The Secrets of Porn Pay

0:02Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rusters Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm very well. We had a discussion on our member show about David Hasselhoff and the Berlin Wall. And we were sort of supposed to be talking about whether David Hasselhoff brought down the Berlin Wall. But actually, our biggest argument was about whether David Hasselhoff had a mullet or not. Remind me what side I was on. You said that he did not have a mullet. And I said that he did have a mullet. we have a letter from a viewer that I think proves us both right it's from Sarah Breitenbach which is she's saying I see that in the rest of the world that would count as a mullet she says in Germany though the home of the mullet that is definitively not a mullet so it would not pass for a mullet in Germany which is what we were talking about the context in which we were talking as you suspected yeah you did say at the time didn't you I'm just talking in a German context here but I still think in the rest of the world that counts as a mullet thank you sarah for uh clearing that up for us i i am also very grateful as you can imagine now we're going to move straight on richard because a lot of people are have asked about kylie's christmas number one yeah and i'm the one we're just going to go with is nicola's question who says how did she manage to get the christmas number one this year i've hardly heard her song on the radio and the charts are full of christmas classics so it appears to have bucked the trend yes and i think i had very confidently said that christmas number one is not going to be of any interest ever again because it's going to be wham every year and I'm immediately proved wrong so Nicola had a very close look into it the actual answer is quite prosaic which is the Christmas number one was decided at midnight on the 18th of December so that was the final point at which any song being streamed or bought counted for the Christmas chart because the charts come out on a friday and so the previous christmas day was on a thursday this year and so actually the chart that came out on boxing day was the chart that contained all of the sales and all of the streaming for the 19th december 20th december 21st 22nd 23rd 24th and 25th which is when streaming goes absolutely crazy and actually the end of the 18th is the last possible moment you could still have a Christmas number one.

2:27So she brought it out in a week where we were definitely streaming lots of those old classics, but not in the way that we do in Christmas week. So it was the softest week you could possibly have. The last time that there was that much delay, that the last time the 18th became Christmas number one, because of leap years and stuff, it was 2010. So it hasn't happened that big delay for 15 years. So it's that if you were going to have a Christmas number one that wasn't a traditional one that was the the time to do it how did they do it well it's on amazon music and so the streaming numbers on amazon well they're you know there's lots of other streaming platforms but they are very very very big and of course amazon want that to be number one and so that's on the top of every single amazon playlist and that's you know sent into everyone's inbox on amazon there are lots of traditional sales as well because they wanted to go all out and get a number one for kylie you know she was on strictly all of these things but by the way they do this every year you know tom grennan's song went top three his christmas song that was an amazon music exclusive sam riders one as well kylie i think they had the right person and they had this very very very soft week which is not going to happen again for another 11 years i think or something like that this was the week if you were ever going to beat wham that was the week the chart that came out on boxing day which as i say is the chart that actually contains the whole of the christmas week as we would know it there's just it's a statistical anomaly that that wasn't christ that we're not talking about this is christmas number one but number one number two number three were exactly the same as last year wham mariah carey brenda lee kylie had gone down to number four in that week lullaby for palestine which was number five in the Christmas number one chart had gone down to number 58 so it was that week they threw absolutely everything they had at trying to get a number one thank god for the you know history of number one that they managed it I think so I think it's a very healthy and a very great thing to do but yeah it's not something I think they'll be able to replicate next year I think you might be able to get quite decent odds on wham next year because they got beaten this year there is a sort of national treasure moment thing where you suddenly feel like lots of her appearances were kind of weighted towards oh you've got this new thing coming you've got the single coming and it's tied to the 10th anniversary re-release of her christmas album all that sort of stuff at the same time it didn't feel like a stunt like we've got to save christmas number ones or anything like that which i do think people find it quite annoying that's certainly true that lots of stars aligned but definitively she's number one because it was sales in the week leading up to the 18th of December.

5:16Funnily enough, in that chart, the Christmas number one week, in the Boxing Day chart, the whole top 20, I think the whole top 26 are Christmas songs. Every single one of them is a Christmas song, which is how these days it always is a Christmas. The top 20 is always Christmas songs. But in that week, the Kylie week, there were five non-Christmas songs in the top 20, which is absolutely unheard of these days. Again, because it wasn't quite the Christmas week. So Dave was in the top 10, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean were up there. Olivia Dean had another song in the top 20, Taylor Swift was in there.

5:47So there were five non-Christmas songs in that top 20, which tells you it wasn't quite Christmas week. So absolute fair play to Kylie for launching that song at exactly the right song, at exactly the right time, and for finally making Christmas number one exciting again. It's a calendar thing. And I've spent so much, I had so much fun the last few days looking back over the last 20 years of what day was this, what day was that. And the last day, there's a 19th of December chart. Charts were done on Sundays anyway, so it's completely different. So yeah, 2010 was the last time we had this much gap between the Christmas number one being announced and Christmas.

