Only Fans, the pandemic, piracy and other gay adult industry issues. How is Broke Straight Boys doing?

[BrokeStraightBoys]

Someone had brought this up so I thought it deserved its own thread. I've been in the adult industry for 25 years now. Everything changed when the pandemic happened. There was only a few thousand cases at the time but my film crew did not feel comfortable filming with the huge unknown of flying models into our studio and risking everyones health and possibly more. There was very few tests and our network we used for testing and everything did not have a way to test models for the virus. The Atlanta house was great because I could drive to it and help film and get great behind the scenes, interviews and more. It was also very big at over 5k square feet so there was plenty of room for all of us. It was such a great place to shoot and loved it so much but that house set empty for over 8 months so I decided to sell it. It was really hard at that time to film but eventually we starting having D&E film in South Florida. It definitely made filming harder because we can't fit as many models as we once did. I would really like to get back to where we were pre pandemic but it has been very hard. Models these days can create their own porn on only fans. This was a HUGE blow to the industry. It is a lot of work for to do only fans but I know a model making over 1 million dollars a year so why would they want to shoot with a studio when they are making those types of numbers. Damien Kyle, Paul Canon, Cage Kafig are still doing only fans today as well as some other models. Some newer models also have a bit of an attitude now because of only fans. Not even mentioning stolen content and free content which is also a huge issue and has been for a long time. When we filmed the television show piracy was the big issue back then and still is today. Now we have only fans and more issues than before. Most of our competition is gone or has been sold to Mind Geek the owners of PornHub. MindGeek wanted to buy my network long ago and offered me first class flight and 5 star hotel to Canada just to chat with them. I could of sold for an easy 7 figures maybe even low 8 figures but I turned them down. FratMen which was an amazing site is completely gone. I remember going to an unbelievable party in Phoenix in the penthouse of a tall tower near Mill Ave. There was jelly fish tanks, a clear pool on the top where you could see models swimming in it from the side and everything. It had servers, bartenders you name it. It was a party I will never forget and it wasn't that long ago. Well that party was the last of them the owner put 700k or so into an app that completely flopped and he pretty much lost everything. Helix has stopped paying all it's webmasters which is the biggest twink site in the world. So there is companies having issues left and right. There was straight adult companies with over 100,000 members that have completely vanished. They were charging 30-40 a month and if you do the math that is an insane amount of money. I am thankful we are still standing and we are always trying to make things better. I am never just coasting with Broke Straight Boys I am still working hard as does my team. So please keep all this is mind when you may not like a model or want more updates. It has been very tough but we are not going to stop. I would still love to do a season 2 of the TV show on an awesome network. This year I hired two full time people. One was for social media and the other is helping with our search engine optimization. I never thought I would of hired additional crew this year but I know we need more traffic in order to grow. So I want to thank everyone for being a member of Broke Straight Boys or any of our sites, our network and for posting here. Broke Straight Boys is my baby and we will continue making things better so thank you for sticking by us.

 

[mikeyank]

Thank you Mark for being so truthful with us. I learned about MindGeek a number of years ago and how they’ve swallowed up the competition. Thanks for naming the studios who sold to them. Also thanks for telling us the whole story of ceasing your operations in Atlanta when Sha and Bryce were filming your content and how David and Eddie have a much smaller physical space and how less models are at shoot weeks and why less content is being filmed.

I’ve been a member here since 2008 when you began the forum and the forum has kept me a constant member. I don’t love the current state of the forum and I like less of the current models than I did in the past, but as you explained, the ultra hot guys who fit the straight motif can make so much more money creating their own content.

I understand your situation and I appreciate you remaining an independent studio and not taking the money offered by the international conglomerat and staying true to your dream. Good luck and thank you for your honesty. I appreciate it.

 

[Youngandconfused22]

I respect Mark for staying true to himself and the vision of Broke Straight Boys I have been a member for 10 years and will continue to support it. I can’t imagine what goes into filming and all the other moving pieces. Considering what some websites charge Broke Straight Boys is a bargain with what we get. I hope we can get back to some semblance of what it was like years ago but I think it’s a pipe dream now. I just hope we get good looking guys that put on a good show. I feel like with the price of everything because of inflation there should be even more guys willing to make money this way. With social media and all the other platforms out there i hope there is a way to find some guys. Fingers crossed.

