Page 24 - AVN May 2015

WHO’S WHO
INTERVIEW | By Dan Miller
SOCIAL STUDIES
Lena the Plug talks YouTube, Snapchat & ‘$ex Tape’
credits the notorious WorldStarHipHop.com site with launching her into the internet stratosphere.
“WorldStar was what really set it off,” Lena says. “They were the big media source that got everyone else
writing about it.”
Her popularity rocketed from there as tens of thousands subscribed to her channel in hopes of soon
seeing Lena go hardcore.
“It was a really, really strange feeling, especially because I already have a scandalous line of work where I
sell my private Snapchat, which is like some version of a cam girl. For me it’s not this big deal to make this
tape, which is why we said we would do it,” Lena continues.
“All these people in 25 different countries are writing from this perspective of me being desperate and
how insane I am. It’s hard for me because I’ve always been very well liked and here is this mass of people—
nine million-plus people have seen the video and 95 to 98 percent of them are really hating on me. I’ve
always been a friendly person that people have liked. I guess I’m realizing the world is not as open and
progressive as I thought.”
As word about Lena the Plug got around, the offers to do porn started rolling in—including one from
PornHub.
“They were one of the first people to reach out. We just didn’t continue the conversation,” Lena reveals.
“I still have no interest. With what I do vs. adult acting … What I do is so much easier. Financially, it’s not
tempting at all. It doesn’t even come close to the amount of money I make.”
When and if Lena and Adam22 create their sex tape she says they will host it themselves and it would be
free of charge.
A 2013 graduate of UC Santa Cruz with a degree in psychology, Lena says she was going to attend grad
school at USC but un-enrolled because it was too expensive and she just wasn’t inspired by it.
WHAT STARTED OUT AS A SILLY IDEA for Lena Nersesian
turned into overnight fame—and now being recognized
on Melrose Avenue comes with the territory.
“It definitely happens a lot more,” says Nersesian,
the 25-year-old YouTube personality who went viral
in January after promising to do a sex tape with her
boyfriend if they both reached one million subscribers.
W
Meanwhile she had “tons” of jobs after college. She taught kids with special needs, did babysitting and
drove for Lyft and Uber. Then she went to work for a social media tech startup called Arsenic.
IT WAS JUST LIKE A FUNNY IDEA THAT
REALLY WENT CRAZY. NOT TO SAY WE
“People want to take pictures. They’re mostly friendly and
WOULDN’T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. WE
really curious.”
The curvaceous native of Glendale, California,
WOULD ACTUALLY DO IT. I JUST DIDN’T
better known as “Lena the Plug,” made the pledge in a
2-minute, 16-second YouTube video titled “$EXTAPE
KNOW IT WAS GOING TO BLOW UP
AT 1 MILL” on January 17. That video at press time had
LIKE THAT.
more than 8.9 million views, while Nersesian this week
—LENA THE PLUG
surpassed 757,000 YouTube subscribers. Her boyfriend
Adam22’s channel, No Jumper, now has more than
518,000. She’s on pace to reach the one-million mark well
before the end of the year and intends to follow through
if they both hit the milestone.
“Yeah, I’m still planning to do it,” Lena tells AVN.
“The only thing not being talked about as much is my
boyfriend also has to reach a million subscribers. He’s at
half a million subscribers. A lot of people seem to have
missed that.”
Adam22, who hosts the “No Jumper” podcast, also
runs the popular BMX website TheComeUp.com and
owns a BMX clothing line and retail store called On Some
Shit.
Lena enjoyed some notoriety before the “$EXTAPE”
video. The Armenian beauty already had been charging
for access to her premium Snapchat account, where she
posts plenty of naughty footage, through the website
LenasPlugs.com.
“I have nudes on the internet, people have seen things.
It’s not like I’ve been shy about it,” Lena says.
“It was just like a funny idea that really went crazy. Not
to say we wouldn’t take it seriously. We would actually do
it. I just didn’t know it was going to blow up like that.”
In the first week after she posted the “$EXTAPE” tape
video she reeled in more than 60,000 new subscribers,
according to the New York Post, one of several national
media outlets that noted the YouTube phenom. But she
24 | AVN.com | 5.17
“We all kind of wore multiple hats,” she says. “I was reaching out to other influencers on social media and
putting them on Arsenic. I had a big social media platform by the time I left there.”
With an already popular public Snapchat where she was posting sexy snaps, she recalls that many of her
followers would ask her if she had a private account.
“Basically the opportunity financially became something that was hard to ignore,” Lena says. “I really
just wanted freedom with my time. I was tired of killing myself for almost no pay. I really like living a free,
comfortable life where I don’t have to work for anyone else.”
Now she makes a good living just off her private Snapchat and YouTube channel.
Lena started the channel on December 2, 2016, setting the tone with an introductory video in which she’s
wearing only a low-cut top and white panties; she even turns around to give viewers a rear-view tease. The
clip has 1.4 million views.
“The plan was to make me a channel a month prior to that,” Lena says. “Adam my boyfriend is a
YouTuber. He said, ‘You have a great personality, you already have a following, let’s make you a channel.’
There’s only so much you can do on Instagram. I don’t really feel like I’m that much of a model-type, but
I’ve managed to attract people. We thought I had a personality that could do well on YouTube.”
Lena’s fifth YouTube video on December 21 featured a Q&A with her friend Karlee Grey, a 2016 AVN
Awards nominee for Best New Starlet.
“Karlee and I have been friends for a while and I like to feature different people on my channel. We had
been friends prior to this, prior to me having a private Snapchat,” Lena says.
Now Lena says she’d like to make better content, drawing inspiration from many of her female fans.
“It’s really the female commenters making me want to upload a video every day even if it only gets 10,000
views,” she says. “Because they see someone in me they can kind of look up to, that they could be more like,
and I’m trying to do that for that reason.”
Her sudden notoriety came as a shock to many, including her family.
“They’re upset with me,” Lena admits. “They’re shocked and surprised. It’s not like they were introduced
to my internet life before this. They really had no clue. … I just went from zero to 100.”