Quote Originally Posted by basschick View Post
ken, amazingly enough i am in business to make money. am i supposed to be ashamed of that? surfers love straight guy sites - mine especially love straight guy jackoff sites. totally aside from money, why not give our surfers what they want to see? that way, everyone is happy.

sure, originality and creativity can be a pleasure to see - although a lot of creative sites don't really come through. either way, that doesn't mean that the classics aren't still working. in my world, there is room for fresh and unusual themes and niches AND the ones i've seen around that are well done and still work. i loved thai food the first time i had it but that didn't mean i have to give up baked potatoes.

You miss the point, Patti. "Creativity" doesn't have to mean "sites that nobody wants to see." Why is it that webmasters automatically jump to the conclusion that "originality" and "creativity" mean building sites that nobody wants to see?

There IS place called "the happy medium," where people can take exisiting ideas and do something innovative and daring with them -- where they can put a fresh spin on a tired, worn-out concept. And that's what needs to happen here.

When people create sites that simply mimic other successful sites, it's essentially stealing, even though nobody calls it that. It's also pure and simple laziness. In much the same fashion that people bitch and moan about how terrible Hollywood movies are because they simply rehash the same old themes over and over again, the adult industry is OFTEN guilty of that very same crime. It's an easy trap to fall in. Take what works and basically do the same thing, just with different models.

I firmly believe that there IS a way to put your own spin on something without changing it so drastically that nobody recognizes it anymore.

I get it. Straight guys sell. As much as I find this disappointing on the part of gay surfers (as far as I'm concerned, it's high time we leave straight men to the people they really want to be with: straight women), I understand that business-minded webmasters are going to exploit this fascination for all it's worth as long as a buck or two can be made from it. OK. But if it must be done, for God's sake, at least have the audacity and daring to do something unique with it so that it's not the same thing that EVERYBODY ELSE is doing.

You can argue that the three Star Wars prequels were financially successful, but a lot of people would call them abysmal creative failures that were purely driven by a need to make money. The way I see it, if being financially successful comes at the expense of individuality, there's nothing "successful" about making that money. You're just piggy-backing off someone else's success, someone who did it before you. What's so successful about that?