Here's the Truth Behind Claims Teacher Who Shares Math Lessons on Pornhub Earns $250K Annually
Claim:
A Taiwan-based teacher who shares his math lessons on Pornhub earns over $250,000 annually.
Rating:
What's True:
Chang-Hsu (張旭) is an actual teacher who posts his math classes on Pornhub under the names @changhsumath666 and @changhsumath.
What's False:
However, Chang told a journalist in 2021 he earned over $250,000 primarily through selling his courses on multiple platforms, rather than from ad revenue generated by posting videos on Pornhub.
What's Undetermined:
We were unable to independently verify the teacher's current income, as of June 2024.
In July 2024, a photograph spread on social media, allegedly showing a Taiwan-based teacher who shared his math lessons on Pornhub, earning over $250,000 annually. "Every place is a classroom: Teacher uses 'P*rnHüb to give math lessons', earns over $250,000 annually. The 34-year-old teacher has uploaded more than 200 videos," read the text of a meme showing a man standing in front of a chalkboard.
The meme was also shared on platforms such as Instagram, Imgur, 9GAG, and Know Your Meme.
In short, the teacher, whose name is Chang-Hsu, exists and his accounts on Pornhub are @changhsumath and @changhsumath666. A 2021 article in Mel Magazine reported, based on an interview with the teacher, that his online course "pulls in 7,500,000 New Taiwan dollars (over $250,000 U.S.) per year, which he uses to pay his bills and provide a decent salary to his employees, who help him teach on his various platforms." Pornhub is a Canadian-owned internet pornography video-sharing website.
In other words, Chang's income comes primarily from multiple platforms, where he sells courses, rather than from ad revenue generated by posting videos on Pornhub. But we were unable to independently verify the teacher's annual income as of June 2024. Because of all of this, we have rated this claim as a mixture of truth and falsehoods.
We have reached out to Chang for a comment and we will update this article if/when we receive a response.
@changhsumath's account on Pornhub, as of June 2024, had 3,300,000 views and 16,400 subscribers.
(www.pornhub.com)
Below you can see what @changhsumath's videos on Pornhub look like:
(@changhsumath Pornhub user)
Chang's second account on Pornhub, @changhsumath666, as of June 2024, had 1,800,000 views and 8,300 subscribers.
(www.pornhub.com)
Some of the videos shared on @changhsumath666 account featured female models who cleared the chalkboard, possibly as a tactic to capture viewers' attention.
(Pornhub user @changhsumath666)
Chang could make money on Pornhub by leveraging its Model Program, which allows users to upload content and earn revenue based on views and ad clicks.
In May 2023, South China Morning Post shared a post on Facebook reading, "A mathematics teacher has come up with a novel way to attract new students to his online classes" and showing behind-the-scenes captures of his videos.
https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/making-maths-sexy-taiwanese-teacher-puts-hardcore-calculus-classes-on-pornhub/713031323177473/
A Focus Taiwan article from February 2021 reported that Chang began the Pornhub project in May 2020 after a financial crisis at his private school and quoted him as saying, "The online-teaching market is highly competitive, and I can now attract 1,000 students each year, compared with an average of a few hundred for a calculus tutor." Moreover, the article underscored Chang's income came from multiple platforms on which he sells his courses:
Although Chang admitted that he felt a majority of his viewers visited his account, dubbed "Play hard, study hard," for a laugh rather than to study math, he said such a marketing strategy has brought him many new students.
Chang said the students, many of whom were from other countries, watched the free lessons on Pornhub and decided to enroll in his paid classes through various platforms, which altogether earned him NT$7.5 million (US$268,000) per year.
The article also reported that Chang, who had 15 years of teaching experience and a master's degree in mathematics, found it difficult to succeed on YouTube, and therefore decided to start sharing his videos on Pornhub.
Holding a master's degree in mathematics with 15 years of teaching experience, Chang said he had tried lecturing on YouTube but found it difficult to stand out from his competitors.
"I asked myself where to find my target students, say college boys, and the answer popped out: adult video platforms," he said.
Not all such websites appreciated Chang's idea, however, as others including XVideos and NXNN rejected non-adult clips, he said.
Now that many fellow tutors have started to follow suit, Chang said he is planning a revision for his channel next month.
