We Asked the Math Tutor Who Posts His Lessons on Pornhub: Why?

[justseyi]

Amidst the eclectic realm of unconventional roleplay and peculiar COVID-themed content on Pornhub, an unassuming figure has defied the odds to become an unexpected sensation. Clad in a substantial grey hoodie and sporting glasses, this man isn’t your typical Pornhub star. Instead of engaging in explicit acts, he’s engrossed in scribbling complex mathematical equations on a chalkboard, delivering his explanations with the utmost gravity.

This isn’t some avant-garde take on professor roleplay or a venture into the nerdy side of Rule 34. No, what you’ve stumbled upon is a remarkably earnest attempt at teaching mathematics.

Meet Shun-Wei Chang, a 34-year-old Taiwanese math tutor who also goes by the stage name Changhsu. He’s the brains behind a Pornhub account boasting over 7,000 subscribers. His channel, playfully adorned with a “Play Hard Study Hard!” motto, hosts a treasure trove of videos where he dissects the intricacies of calculus. These videos have collectively garnered nearly 2 million views, establishing him as a successful content creator in an arena typically dominated by nudity.

Chang’s video titles often incorporate porn-related keywords like “naked,” “giant breasts,” “masturbation,” “threesome,” and “oral sex.” It’s a calculated strategy, Chang confessed, intended to optimize his videos’ visibility in keyword searches. This maneuver has propelled him to notoriety, particularly after capturing the attention of Taiwanese media outlets in October. Since then, he’s been featured in international publications and even made an appearance on a live stream event hosted on Pornhub’s official Instagram account earlier this month.

“A lot of people only see my marketing strategy and find it intriguing,” Chang remarked. However, behind the bizarre antics lies a story of sheer desperation as Chang grappled with a personal crisis.

In Asia, tuition centers, also known as cram schools, flourish due to the fierce competition within educational systems, driving students to seek extra academic support after regular school hours.

Until last year, Chang operated his own tutoring center in Hsinchu, a northern Taiwanese city, alongside a few hired colleagues. His world was upended in February 2020 when one of his co-workers opened a rival cram school right above his own.

“They took all my students upstairs, so my cram school suddenly lost all its income and could no longer operate,” he recounted.

 

Chang found himself in a precarious situation, burdened with the remnants of his failed educational endeavor and saddled with over NT$1 million ($35,900) in debt, including bank loans he had obtained to establish his school.

“At one point, I contemplated suicide,” Chang admitted. “I was simply in too much debt, and I wasn’t confident that I could repay it quickly.”

However, Chang ultimately chose a different path, one where he could leverage his teaching skills. He transitioned to online instruction, launching a website offering educational resources for students.

To gain traction for his teaching website, Chang employed various attention-grabbing tactics. He undertook endeavors like live-streaming himself solving 100 calculus problems in 10 hours and providing assistance to university students preparing for their end-of-term final exams across Taiwan.

As his mounting financial woes bore down on him, Chang embarked on a relentless journey. In March 2020, he began churning out tutorial videos for online consumption. For months, he produced 30 to 40 videos daily and even resorted to sleeping in his abandoned tuition center to resume filming immediately upon waking.

Instead of joining the multitude of educational videos already available online, Chang and his team opted for a novel approach: they uploaded the videos to Pornhub in May.

“We thought of putting our videos in the most unexpected place,” he explained, referring to their decision to broadcast academic content on a platform renowned for catering to sexual, rather than scholarly, desires.

In a stroke of brilliance, Chang found that Pornhub was the ideal platform to connect with college students seeking mathematical assistance right where they were most likely to be found.

Over the course of a year, Chang’s teaching materials saw an unprecedented surge in traffic as more students purchased his courses through the website. He also managed to earn enough to settle his debts.

Interestingly, Pornhub users who stumble upon Chang’s videos seem unfazed by the absence of explicit content, often leaving comments in jest about his prowess in calculus.

But now, as the Pornhub tutor who’s grabbed everyone’s attention, Chang is ready to move on to new endeavours. He plans to revamp his teaching platform, with the launch scheduled for December.

Chang also has a charitable plan in the pipeline: an auction of his iconic grey hoodie, with proceeds earmarked to assist students in rural areas who face difficulties accessing his online resources. As he proudly displayed his beloved dark gray jacket over a video call, he reminisced about the journey alongside his trusty chalkboard companion that accompanied him into the realm of online teaching.

Throughout the hundreds of videos he created, that hoodie remained unwashed, a choice made for both aesthetic and practical reasons. It served to differentiate him from the scantily clad denizens of Pornhub, an incongruity he relished.

“If an adult website is where everyone else is unclothed, I’m the one swathed in layers,” Chang quipped.

Yet, beneath the surface, Chang’s story carries an inspiring message for his viewers.

“If there’s anyone facing intense struggles right now, I hope that my story can give them some strength, so they can believe that if they persevere, one day, there will be hope,” he shared.

You can also find his teaching videos on YouTube, where he collaborates with other tutors.

So, the next time you find yourself on Pornhub, spare a thought for Chang and perhaps contemplate elevating a different flaccid subject—your math grades.

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