The Daily Dot recently released — according to press material — its “prestigious list of porn stars that everyone should be following” on Instagram.
“30 Porn Stars on Instagram You Should Be Following” is part of The Daily Dot’s “Guides” feature. And though the site goes on and on about how “popular Instagram porn stars aren’t trying to use the platform for dirty GIFs” and that even though “you wouldn’t think that you’d be able to follow your favorite porn stars on Instagram” because the “photo platform is notoriously prude when it comes to adult content” — implying you are getting wholesome, multifaceted content on these accounts — they themselves still bother to mark the post as NSFW. Go figure.
The lede waxes poetic about how adult stars have adapted to the social media platform. Instead of posting hardcore or even implied sexual GIFs and photos, members of the adult industry community are using Insta to post SFW photos and stories that bring fans into their daily lives.
They wrote: The fact is that pornstars are household names like never before. Many travel back and forth between porn and Hollywood, book publishing and social media deals, and interviews with mainstream media. Some have starring roles in television shows. Former porn stars like Sasha Grey go on to publish a series of successful novels. Current stars like Dani Daniels launch products and paint on the side.
In spite of what’s probably good intentions, this list does still draw lines between the “us” and “them” of mainstream and adult. In attempting to point out that, in addition to unconventional jobs, performers also do regular ol’ this-and-that, the site manages to sustain a narrative that seems to think a member of the adult community writing a book is somehow “unexpected.”
Regardless, let’s see who made the clickbait list — including #18 Nikki Delano, whose press announcement is how I learned about this piece in the first place!
1. Sunny Leone
2. Mia Khalifa
3. Gianna Nicole
4. Lana Rhoades
5. Sophie Dee
6. Kendra Lust
7. Alexis Texas
8. Nikki Benz
9. Christy Mack
10. Lisa Ann
I don’t want to give the whole thing away, so if you want to know who ranked on the rest of the list, go take a look.
One thing I do have to point out though is this: At the time of writing this post (November 24), The Daily Dot’s list actually goes to 33 instead of 30. Also, I found the callousness of the #32 entry to be extremely inappropriate. It also speaks to my assessment of clickbait: Just talk about porn! People will click, there’s no reason to know anything about the people we are listing.
32. August Ames
…and so it goes.
Screengrabs by YNOT taken November 24.