 

[chac54]

Thanks Mark for that explanation. I have been consuming porn for many years, pretty much since I turned 18 in 1997. I have seen many sites come and go. Onlyfans, fansley etc definitely have changed things, but for me I really appreciate the quality of studio porn. A lot of the models don't use good lighting and camera angles, so while I have subbed to probably a hundred OF models, I have only 1 that I have kept a sub going for almost 2 years now. I chat with that model frequently and just about normal day to day shit. Everyone else got boring or had shit quality videos.

As for piracy, I personally never have nor will share content that I download. (I went to school for programming and a teachers talk about piracy stuck with me as I didn't want anything I wrote stolen.) That being said, I don't sub to sites that I can't download from (I will not pay a separate fee either to download per video). I may have a data hording problem as I have like 9 TB of porn saved LOL I probably need a porn pact with my bestie to have him nuke it if something ever happened to me (and yes, I have a 3-2-1 backup of that data ) Onlyfans just enabled DRM on their platform and I won't sub to anyone using that either, if I'm paying a good chunk of money for a custom video, I want to be able to enjoy it offline too. So I see even more loss of subs there.

I don't know where things are heading in the industry, but I thank you for your honesty. It surprises me to hear that Helix isn't paying their webmasters, if they are in trouble, a big storm is brewing...

 

[Jaybifla]

Prefer studio porn.
You can get most studio porn for the same price as these onlyfans accounts. You might have to pay upfront for the year to get the discount but studio porn is where it’s at for me. I’m with @chac54 on the download issue. I’m not a fan of joining anything that doesn’t allow me to download the content. And it’s just so that I can have it on my Hardrive to watch on my television in my bedroom.
I really don’t understand why more models don’t prefer the studio route. Travel and food are paid for. Testing is paid for so you know it’s safe. It’s professionally recorded and looks better.

 

[kgmets2]

Someone had brought this up so I thought it deserved its own thread. I've been in the adult industry for 25 years now. Everything changed when the pandemic happened. There was only a few thousand cases at the time but my film crew did not feel comfortable filming with the huge unknown of flying models into our studio and risking everyones health and possibly more. There was very few tests and our network we used for testing and everything did not have a way to test models for the virus. The Atlanta house was great because I could drive to it and help film and get great behind the scenes, interviews and more. It was also very big at over 5k square feet so there was plenty of room for all of us. It was such a great place to shoot and loved it so much but that house set empty for over 8 months so I decided to sell it. It was really hard at that time to film but eventually we starting having D&E film in South Florida. It definitely made filming harder because we can't fit as many models as we once did. I would really like to get back to where we were pre pandemic but it has been very hard. Models these days can create their own porn on only fans. This was a HUGE blow to the industry. It is a lot of work for to do only fans but I know a model making over 1 million dollars a year so why would they want to shoot with a studio when they are making those types of numbers. Damien Kyle, Paul Canon, Cage Kafig are still doing only fans today as well as some other models. Some newer models also have a bit of an attitude now because of only fans. Not even mentioning stolen content and free content which is also a huge issue and has been for a long time. When we filmed the television show piracy was the big issue back then and still is today. Now we have only fans and more issues than before. Most of our competition is gone or has been sold to Mind Geek the owners of PornHub. MindGeek wanted to buy my network long ago and offered me first class flight and 5 star hotel to Canada just to chat with them. I could of sold for an easy 7 figures maybe even low 8 figures but I turned them down. FratMen which was an amazing site is completely gone. I remember going to an unbelievable party in Phoenix in the penthouse of a tall tower near Mill Ave. There was jelly fish tanks, a clear pool on the top where you could see models swimming in it from the side and everything. It had servers, bartenders you name it. It was a party I will never forget and it wasn't that long ago. Well that party was the last of them the owner put 700k or so into an app that completely flopped and he pretty much lost everything. Helix has stopped paying all it's webmasters which is the biggest twink site in the world. So there is companies having issues left and right. There was straight adult companies with over 100,000 members that have completely vanished. They were charging 30-40 a month and if you do the math that is an insane amount of money. I am thankful we are still standing and we are always trying to make things better. I am never just coasting with Broke Straight Boys I am still working hard as does my team. So please keep all this is mind when you may not like a model or want more updates. It has been very tough but we are not going to stop. I would still love to do a season 2 of the TV show on an awesome network. This year I hired two full time people. One was for social media and the other is helping with our search engine optimization. I never thought I would of hired additional crew this year but I know we need more traffic in order to grow. So I want to thank everyone for being a member of Broke Straight Boys or any of our sites, our network and for posting here. Broke Straight Boys is my baby and we will continue making things better so thank you for sticking by us.

