LOS ANGELES — Business Insider refers to “punk princess” Joanna Angel as “porn’s most successful entrepreneur” in a recent profile spotlighting her alt-erotic brand, Burning Angel.
"We just came up with the name. It had a good girl/bad girl thing going, so we liked it," she told Business Insider, describing how she conceived of Burning Angel in 2002 with her then-roommate at Rutgers University.
Flash forward 11 years, and Angel is now a mainstay in the industry. Business Insider reporter Dylan Loves notes that her ten-person operation functions much like any modern day startup, evinced by the fact that Joanna performs sundry roles, from artistic director to performer to promoter.
While Burning Angel has helped etch out a niche referred to as “alt-porn” (RE: chicks with tats, piercings and an overall punk vibe), she eschews the term, explaining that “alt” is an overly general term that just implies that something strays from the norm.
Besides its defining punk aesthetic, the profile underscores another difference between Burning Angel and other sites: its focus on community and culture, embodied by its forums and (live and online) events.
Angel admits that she never thought that her pet project would become her career, instead envisioning herself as a journalist, sex columnist or English teacher, but now feels fully entrenched despite the stumbling blocks pornographers now face.
"Porn is definitely tough," she said, "but this is my career and this is what I do. We want to expand the brand and do even more with it. At this point, we've been around for a while. But we're still growing because we're still a small business."
To read the complete profile on BusinessInsider.com, click here.
