The Worst Drug: "We’re trying to take something antisocial and make it social"

The Worst Drug is a website displaying large-framed gifs, a bit like a porn version of gifs.com, except apart from offering stuff for your eyes to feast on, the platform looks like a social-porn start-up and also allows you to become a video curator. Gifs that entice you, videos to fap to, and an attractive presentation clashing in the world of free porn, usually swamped with freaky commercials about enlarged dongs. Our jolly team of fap warriors was eager to learn more about it, so I, as a worthy representative, went and asked a few questions to Raj, The Worst Drug’s managing director.

Could you please briefly introduce yourself for those of us who don’t know you?
I’m Raj, CEO. When I’m not writing code, I enjoy playing guitar, thinking about thinking, and drinking coffee. My favorite band is Radiohead.

Katie is our COO. When she’s not crunching numbers, she enjoys dancing and obsessively
checking Reddit. Her favorite TV show is Bill Nye, the Science Guy.

Chris is our CDO (Chief Design Officer). When he’s not editing videos, he enjoys drooling over women and snowboarding. His favorite car is the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.

Your headline is “Making porn social.” Could you tell us a bit more about this?
In tech, great ideas follow certain patterns. For example, if you take something slow and make it fast, you could be building the next Google Chrome. Or if you take something hard and make it easy, you could be building the next Dropbox.

We’re trying to take something antisocial and make it social. We’ve designed our site to be easy to share, and we’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many people show it to their boyfriends/girlfriends, or even post it publicly on Reddit and Twitter.

How do you plan to develop in 2014?
We love working on The Worst Drug. So our main goal for 2014 is to either become profitable or to secure funding so that we can afford to keep working on the site. Also, I’ve seen on other porn sites that you can buy pills to grow your penis by 13 inches! I’m going to try that in 2014.

What kind of advertising deal can you provide?
So far, we’re 100% bootstrapped and funded through donations (if you like what we’re doing, consider donating Bitcoin). However, if we find the right partner, we’re open to monetizing through advertising, as long as it doesn’t disrupt our user experience. You can see our advertising options here

Is it possible to fap to gifs?
Probably not. We think of our website as three different (but related) experiences:

1. L’Entrée : The gif browsing experience. Here, you can
sample lots of different gifs. You might like some, you might dislike others. The point is
variety to get you in the mood.
2. Le Plat Principal : The video wall. Here, you can see all of our videos on one page. You can pick a couple to watch. We edit our videos so that they include the best parts, and so that they’re under 10 minutes long. (Who wants to watch a single video for 45 minutes?)
3. Le Fromage : The video search. Here, you can find the perfect video to fap to. We try hard to make our search intuitive so that you can
always find something good.

I like that you use the word “fap.” In case you’re unaware of the term’s history, it was popularized (but not invented) by an artist named Clay in his excellent webcomic Sexy Losers.

Who is searching for the videos and the gifs that’ll be featured on the website?
I’ve written an algorithm that finds and shows trending gifs, from all over the internet. Then Chris finds and edits the source videos for our favorites out of those gifs.

I searched “rimjob” and it told me “no rimjob videos.” Kinda heavy-hearted, no?
Are you sure? You might want to try that search again… Winking-Smiley-face.

Haha sweet! winking–smiley-face! But there are gifs that don’t link to videos… Why? It makes us sad.
It makes me sad too! But Chris is working as hard as he can to find and edit videos, so that we all can live in a better world. We try to get at least one new video every day.

What is your favorite drug (except The Worst Drug of course)?
Definitely the Undertow. It’s a layered drink with a shot of milk and vanilla syrup at the bottom, and two shots of espresso on top. You’re supposed to shoot it, so in your mouth, the taste goes from hot and bitter to cold and sweet. It’s highly addictive and feels like rocket fuel in your veins.

During your interviews for Techcrunch or NextShark, they wanted to know if your parents were aware of what you’re doing. They also asked you what a girl could be doing in a “porn start-up.” What do you think of these questions in 2013, as we entered this all new “cool-mainstream” era of porn?
In France, you may have a different view as to how cool or mainstream porn is. In the US, we haven’t yet overcome our Puritan legacy, and violence is still much more accepted than sex. Our culture is hypocritical. Porn is still taboo in many ways, even though the data shows that everyone looks at it.

“Do your parents know what you’re doing? What could a girl be doing at a porn startup?” 50 years ago, people would’ve asked what a girl could be doing at an automobile company. Thank you for finding these questions absurd. America has to catch up to Europe.

Do you know our famous “Gifs Of The Week” by Florence Abitboule? What do you think about it?
Yes, I love Gifs of the Week! The image selections are good, but Florence’s commentary makes the column great. My favorite gif is the one of Kelsi Monroe. I must’ve watched her walk for 5 minutes straight.

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