Thank you Mark for the detailed update and report. I am very convinced that Broke Straight Boys is doing its best to provide quality product at a reasonable price. I for one do not understand the appeal of OnlyFans, as I see a huge deterioration in quality of product in OnlyFans from the product and quantity of scenes of the regular studios. And almost every major gay porn studio is not the same post COVID as it was pre COVID, and I am a satisfied customer of Broke Straight Boys convinced that it is trying its best to deliver qualithy product at a reasonale price!

 

[willedge]

If I was the impetus for this post, I did not mean any disrespect. I know the industry is suffering. Thank you also for this detailed response tho Mark. I now have a much more thorough understanding of the hardships that your industry has had to endure and continues to endure.

As I said in my other post, I was not aware that the "Best Of" series were not Broke Straight Boys studio produced and are in fact a fan based production. I appreciate you including them as mid week posts.

I've been an on and off member for quite a few years under various usernames (though typically not on the forum). You have my word that I will try to maintain my membership here as long as you're willing to keep up the vision of the site to the best of your abilities. It sounds to me like that is your intent. I also appreciate your perseverance when so many others have folded.

I agree with the members above, Studio porn is so much better than OF, although I do subscribe to a few amateurs there that are struggling through paying for school etc.

 

[tampa24]

I tried sending a reply to Mark's post. But I kept getting an error message. If this posts I will try again.

 

[tampa24]

Thanks for all you shared with us here Mark. While you brought up many sewrious points, the inner geek in me can't help marveling at how amazing and over the top that party was. Probably only One Percenters can afford to throw gatherings like that in the future to such an excess, and not miss the cash. haha That's one of those events that you know inside as it's happening that it's probably a once in a lifetime experience.

I know you guys are trying to do your best and keep improving the site. I'm very happy and grateful that you never sold out to the corporations. I also know that he old paradigm of online porn is radically different from what it was even 5 years ago. Let alone from 10-15 years ago.

I may not like every model you hire. Or perhaps better said, I may not always find them sexually attractive. Or my cup of tea. But I won't go out of my way to crticize any model(s) based on looks when others clearly like him/them. I may not post as much nowadays but I have no plans of leaving the site. You have me as a loyal member still, after all these years.

 

[Arckangel]

There are models on JustFor.Fans and OnlyFans who do produce high quality, studio quality content w/ great camera angles. Manuel Skye is one of them. I find the JFF/OF stuff brings something even more intimate or exclusive to the table, and it complements the studio stuff really well. I’m of course referring to great content creators on those adult freelancer portals, not scammers looking for a quick buck.

 

[entonces65]

Someone had brought this up so I thought it deserved its own thread. I've been in the adult industry for 25 years now. Everything changed when the pandemic happened. There was only a few thousand cases at the time but my film crew did not feel comfortable filming with the huge unknown of flying models into our studio and risking everyones health and possibly more. There was very few tests and our network we used for testing and everything did not have a way to test models for the virus. The Atlanta house was great because I could drive to it and help film and get great behind the scenes, interviews and more. It was also very big at over 5k square feet so there was plenty of room for all of us. It was such a great place to shoot and loved it so much but that house set empty for over 8 months so I decided to sell it. It was really hard at that time to film but eventually we starting having D&E film in South Florida. It definitely made filming harder because we can't fit as many models as we once did. I would really like to get back to where we were pre pandemic but it has been very hard. Models these days can create their own porn on only fans. This was a HUGE blow to the industry. It is a lot of work for to do only fans but I know a model making over 1 million dollars a year so why would they want to shoot with a studio when they are making those types of numbers. Damien Kyle, Paul Canon, Cage Kafig are still doing only fans today as well as some other models. Some newer models also have a bit of an attitude now because of only fans. Not even mentioning stolen content and free content which is also a huge issue and has been for a long time. When we filmed the television show piracy was the big issue back then and still is today. Now we have only fans and more issues than before. Most of our competition is gone or has been sold to Mind Geek the owners of PornHub. MindGeek wanted to buy my network long ago and offered me first class flight and 5 star hotel to Canada just to chat with them. I could of sold for an easy 7 figures maybe even low 8 figures but I turned them down. FratMen which was an amazing site is completely gone. I remember going to an unbelievable party in Phoenix in the penthouse of a tall tower near Mill Ave. There was jelly fish tanks, a clear pool on the top where you could see models swimming in it from the side and everything. It had servers, bartenders you name it. It was a party I will never forget and it wasn't that long ago. Well that party was the last of them the owner put 700k or so into an app that completely flopped and he pretty much lost everything. Helix has stopped paying all it's webmasters which is the biggest twink site in the world. So there is companies having issues left and right. There was straight adult companies with over 100,000 members that have completely vanished. They were charging 30-40 a month and if you do the math that is an insane amount of money. I am thankful we are still standing and we are always trying to make things better. I am never just coasting with Broke Straight Boys I am still working hard as does my team. So please keep all this is mind when you may not like a model or want more updates. It has been very tough but we are not going to stop. I would still love to do a season 2 of the TV show on an awesome network. This year I hired two full time people. One was for social media and the other is helping with our search engine optimization. I never thought I would of hired additional crew this year but I know we need more traffic in order to grow. So I want to thank everyone for being a member of Broke Straight Boys or any of our sites, our network and for posting here. Broke Straight Boys is my baby and we will continue making things better so thank you for sticking by us.

