LAS VEGAS – It’s adult industry trade show season again, which means it’s also time for the mainstream media to pay attention to the porn industry for a week or two, and pretend to have some understanding thereof.

It means we’ll read articles that claim—really, no fooling—things are going great for the industry in terms of revenue generation, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Next up will be articles talking about “new” technologies being developed (or at least embraced) by the porn industry, but citing things like “interactivity” or the “social aspect” as though webcams, instant messaging, dating sites and the like haven’t existed for years.

My personal favorite among the annual mainstream media’s assorted, fumbling accounts of porn trade show season, however, is CNBC’s “Porn Power Players” list.

For several years running now, someone at CNBC clearly has been hard at work on these lists, including employing the exhaustive research technique of placing at least three phone calls to people who may not be part of the porn industry, per se, but who do work or live in the greater Los Angeles area.

There are no ifs ands or buts about it here, people: CNBC takes very seriously its dogged annual pursuit of 10 names associated with the porn industry, at least nine of which they will spell incorrectly.

At a glance, it is clear CNBC has once again done its homework for 2015’s list in the same unyielding, rigorous and thorough fashion, yielding a stirring list of “the most powerful people in porn.” Impressively, most of the entities on CNBC’s list this year are, in fact, “people” and can accurately be described as connected to the porn industry in some fashion.

Topping the list is MindGeek, which appears to have supplanted previous CNBC Porn Power Player Thabian Feelman, or Fabio Theisman, or whatever.

According to CNBC, MindGeek’s awe-inspiring power is a function of its size. With more than 100 million daily visitors, three billion daily ad impressions and 1,000-plus employees (an unknown portion of whom definitely do not operate out of the Philippines under the user name “Pr0nhubUploaderPrime”), it’s easy to see why CNBC considers MindGeek “powerful.” What’s less clear is why CNBC also, evidently, considers MindGeek a “person.”

Following the collective virtual personhood of MindGeek, next on CNBC’s Porno Power People is Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. True, AHF is actually an organization hell bent on foisting mandatory condom use on the adult entertainment industry, not part of the industry, but at least Weinstein is a person (ostensibly), making this entry a step in the right direction in terms of providing what the CNBC list purports to offer.

Next up at No. 3, it’s Frank Koretsky of the distributorships IVD and ECN. Granted, few people not living in caves still watch porn on DVD, and sex toys—sorry, “pleasure products”—are not in any way porn, but Koretsky is a person and his companies are part of the porn industry, so CNBC’s list is getting warmer, anyway.

The name beside the next entry on CNBC’s list is “Derek Hay,” but I know a badly photoshopped image of an Apocalypse Now-era Marlon Brando when I see one. Nice try, CNBC, but no sale.

Sitting at No. 5 on the list is Ron “Caldwell” of CCBill—a man so powerful CNBC dared not spell his surname correctly, much less use an actual picture of him in its slide show. That is true power, my dear readers.

For some reason, Frank Koretsky appears again at No. 6, but for some reason they call him “Ron Braverman” and use a picture of some other guy, one who apparently works for a doctor. I don’t get it, but whatever. It’s CNBC’s list, they can do what they want, I guess.

Chiming in at No. 7, it’s Live Jasmin CEO Laszlo Czero. Lo and behold: This man is a person and his company makes porn (live shows should count, too, methinks), so finally we are getting somewhere in terms of this list making sense. That said, if the number of tube sites on which one’s pop-under ads are displayed is any indication of one’s market sector-potency, clearly Mr. Czero should be higher in CNBC’s list.

The eighth spot on the countdown goes to Leo Radivinsky, once a lowly affiliate webmaster, but now the man behind MyFreeCams. You can’t argue with this one, because there’s nothing more powerful in this world than being the guy who figured out people might rather watch live nude girls for free and give them the occasional tip, as opposed to paying for such for by the fucking minute.

Of course, no list of porn’s powerful would be complete without the man who resides at No. 9 on CNBC’s list: Woody Harrelson. If those ridiculous Lincoln ads he made last year weren’t enough to knock him entirely off CNBC’s list, I’d say this guy is destined to be a lifer. (Or maybe that was Matthew McConaughey. Either way, I think we can all agree those ads suck harder than Francesca Le in Load Warriors 2….)

Rounding out CBNC’s list is Kink.com impresario Peter Acworth. Acworth is so powerful, he’s reportedly about to abandon ship in San Francisco, where he spent almost $15 million on a gorgeous, historic office space, in order to relocate to Nevada.

Acworth is making the move even though the guy who sits at No. 2 (eight spots above him on the same fucking list, for Christ’s sake) is pretty clear about his plan to pursue the porn industry up and down the Vegas Strip until the End of Days, if need be, in order to make them use condoms every time the camera rolls, even if the depiction in question is a lesbian cooking show where three hostesses kiss each other on the cheek at the end.

Whatever you might think about the accuracy and veracity of CNBC’s list, you must admit: There’s no power like porn power. You see, other powerful industries have serious lobbying pull on Capitol Hill, or at the very least, high friends in low places.

In the porn industry, we’re so powerful we don’t need lobbyists. All we need is a bunch of moving vans—and perhaps somewhere to go where our impending arrival hasn’t been announced in advance by people who don’t know when the fuck to keep their fool mouths shut.