6:29I love that. Very interesting. Okay. I have a question for you, Marina, from George Rose. George says, I once read that Richard Curtis thought that Will Ferrell deserved an Oscar nomination for his performance as Elf. I was wondering what comedy performances you think should have been nominated or won an Oscar in the past. Well, this is true. People always feel that comedy is completely unappreciated by the Academy who take themselves frightfully seriously and can't nominate a comedy performance. And there's a lot, there's so much truth in that. Certainly can't actually award a comedy performance.

7:01there have been you know quite a few for supporting but for leading actors in no sort of special order but I'll get to my probably my favorites at the very end but that you know Jim Carrey in the Truman show a lot of people thanks I mean I don't particularly care for Jim Carrey's performances just it's a matter of taste he was feels just about to appear before the after the epithet rubber-faced funny man however the Truman Show is a pretty amazing performance and it's sort of ridiculous that he didn't get no I mean I love Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebars I suppose there's less perhaps there's less range in that but for me something like Bill Murray in both Groundhog Day and Lost in Translation but brilliant but particularly in Groundhog Day it's a brilliant performance that's a pure comedy as well a very broad comedy it's a pure comedy Eddie Murphy in Trading Places some people are nominated but they don't win I mean I find it extraordinary that you You know, Peter Sellers lost out for Dr.

8:00Strangelove to Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, which is kind of like that's really like, you know, actor in a musical comedy. I mean, I suppose Jack Lemmon and some like it hot. People have been nominated, people like often in the supporting category, like Melissa McCarthy and Bridesmaids. Something like Sense and Sensibility. Again, Emma Thompson won for the best Oscar for the screenplay of that, which she wrote, which is brilliant. But she almost doesn't make it look like a comedy performance, but it absolutely is. and it's holding, it's a big part of the glue that holds that together. But she makes it look so easy that you almost don't realise you're watching it.

8:32I'd probably say, gearing up for my major two, I know a lot of people don't have a huge amount of love for him in the business, but I have to say that Sacha Baron Cohen for Borat, that's improvised acting and you're doing it in often relatively perilous situations. And the Academy simply wouldn't know what to do with that at all. He should, in my view, I think it was incredibly impressive to pull that off over so many different scenarios and to be improvising all the time and to stay in character and actually be in sort of tricky situations. So that, but my two big ones are Renée Zellweger for Bridget Jones's Diary, the original.

9:13I think it's an absolutely faultless, faultless comic performance. She's more British than the British. That is brilliant. I think I want to say she lost to Halle Berry for who got it for Monster's Ball, which is a pretty forgettable film. Now we don't ever talk about Monster's Ball anymore. I really think that that is an amazing performance. And again, you can see where the Academy likes to go. The person who lost to Ben Kingsley for Gandhi was Dustin Hoffman for Tootsie. How he didn't get it for that. I find that. I mean, obviously, Ben Kingsley, it's a brilliant performance, etc. And it's a very serious film, etc.

9:49I think Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, that's one of my all-time great comic performances. And it has such range for obvious reasons because, you know, the nature of the story. I think it's brilliant. That would have got one for me. I think that's a really good question. Makes you think as well. But, yeah, I mean, the idea that it's almost beyond any doubt whatsoever that Christopher Guest is never going to win an Oscar. Oh, yeah. Seems extraordinary. Sorry, there's plenty there that I would, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. There's so many that I've kind of overlooked or there just isn't time to mention them all.

10:21But yes, they've got a serious problem that they can't bear to think that this is proper acting, which is ridiculous because it's in almost all cases much, much harder than, you know, playing a, you know, I don't know, 1940s diplomat and looking sad. Certainly fewer people can do it. I will say that. Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin. Yeah, there you go. Come on. Yeah. Over the whole film. Anyway, we could go on all day. Let's go for a break, shall we? Now, when we come back, we've had a fair few recorded answers from specialists in their fields on this podcast. I think we might have the most famous one yet.

11:01It is a great honour. Yeah, it's a big name answering a small question for you. See you after the break. See you after the break.

11:14Hello, everyone. This is an exciting one. actually genuinely exciting. To celebrate the launch of the new series of The Traitors, you know how much we love it. We are giving you and a friend the chance to get a taste of the ultimate game of deception and tactics, that is the live traitors. If you sign up to our free newsletter by visiting therestersentertainment.com, you will be automatically entered into our competition to win two tickets to The Traitors' live experience in central London. You'll be able to take your seat at the round table, complete missions to build the prize pot, and of course find and eliminate who you think are the traitors.