"This is a top business secret, and what I can only tell you is it will no longer be just me in the videos," he said, implying, perhaps, a new hashtag of "multiple people."
According to Mel Magazine, Chang even tried to publish his videos on other adult websites, but "those platforms know which kinds of videos are adult and which aren't, and they forbid them."
Last year, Changhsu saw an opportunity to spread his numeric gospel on Pornhub. "Since very few people teach math on adult video platforms, and since there are so many people who watch videos on them, I thought that if I uploaded my videos there, a lot of people would see them," he tells me (Changhsu asked us to edit his English for clarity, because it's not his first language). It's true that non-pornographic videos like "I Deliver You a Pizza and Don't Put My [...] in It" or "Minecraft Tips and Tricks 3: Fast and Free House" aren't uncommon on Pornhub, but Changhsu appears to be the only math teacher on the website (unless "[...] off to CALCULUS" counts).
In fact, Changhsu even tried to extend his reign to other adult websites like XVideos and XNXX, but he says "those platforms know which kinds of videos are adult and which aren't, and they forbid them."
"People may not be interested in my videos, but they'll all know there's a teacher who teaches calculus on an adult video platform," he explained to Mel Magazine, which reported Chang "suspects that 60 percent or more of his viewers come to his Pornhub channel for a laugh, rather than to learn calculus."
"Many students who need a teacher who can teach math know me through Pornhub, and some of them buy my course," he said. "I didn't want to teach math on Pornhub," he stated, adding that, "I wanted to let the world know that I'm a teacher from Taiwan who can teach calculus well."
"I just finished filming a new series of lessons with the help of Lena Paul, Lena Anderson and other helpful models that may assist in your calculus skills," Chang said in a 2022 Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on Reddit:
I Am Chang-Hsu, a College Math Teacher Who Posts Lengthy SFW Calculus Lessons to Pornhub. AMA!
by u/WeAreMEL in IAmA
Below you can see the photograph linked in the post:
(Reddit u/WeAreMEL)
"Do you shoot n*de content with the girls who erase your blackboards?" one user under the post asked, to which Chang responded, "No, we don't~🤣."
Apart from publishing on Pornhub, Chang Hsu also shares his videos via a YouTube channel, @changhsumath. His newest video available on YouTube as of this writing was published in March 2024, with the title "[Zhang Xu Freshman Calculus] EP376｜Vector [13] Divergence Theorem｜Explanation of Concepts" (we translated it from Chinese using Google Translate).
Chang's Pornhub account also linked to Instagram and X accounts, but as of late June 2024, both profiles were empty and solely redirected to the changhsumath.com website, where his his courses were available for purchase.
(www.changhsumath.com)
It's not the first time we have fact-checked a Pornhub-related claim. For instance, in February 2024, we investigated whether Pornhub "sanctioned" Russia after its attack on Ukraine by blocking Russian users from accessing the site.
Sources:
Evon, Dan. "Did Pornhub Block Russian Users?" Snopes, 28 Feb. 2022, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/did-pornhub-block-russian-users/.
Pornhub. https://www.pornhub.com/model/changhsumath666. Accessed 25 June 2024.
Pornhub Amateur Program - How to Make Money on Pornhub | Pornhub Model Blog. https://www.pornhub.com/blog/pornhub-amateur-program-how-to-make-money-on-pornhub. Accessed 27 June 2024.
"Taiwanese Tutor Branches out to Teach Calculus on Pornhub - Focus Taiwan." Focus Taiwan - CNA English News, 2 Nov. 2021, https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202111020009.
---. 3 Nov. 2021, https://web.archive.org/web/20211103090429/https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202111020009.
"The Determined Math Tutor Teaching Calculus on Pornhub." MEL Magazine, 20 Oct. 2021, https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/math-lessons-on-pornhub.
張旭. 【張旭大一微積分】EP376｜向量 [13] 散度定理｜觀念講解. 2024. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5idZd_5zB0.
張旭 - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxBv4eDVLoj5XlRKM4iWj9g. Accessed 25 June 2024.
張旭無限教室 – 微積分、大學理工商學院熱門課程. https://changhsumath.com/. Accessed 25 June 2024.
