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American Former Gay Pr0n Star Is Big In Japan

Danny Choo at 6:09 am Sun, Feb 15, 2009

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Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.
dannychoo_billy.jpg
Billy Herrington (born July 14, 1969, Long Island, New York) is a bisexual American actor best known for his work in gay pornography. Herrington began his erotic career when a friend surreptitiously submitted his nude pictures to Playgirl magazine. The photographs won him a "Real Men of the Month" contest and a $500 prize. His appearance in the magazine caught the eye of famed photographer Jim French but it would be two years before Herrington would shoot his first Colt calendars for French. Soon after that he would be shooting hardcore gay pornography for All Worlds Video. Herrington became one of the more well-known gay porn stars of the late 1990s, even appearing on mainstream talk-show "Ricki Lake."
And why is Billy so immensely popular with the Japanese folks and why has he been made into a Japanese action figure too?
Herrington has also become an internet meme among the Japanese community after a clip from one of his videos 'Workout' was posted on Nico Nico Douga, a Japanese video sharing website. Over 3000 parody videos of him have been made, many of which utilizes deliberate mishearings of his lines in the porn flick. He is affectionately called "Big Brother" among the Nico Nico Douga community, and most of his videos are deliberately tagged with "Forest Fairy", "Philosophy" or both.
Photo taken last night where I provided the translations for Billy's first ever live internet broadcast in Japan - see more photos and videos from behind-the-scenes. An example of one of those parody videos below - you cant really see any dolphin waxing so it should be safe for work. Blockquotes from Wikipedia.
Discuss

44 Responses to “American Former Gay Pr0n Star Is Big In Japan”

  1. cyberscythe says:
    February 15, 2009 at 8:50 am

    I thought I’d be in for a treat when I saw Cirno (or anything else Touhou-related) on Boing Boing… but not this way. =\

    Reply
  2. Mantari says:
    February 15, 2009 at 10:27 pm

    I CAME!!!

    Reply
  3. dizzyjosh says:
    February 15, 2009 at 8:53 am

    I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess, based on Nicovideo’s videogame-friendly fanbase, that one of the things referenced by use of the ‘Aniki’ nickname is ‘Cho Aniki’, a scrolling shooter game with lots of camp visuals that’s been a popular joke in gamer circles for a while.

    The series mascots, Samson and Adon, are big beefcake dudes in thongs who shoot white beams out of their foreheads.

    Reply
  4. David D. says:
    February 15, 2009 at 9:02 am

    I’m not sure that even the Japanese understand the Japanese at this point.

    That said, the video captures the complex eroticism of gay porn quite nicely. Kudos!

    Reply
  5. minTphresh says:
    February 15, 2009 at 9:14 am

    if his lif3e story were made into a movie, instead of ” American Samurai” it would be called “American Salami”. or maybe “American Plumber: Laying Pipe”.

    Reply
  6. Xopher says:
    February 15, 2009 at 9:41 am

    Hmm. Well, that video definitely wouldn’t be safe for work where I work. It’s got naked people in it, albeit seen only from the back.

    Reply
  7. Anonymous says:
    February 15, 2009 at 10:06 am

    7 posts about Japan on the front page, I’m starting to see a pattern.

    Reply
  8. George Curious says:
    February 15, 2009 at 11:24 am

    I’ve never before been so glad to be unaware of an obscure euphemism. “Dolphin Waxing”? The mind boggles.

    Reply
  9. tikal2k says:
    February 16, 2009 at 1:38 am

    Video no longer available, but here is another link to a clip with Big Jim Slade and the Heiveinu Shalom Aleichem theme song:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRr9C6o06_E

    Reply
  10. SC_Wolf says:
    February 15, 2009 at 11:47 am

    American Former Gay Pr0n Star Is Big In Japan

    At eight inches, it ain’t just in Japan.

    (This is the second time I’ve gotten to use this joke now. Last time, it was commentary on how chubby Maru the Cat is.)

    Reply
  11. RichSPK says:
    February 15, 2009 at 11:48 am

    Wow, that video doesn’t help me understand the meme at all. Maybe it helps to be Japanese or gay?

    Reply
  12. Brettspiel says:
    February 15, 2009 at 12:24 pm

    Um, yeah.. covering the dangly bits of two naked buff dudes having buttsecks does not make it work safe in corporate America.

    Reply
  13. Teller says:
    February 15, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    Wasn’t my head supposed to asplode?

    Reply
  14. greensteam says:
    February 15, 2009 at 12:58 pm

    I think i like pron better anyway…..

    Reply
  15. dimmer says:
    February 15, 2009 at 1:01 pm

    “Waxing the dolphin” is slang for a very common, mostly inoffensive, practice. To surmise: it only needs one person, and has never hurt a dolphin.

    Reply
  16. mdh says:
    February 15, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    That video… wow. Wow. Whaaaaaahw.

