2019
But above all, they’re building their brands. To that end, almost all of the Twitter porn stars who set out to make money do so through OnlyFans or JustForFans accounts. They’re the “hustle-porn” version of, well, porn, where users create individual accounts, completely control the content they put out into the world and directly profit from it.
“I don’t think I’d do as well on Tumblr,” popular OnlyFans star and Twitter personality DamagedBttm tells me. On Tumblr, he couldn’t easily go viral with self-promotion. On Twitter, however, he’s able to show off his personality and his dick through endless retweets. “I’ve always been a Twitter gay, so I’m happy it’s become the home.”
Happy October pic.twitter.com/TyqjfLoUkN
— God is a Bottom (@DamagedBttm) October 1, 2019
Could it be then that gay porn is the very thing that could save Twitter? That’s obviously an impossible ask, but it’s a start — and the move from Tumblr to Twitter has certainly re-charged the gay porn community. “You don’t have to have a six-pack, show your face or have a big dick to have a big following,” nudist and OnlyFans star @ThatYogaFvcker says. “It turns out people really aren’t into the same things at all.”
Joseph Longo
Joseph Longo is a culture and entertainment journalist whose work has appeared in The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly and more. He's still trying to understand what it means to be a Gemini Rising.