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12:13welcome back everybody now we tease you just for the break that we've got a very very famous question answerer now uh annie lishman if you that's not the person that's who's asked the question annie lishman if you are listening you asked us a question and you thought maybe just marina or i were going to answer it but uh but we're not so marina when you tell us what annie lishman's question is and then uh we can tell everyone who has answered it for her well annie very helpfully asked how do actors in motion capture films get into character when there's no set and costume good question right yeah very good we have a video answer from james cameron the legendary director but most particularly relevant in this case because of course he presides over avatar well this is a great question so all right you're acting in a performance capture volume there's no set well there is a set that supports you and like ramps and things like out to be tree branches and so on because you can't climb up on pixels.

13:12So we build a rudimentary set, but it's not visually the world. And so what we do is we give the actors everything they physically need in order to be able to do the scene. So if you're going to touch something, if you're going to climb on something, if you need a vine to get up a trail, that sort of thing, they don't wear costumes per se, but that's because they're not wearing very much, because they're Navi in a tropical rainforest. But if somebody needs a cloak or a cape or a weapon or a knife or a belt or something like that for character, we always give them what they need. For example, Sigourney Weaver playing Kiri, she wanted to be sort of pulled away from everybody and kind of withdrawn, so she asked for a shawl that she could kind of huddle in as a disaffected teenager.

14:01we created a shawl. Now, why wouldn't we just normally put her in a shawl? Well, because we can't cover up the markers. So we have to create something that's non-occluding, which means that it was a very open net mesh. And so, you know, there's a little bit of a dance with the technical requirements of performance capture. But usually we give the actors everything they need. And if they have an idea and they want something, we'll create that. because it's a very give and take creative space. I think of it as a kind of infinite space because within that volume, we can do anything we can imagine.

14:39So interesting. And for those who don't know, a volume is a sort of 360 degree screen that is around you and things can be either played on it or anything can be placed around it because he doesn't have to shoot lots of different coverage because the cameras are everywhere. In a way, it's almost more like being in a place. So rather than stopping and starting all the time, you're sometimes putting everything into just one scene and not having to do little bits of close up and coverage and things like that. So in some ways, there's a chance to be more immersive in those things than having to be much more sort of technically precise.

15:14It seems kind of paradoxical in something that is so kind of technologically based, that type of filmmaking. But equally, they have a chance to sort of just be in the moment much more than in some ways you might on a much more conventional, conventionally shot film. But how about that, Annie? James Cameron. Marina, from the Sublime to something else. Miles has a question for you. Miles has a question which starts, sorry. So you always know it's going to be a good one. Miles says, sorry about this, but I'm only asking because none of these other cowards will. In the age of free streaming, how on earth does adult entertainment make money?

15:48Who's paying these people? To answer that question, James Cameron. Okay. Sex changed the internet, and then the internet sort of changed sex, And it's definitely true, as you say, that free streaming of adult entertainment and porn killed the old studio model. And by free streaming, I mean things like Pornhub or X videos and those sort of things. And by the studio model, I mean DVD sales and what they used to pay adult performers, porn stars pay per scene fees. So that was for each specific sexual sequence they did. and it wasn't a day rate and it was really complicated like whether they were in groups or couples or solo or the type of sex act all sorts of things affected that and it's quite a complicated thing the studios do still exist but they function much more as a marketing engine a place you might launch your brand or they aggregate content but they definitely don't pay your bills as you rightly say miles if you're a performer the core income stream for um porn stars adult performers whatever they want to call themselves is subscriptions um so via something like only fans you've got locked posts you've got tiered access in terms of how much money people actually make um it's like the top one percent that um six seven or seven figures the median creator i think the median so a lot of people aren't a lot less is that is two hundred dollars a month two hundred dollars a month it's a you know it's there's a sort of impression of all sorts of things but we'll get on to how risky it is at the very top in a bit but what's happened with as with so many different things and remember this is an industry that has always led the way and showing you where all sorts of other things in society might go the skills have changed performers now need kind of parasocial skills you know you're looking into the camera and that you need to feel they're looking into the camera and seeing you and so in fact what's happened is that paid interaction has become much much bigger for them than explicit content and the biggest earners in this they monetize like dms voice notes custom videos sexting sessions which are kind of like the equivalent of old premium phone lines but as a result emotional labor has become more important than you know what you'll do sexually.