I have seen some of the products on Only Fans. I am not a fan of them. The trend toward good lighting and close ups leave most amateurs behind. For example Sean Ford only shows what he can do with one camera or worse his cell phone. The only decent one I found to watch is by Rhtheim Shabazz but a lot of his material can be found for free. None of these would work without a means to advertise. Fans Only doesn't have much content with teasers, where you get an idea of what the actor is trying to sell. Bel Ami seems to contract their actors to exclusive content. Gay Hoopla brags about doing the same thing. Also there is a huge international talent pool to draw from. I correspond with a Czech actor who would love to come to North America but hasn't gotten an invite. He is on all the twink orientated site from Europe and has that full size twink look. By this I mean that Jamie Kelvin is not skinny plus he perfoms well as versatile. I hope these are viable ideas for you.

What I love the most about Blue Media is that it doesn't have that cold corporate feel to it. There is a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to these video products keeps me drawn to them. This posting by you Mark, has locked me into a life time membrship. I for one don't care if the actor is actually straight. The important part is for them to act straight. Having lived in Mexico for 8 years , I found plenty of young men who would give up their asses for a few bucks. I don't suggest going there to recruit but many come here and are looking for work. I started coming to Broke Straight Boys back when all the videos were shot while using a fold-out futon. I don't have the membersip length as many of the old timers here because I didn't maintain my membership. I would bounce out then back in. I guees there is something about being in Tampa. Mark I have to agree with Tampa24 on all that he stated.

 

[br6205]

Thanks for all your efforts & kindness.

 

[peterh6308]

Mark your honesty and openness to your members has always been consistent over the years. And because of that I will continue being a member until one of croaks!!

 

[Jaybifla]

 

[BrokeStraightBoys]

View attachment 150516

I saw that.

 

[mikeyank]

View attachment 150516

Thanks for sharing Jay. Not sure how it would work but bringing back Cage Kafig, Kaden Alexander, Jimmy, Adam, Paul & Damien with newbies like Darron and Chris and Nico sounds ultra cool to me.

 

[buck1127]

I used to subscribe to Sean Cody. I loved them and then they were sold. The new owners took the website and purged all the old and original movies. It was the hottest shit of the website. I was horrified. You can find some of what was purged on videos at AEBN. But l left Sean Cody and will never buy another membership. It has gone down hill. Sean Cody was the only website that had jerk off contests. He had 4 or 5 models that jacked off. No one has really tried that since. I thought that was hot.

 

[buck1127]

I also subscribed to Chaos Men. That is a good website. When it was sold it went from models being in their 20s to models being in their 30s or 40s. They kept all original content which was cool. Active Duty is hot as fuck also. l like them as well.

 

[buck1127]

Military Classified is good. The value of the subscription is good. But the content is strong. Rob Navarro has said at some point he needs to sell. I hope it goes to someone who can run and keep it professional. Sometimes l think som of these porn sites need to be managed by a group of people so that when one retires others can keep it going. Spunkworthy is hot also.

 

[buck1127]

What about military men and vets? Have you tried recruiting more former military? l would think inflation would be good for you. High prices and things being more expensive would result in some guys doing porn to pay their bills.