It is porn’s destiny to porn. Porn porned YouTube; porn porned Spotify; finally, after a surprisingly long delay when you think about it, porn has porned TikTok. Say hello to YouPorn’s new TikTok-fashioned app SWYP.
SWYP is billed as easier on the eyes (fewer ads) and the arms (less clicking) than YouPorn’s previous app attempt, which is essentially a pared-down version of its home page. In a press release, YouPorn notes that the latest app removes the extra step of clicking play “time after time”: a valid concern for visitors who spend on average seven minutes on the site.
The company describes SWYP–which users save to their home screens directly from the webpage–as similar to the “look and feel” of TikTok, with a “clean interface free of visual distractions.” That’s about half true; it is still a thing that porn built, which is to say the experience includes choppy sailing through clips that are almost always out of alignment. On the plus side, viewers are spared the dildos that plague the sidebars. YouPorn will use machine learning to show you similar content if you swipe left to see the whole video, so: swipe with care.
But the press release omits one of TikTok’s defining characteristics, which is that it doesn’t pay its content creators. Similarly, YouPorn’s monopolistic owner MindGeek is notorious for coasting on pirated videos while snatching up one tube after another, leaving adult entertainers few alternative revenue streams.
Like TikTok, the app version serves ads independently of user-generated videos and does away with YouPorn’s in-browser banner ads that allow content creators to monetise off their work. (You can click “subscribe” on a video in the app, but custom watermarks are the only clues to the author.) Nor does it allow captions for easier sponcon disclosure. YouPorn was unavailable for comment as to how or whether content creators might get paid, but all signs point to prominent lube labels.