18:11And the whole girlfriend experience, GFE for sure, is a massive part, weirdly, of this, the parasocial relationship. And the way that they can scale these, they basically reuse content. So sorry, guys, she is saying the same stuff to a lot of other men, I have to say. And they have, sometimes they often hire other people to do their DMs, but they can keep repackaging content but the key is they all own their own ip and the tube sites the porn hubs and whatever they're loss leaders really but they do keep performers in the conversation so you can funnel people to your micro business from there this is kind of sorry can i can i interrupt for one second this is amazing well i tried to think hard about it rather like you had with kylie and the statistics do you know what as as you were talking i think because she has enjoyed looking into this as much as I enjoyed looking into why Kylie was Christmas number one.

19:05Well, it's interesting because I do still think that porn is massively exploitative, and I think it's toxified masses of real-life relationships in society and all sorts of other things. But it is very, very interesting as, you know, when you make a business that's based on people's impulses and appetites, it shows you where lots of things are going in the whole of society, and I'm going to get on to that in a minute. Those tube sites that we talked about and that you were asking about, Pornhub and whatever, those sort of things, performers sometimes will strategically leak leak low-res clips to them but live cam shows are still huge as we keep saying the live experience in whatever format it may take richard is big weirdly sexual coaching courses have become very big so porn stars teaching people how to have sex like them is is big and people paying for that as a sort of whatever and some of them get mainstream infants or deals whatever but the power has shifted from studios to individuals who have direct relationships with their audience and we've seen that in lots of other places in different ways you know in other forms of entertainment they're not explicit the porn performers stopped competing with free streaming and they sold what's free streaming couldn't which is basically a version of intimacy which is interesting because it's different to what you know you had before but what i will say and what's the most interesting thing about it sorry this is taking quite a long time but it is an interesting industry it is still massively all controlled by banks and the people who process the payments um these are the real sensors of this area of entertainment and i'll come on to why they could be of all sorts of things people like mastercard visa certain people like paypal won't won't do explicit content but major about some people will process it but they decide what counts as high risk if you're an adult performer they can terminate your account without explanation if you lose your processor your business essentially collapses overnight there's no appeals process there's no ombudsman when you say processor it's not that you mean like who who is processing the money the payment like visa mastercard the ones who will agree to carry who will do this and a lot of people won't not a computer processor not a computer no yeah and in some ways these are very very fascinating people the people who handle this stuff for say visa because it's a bit like a black box we don't really know anything about them and yet they make very significant editorial decisions in the culture every day they're much stricter than the law you get a kind of sense of what happens when um you know and i'm gonna return to this again when nigel farage not a porn star was debanked by coots that was very significant because you suddenly thought oh i see people in financial infrastructure financial people are making essentially sort of editorial decisions or political decisions so the platforms like only fans and fancy and all those sort of things they sit between the performers and the creators and the money and actually they don't care about the performers at all sorry i'm sure people and only fans will say we really care about creators you don't you care about visa you care about keeping Visa on side.

22:10So you will happily burn a few creators if they think performers are high risk in some way, or they're going to pose any regulatory risk to their platform, then they'll just get rid of them because why not? You don't care about that. So they don't like any kind of edge cases in any way or any people who gain too much attention, anything that draws regulatory risk. So creators are, as a result, completely expendable. And consequently they're very compliant and weirdly as i was saying much earlier on stars are the most vulnerable because they get the most attention and if they do anything that kind of draws attention and makes them look risky then they can just be deplatformed completely so mid-tier may earn a lot less but they're kind of the safest but what this ends up being is as you can see morality is kind of being enforced via financial infrastructure i'm not saying it shouldn't be but we have to accept that these people are effectively the censors not the law um so porn is as i said miles ahead of other things and um it tells us a lot of where things are going and what happens to these porn creators could in future in the near future happen to politicians or to controversial journalists or to comedians or anyone who is deemed a high risk creator in any other genre could exist in this kind of slightly precarious thing where you just say oh i no longer process your payments or i'm debanking you or i'm whatever it is so it's quite interesting they are a form of canary in the coal mine this particular industry and they went over they as i said at the start of this sex changed the internet and then everything else changes afterwards but it is very interesting that financial infrastructure really still rules the roost on all of these things and is the effective sensor that was amazing sorry thank you for your question mars no is that that was absolutely fascinating fascinating what a microcosm is is of what is happening in wider culture miles listen i'm glad someone wasn't a coward yeah i really took the fun out of that one didn't i miles i know you just i hope i really dampened down anything you might have been expected from that answer yeah he's literally on pornhub now typing in debanked by coots it's a really new genre canary in a coal mine i think that's us out of time what a what a happy finish i've been on so long about that particular area of the rest is adult entertainment that i have uh rendered all further questions redundant today okay literally since the adverts all we've had is james cameron and you talking about porn that might be the best half of the podcast we've ever done yeah exactly on that note thank you so much listeners we will see you all next week see you next week