    Reply
  17. joelogon says:
    February 15, 2009 at 2:06 pm

    I swear I can hear “Heiveinu Shalom Aleichem” in there (a.k.a. Big Jim Slade’s entrance music in Kentucky Fried Movie) — it’s really prominent around 1:20

    Reply
  18. eustace says:
    February 15, 2009 at 2:08 pm

    Truly mindblowing. Japanese television can be so beautifully intense.
    Brute force visuals. Reminds me of this; the intense pace…

    Reply
  19. Manooshi says:
    February 15, 2009 at 3:14 pm

    Forgive my ignorance, but is there any type of reason why some people spell porn as ‘pron’ on the internet? Is it a purposeful misspelling resultant of overly-accidental misspellings like ‘teh’ for the word ‘the’? Just curious…

    Reply
  20. marcuscram says:
    February 15, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Weird…I would love to sit down with the creators and get inside their heads and RichSPK, being gay doesn’t help

    Reply
  21. gothicgeek says:
    February 15, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    The Video!

    hahahaaaaaa

    creepy or what?

    but thanks for posting it, i’m more puzzled than ever

    :)

    Reply
  22. pAULbOWEN says:
    February 15, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    Please, I can’t be the only one who finds the juxtaposition of baby faces and wrestle/buttsex vidz icky? And, is it okay to say that the more I see and learn of Japan and the Japanese, the less I like them?

    @Manooshi, don’t know for sure but I always assumed pron and pr0n were spellings adopted to prevent the post being stopped by automod rude word detection software.

    Reply
  23. Danny Choo says:
    February 15, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    @Manooshi,
    Its bad for Search Engine Optimization to have such words appear too many times on your site – affects page rank. Thus similar words or spellings are used – well thats just one reason ;-)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

    Reply
  24. SC_Wolf says:
    February 15, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    @#23 posted by Manooshi
    Forgive my ignorance, but is there any type of reason why some people spell porn as ‘pron’ on the internet?

    Yes.

    Reply
  25. Manooshi says:
    February 15, 2009 at 5:27 pm

    @ PaulBowen, Danny Choo, and SC Wolf:

    Thank you all so much for the clarification and links. It makes complete sense now. I’m glad to not be in the dark anymore about this purposeful misspelling.

    And thank you Danny for providing some [offbeat] glimpses at modern Japanese culture. It has been educational, to say the least.

    Reply
  26. tengu99 says:
    February 15, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    That clip melted my brain

    Reply
  27. The Promiscuous Reader says:
    February 15, 2009 at 6:41 pm

    “Japan’s weird, you know that?”

    Japan’s weird?

    Reply
  28. robulus says:
    February 15, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    Ouch.

    *Dazed. Confused. Slightly more prone to seizure. Urgently requiring aspirin.*

    Reply
  29. stegodon says:
    February 15, 2009 at 6:56 am

    Why the detached floating baby heads? Is that a kid milking a cow at 1:14? So many questions, but summarily – WTF?

    Reply
  30. Anonymous says:
    February 16, 2009 at 8:37 am

    Danny is the son of Jimmy as well

    Reply
  31. noen says:
    February 15, 2009 at 7:06 am

    What, no lucky Stalin?

    Reply
  32. nach0s says:
    February 15, 2009 at 7:07 am

    I just had a seizure.

    Reply
  33. Anonymous says:
    February 15, 2009 at 7:18 am

    And I thought American internet memes were confusing O_O

    Reply
  34. iamcantaloupe says:
    February 15, 2009 at 8:11 pm

    And here I was thinking that Ronald McDonald Insanity was the most absurdly insanely Japanese thing on YouTube.

    Reply
  35. Jason Rizos says:
    February 16, 2009 at 9:21 am

    Dang, removed? I wonder if some BoingBoing reader ratted them out for a violation of nudity policy?

    Reply
  36. Anonymous says:
    February 16, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    http://dic.nicovideo.jp/v/sm6153351

    Here is some of the event with Billy

    Reply
  37. Jason Rizos says:
    February 15, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhQGxvP3Ujc

    There is something truly artistic gained in the jarring combination of hyper-real electronic synth music, slapstick comedy, mock homo eroticism, genuine homo eroticism.

    Reply
  38. Shay Guy says:
    February 15, 2009 at 7:29 am

    “Japan’s weird, did you know that?”

    Also, I like the TV Tropes term “Widget Series” — “widget” as in “WJT,” for “Weird Japanese Thing.”

    Reply
  39. mstoddard says:
    February 15, 2009 at 7:44 am

    I love Japan.

    Reply
  40. Bender says:
    February 15, 2009 at 7:48 am

    Sort of like watching scrambled porn while listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks. People find all kinds of things entertaining, I guess.

    Reply
  41. pipera says:
    February 15, 2009 at 7:49 am

    I think you should blog more about your Good Smile Co. etc. not just COPY/PASTE from Wikipedia

    Reply
  42. dreamshade says:
    February 15, 2009 at 9:34 pm

    Oh God, they remixed it with a Touhou Project video. Word of note – there are no fans more incomprehensible or peculiar in this world than Touhou fans.

    Reply
  43. J France says:
    February 15, 2009 at 9:59 pm

    Oh dear God… Billy was part of the first bit of gay porn I ever got my hands on as a teenager, this brought back some really weird memories – and the Touhou Proj video made me feel funny in the pants…. which just made me feel funny.

    Reply
  44. Anonymous says:
    February 15, 2009 at 8:02 am

    Which came first? This video style in Japan, or animutations?

    Reply

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