By Jobian Theislemann
Special to YNOT
ANTWERP, Belgium – Hello my adult industry friends! It’s me, Jobian Theiselmann, former CEO of MindGunk, the man who changed everything in internet porn — especially the part where the rest of you made any money from it.
Yes, I know: Some of you don’t like me very much, because you blame me for your current financial problems. It’s OK, though, because I can certainly understand why your petty, childish jealousy, combined with your clearly inferior intellect, makes it impossible for you not to resent my manifest entrepreneurial genius and foresight. Because I understand this, and because I’m generous when it comes to the cyber-indigent, we can still be friends.
To be clear, when I say “friends,” I mean the sort of friends I can call upon when I need someone to carry my old sectional leather couch out to the curb after I buy a bigger, better leather couch, or to feed my dogs while I’m skiing in the Alps — not the kind of friends who are invited to ski with me in the Alps or who will ever get to sit on my new couch.
As you may have read on some mainstream tech news site, even though I’m no longer a part of the adult internet I have been keeping a close eye on the market, mostly to see what you do with the wonderful, well-balanced world I left behind for you to take care of. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me to find you’re screwing everything up.
Naturally, without me there to help blaze the trends and set the trails, I expected the industry to be in pretty bad shape, but not because the tube sites I helped to popularize have undermined the value of your products. No, this isn’t the problem, no matter how much some guy named Jeff wants it to be all my fault.
The problem is, despite what gullible American journalists are always saying about porn “driving technology,” you porno people couldn’t innovate a sandwich if someone handed you two slices of hearty bread and a nice fresh jar of liverwurst. Even worse, you probably wouldn’t even try to make a sandwich. You’d just sit around bitching about how much better and cheaper liverwurst was back in the 1990s.
But like I told the nerds who interviewed me the other day, it’s not all your fault because it’s hard to be innovative with porn, at least on the technology side of things.
With porno content, it’s actually pretty easy to be original, because it’s no big challenge to do something with depictions of sex nobody has ever done before, like having the mascot for a pro sports team do a bukkake scene in which all the ejaculating men are one-armed amputees dressed like the psychotic Italian maintenance man from the “Super Fabio” video games.
To innovate new technology, though, you need to be really smart (like me), or at least rich (again, like me) so you can hire sufficiently smart people to create new technologies.
Some of you are probably wondering how I can call out the current porno people for their lack of technological development when I didn’t really invent anything new of my own while working in the adult industry. The answer is simple: In addition to my past business accomplishments giving me every reason to behave like an arrogant asshole, I haven’t yet gotten in the sort of trouble you all expected me to land in, which has only augmented my willingness to be a total dick to you.
Look at the bright side, though: As long as it’s still possible I could get in real trouble somehow (although not for the thorough fucking-over I dealt to the porn industry at large; it’s way too late for any of you to do anything about that), you can all comfort yourselves with the idea I’ll eventually get some measure of up-commance, or whatever.
The truth is, even if I do get in trouble, it will be only the kind of trouble reserved for very wealthy people like me.
Sure, the government will have the media put my picture in some German papers, make a big deal out of the millions they fine me, and pretend the penalty amounts to anything more than a drop in my extremely well-laundered bucket, but I’ll be just fine. I might wind up with a couple hundred million less dollars in the process, sure, but you know what they say: “Easy come, easy go (fuck yourself).”
I hope with this post I have set the record straight — or at the very least reminded you of how much you despise and resent me — because if I’m completely honest, this is what fuels me now. Not money, not fame, not notoriety, but the knowledge I’ve left behind a market filled with broken, resentful little people who still cringe every time they hear my name.
Having said this, if you are a member of the adult internet industry and live in the Antwerp area, please leave this Saturday open on your calendar. I’m toying with the idea of buying a very large new desk.
Jobian Theislemann is a “cherub” investor and former CEO of MindGunk, the company formerly known as ManSchwing.
