Devante is not one to mince words. The 32-year-old Las Vegas-based TikTok creator, known online as @devanteyaps, has built an unlikely career out of narrating the porn industry like it’s the NBA. (Devante asked us not to use his actual first and last name for privacy reasons.)
His clips — fast-talking, stat-laden, equal parts barbershop banter and SportsCenter highlight reel — have drawn millions of views across Instagram and TikTok (with over 97,000 and 100,000 followers respectively), a rabid comment section, and even the ears of the performers themselves. And it all started with a list of which performers are the cream of the crop.
“Someone [on TikTok] said [adult actor] Pinky wasn’t even top 20,” Devante recalls in an interview with Mashable. “I was like, what?!” So, in April, he made a video correcting the record. Over a 100 videos later, he has stumbled into a niche that is equal parts absurd and undeniable.
The ‘GSPN’ of TikTok
Once an intern at a recording studio, Devante has amassed a fanbase that “lovingly” calls him Gooner A. Smith (nameplay of the sports commentator Stephen A. Smith and “gooning,” which means watching porn for hours while edging). His TikTok bio declares him a “GSPN” (gooning ESPN) analyst.
What makes Devante stand out isn’t just the gimmick, but the authority he’s managed to command. Performers DM him, companies offer him free subscriptions, and fans flood his rankings with debates about who really belongs in the porn hall of fame. “I try to stay grounded,” he says. “At the end of the day, I’m just opinions. But I know my words have weight now.”
In an era when many still whisper about adult content in hushed tones, Devante has unexpectedly become one of its first unabashed public analysts — a sort of pioneer in bringing porn commentary into mainstream digital culture. His SportsCenter-meets-porn breakdowns are somewhat the end result of TikTok’s obsession with sex work as both spectacle and subject (judging from the debate that preceded his account), but he now occupies a rarified space that a few others are also approaching.
That boldness is especially striking against a political backdrop where porn is under fresh attack: Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for Donald Trump’s second presidential term, explicitly calls for criminalizing pornography and prosecuting those who produce and distribute it. This year, lawmakers introduced several bills to ban porn.
Mashable Trend Report
In that sense, Devante’s work isn’t just about grabbing attention — it’s about reframing porn as an industry worth analyzing rather than a guilty pleasure to be hidden away. However, at the end of the day, he’s still an entertainer.
Even the label of “entertainer” brings pressure, though. Early on, he roasted a performer’s plastic surgery and found himself on the receiving end of weeks of clapback. “It doesn’t matter if I was right,” he opines now. “I shouldn’t have said it like that.” These days, he toes the line between critique and cruelty, aware that performers — real people with real feelings — are listening. “I want to be factual, fair. I don’t want to hurt feelings, even when I’m being honest.”
The irony is that, while Devante’s whole brand is porn talk, his videos are often less salacious than they are sociological. He thinks about eras, evolutions, the racial “two leagues” divide in porn’s history, and the economics of OnlyFans. He rails against poor camerawork — “Tripod, ten feet away, and you’re still charging $40?”— with the same exasperation as a coach watching sloppy defense. And he worries about the darker undercurrents of the industry: potential exploitation, unsafe meetups with anonymous male creators, and the mental health of women who are highly visible online.
“People have told me the most vile things online,” he says. “But I know the girls are getting worse than me. The mental health side of this needs to be talked about way more.”
The stigma of talking about adult content online
For someone whose persona is built on shamelessness, stigma is never far away. Devante’s been called “the goonfather” at work and brushed off concerns from friends about hanging out with porn stars. But he shrugs. “If you’re gonna judge me for what I do, I don’t care,” he says. “I’m doing things people would love to do. Why have shame about it?”
If anything, he sees his platform as a way to push back against stigma — both for himself and for the performers. Long-term, he wants to launch a podcast that humanizes porn performers rather than baiting them into viral clips. “Other shows, they’ll ask them wild questions just for clicks. I want to ask, ‘How’d you start? What are your goals after this? How does your family accept it?'”
Devante’s videos now take three to four hours a day to create: researching scenes across subscription sites, double- and triple-checking facts, then recording into TikTok’s 10-minute time cap. Consistency beats perfection, he insists. “Some days I’m locked in, some days I’m not. But showing up every day matters more than being perfect.”
His “greatest hits” remain the rankings — Top 10 lists that reliably ignite the comments section, with fans arguing stats like sports fans screaming about Jordan vs. LeBron. (For him, it’s Gianna Michaels as Jordan and Angela White as LeBron, in case you’re wondering.)
Whether you find his shtick brilliant or ridiculous, Devante is well on his way to reshaping the way people talk about porn online. He’s not naïve about it. He knows the ridicule, the contradictions, and the fact that some will always see him as unserious. But he also believes he’s building something bigger from his “15 minutes of fame.”
“I want to give performers a platform where they’re seen as humans,” he says. “That’s the goal. That’s where all this is heading.”
