Page 31 - AVN March 2017

GAYVN
For the second year in a row, Flirt4Free and Mr. Man
sponsored the GayVN Brunch and Keynote Speech.
And once again—as with last year’s speech by Jake
Jaxson of CockyBoys—it was a high point of the
Internext Expo.
The event took place January 15 in the GayVN
Lounge, located in the Paradise Tower at Hard Rock
Hotel & Casino Las Vegas.
Jeff Wilson of Flirt4Free addressed the crowd
first, taking the opportunity to provide some insight
into his company’s newest ventures, Gay.com and
GayHub.com. The latter is a new tube site that will
partner with gay adult studios to build “something
very special” that will offer 100 percent gay content.
Next Wilson introduced the speaker, Gabe
Zichermann, an author, TED speaker and
entrepreneur who is widely regarded as an authority
on gamification strategies, user engagement and
behavioral design.
Wilson explained that about a year and half
ago the Flirt4Free staff got owner Greg Clayman
interested in Zichermann’s book and he suggested
that they contact the author and learn more. It
turned out that Zichermann was a fan of gay
porn, and one thing led to another—specifically to
Flirt4Free’s new Flirt Rewards, a customer loyalty
program that adds layers to the experience on the
site “more sticky.”
Having piqued the crowd’s interest, Wilson
turned over the mic to Zichermann, who started off
by saying, “I’m Gabe and I love gay porn,” eliciting a
round of cheers.
An expert in gamification—the application of
elements of gaming to other areas, in particular
to encourage engagement with a product or
service—Zichermann talked a lot about how modern
technology has become a powerful opponent of
boredom. “I don’t think you could have anticipated
how much we could have killed boredom. To
perfectly honest with you, nobody has to be bored
GAME ON!
Strategic thinking at the GayVN Keynote Speech
for even a second,” Zichermann said. With social
media, electronic games and smart phone, he said, “You
don’t even wait for the fucking elevator and be alone
with your thoughts.”
The phenomenon of boredom comes from the mental
process of “habituation,” Zichermann said. Since the
human brain becomes accustomed to any stimulus,
in order to avoid constant distraction, “everything
becomes boring over time.”
The same holds true for sex itself, he asserted,
mentioning a study by Danish researchers that surveyed
15,000 straight couples and found the average couple
at about two years into a relationship “switches from
romantic affection to companionship affection.”
Many industries must beware of habituation, he
explained. The fast food industry, for instance, is “very
methodical and specific in finding ways to deal with
boredom, creating new food to get people excited.”
Zichermann said he sees the adult industry and
the gaming industry approaching the problem of
boredom in different ways. “The primary tool that
adult companies have created to deal with habituation
is increased horizontal choice,” he explained—for
instance, the wide array of similar content available on
a tube site.
Video game designers pursue a path of “vertical
habituation,” keeping individual users focused on
one game rather than multiple similar games. In part
they employ the concept of “intrinsic reinforcement.”
Describing how this works in terms of an addictive
game like Angry Birds, Zichermann said, “You challenge
yourself to something and you achieve it, and you get a
little dopamine. Then the brain says it wants more.”
Because of the powerful effects of dopamine, online
games can be addictive—as can the use of social media
or other online pursuits. Even though the technologies
that can produce addictive behaviors are not inherently
good or bad, some people do tend to overuse them—
and porn is no exception. Zichermann mentioned some
initiatives in other countries that focus on treating
addictive behavior among gamers.
But in the United States, he said, all the focus is on
the dangers of online porn. Zichermann warned the
audience that by attacking porn on “health grounds and
safety grounds,” anti-porn activists do not need to go
through the Supreme Court for obscenity prosecutions.
Instead, they can seek to regulate porn on health
grounds.
He would like to see the industry “adopt some
techniques used by the gambling industry to deal
with the small but nonetheless real population” that
overuses adult content.
“The vast majority of people who have those
problems are not broken. … There’s no reason why we
can’t help those people and at the same time protect
this industry, and the important work that you do,
against regulatory threats and cultural pushback. … It’s
not a first amendment threat; it’s a health threat. And
the health threat is real.”
And in addition to avoiding the specter of regulation,
the idea of helping consumers who are overusing
adult content is ultimately better for the future of the
industry. Because, as Zichermann said, “A healthy
customer is a good long-term customer.”
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