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

Among the trove of wild roleplay and bizarre COVID porn, a bespectacled man clad in a thick gray hoodie is an unlikely hit on Pornhub. Scribbling mathematical equations on a chalkboard and explaining them in utmost seriousness, the unassuming tutor has carved a niche for himself in a corner of one of the world’s largest porn sites without being even remotely sexual.

This isn’t some next-level take on professor roleplay or the nerdy side of Rule 34. No, we’ve just stumbled upon a tutor’s extremely earnest attempt to teach math.

Shun-Wei Chang, 34, who also goes by the stage name Changhsu, is a Taiwanese math tutor who runs a Pornhub account with over 7,000 subscribers. His channel, fronted by a cheeky “Play Hard Study Hard!” slogan, contains hundreds of videos of him explaining calculus. His videos have racked up almost 2 million views in total, making him a successful fully-clothed content creator in a space dominated by nudity.

The titles of his videos often carry porn-related keywords such as “naked,” “giant breasts,” “masturbation,” “threesome,” and “oral sex”—a calculated move to make sure his videos would appear in as many keyword searches as possible, Chang told VICE.

While he has been posting math tutorials on Pornhub for over a year, he went viral after catching the attention of Taiwanese news outlets in October. Since then, he has been interviewed by international publications and even appeared on a live stream event on Pornhub’s official Instagram account earlier this month.

"A lot of people only see my marketing strategy and think it's interesting," Chang said. But as it turns out, driving the absurd antics was sheer desperation, as Chang grappled with a personal crisis.

Tuition centers (also known as cram schools) are lucrative businesses in Asia, where cut-throat competition in education systems force students to seek additional academic help from after-school tutoring.

Before last year, Chang was running his own tutoring center in Hsinchu, a city in northern Taiwan, along with a few co-workers he had hired. But Chang was caught off-guard in February 2020, when one of his co-workers opened a new cram school right above his.

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

Chang was suddenly left with the messy remains of his defunct teaching space and over NT$1 million ($35,900) in debt, including money he had borrowed from the bank to set up his school.

“The problem got so serious that at one point, I contemplated suicide,” Chang said. “I was simply in too much debt, and I wasn't confident that I could repay it quickly.” 

But ultimately, Chang decided to start a new business where he could put his skills as a tutor to good use. He pivoted to online teaching, setting up a website that offers educational resources for students.

Chang tried to get the teaching website off the ground with several gimmicks, such as live streaming himself solving 100 calculus problems in 10 hours, as well as visiting universities across Taiwan to help students prepare for their end-of-term final exams.

With his massive financial problem breathing down his neck, Chang was working on an endless grind. In March 2020, Chang started filming a ton of tutorial videos to share online. For months, he was making 30 to 40 videos a day, and had even started sleeping in his abandoned tuition center so he could resume filming once he woke up.

But instead of pitting his tutorials against the avalanche of teaching videos that were readily available online, Chang and his team decided then to give them a different kind of exposure—they uploaded the videos on Pornhub that May.

“We thought of putting our videos in the most jarring place,” he said of the decision to shoot his content off to a platform that’s most known for catering to sexual—rather than academic—frustrations.

In Chang’s attempt to reach college students who could use some mathematical help, Pornhub turned out to be the perfect place to meet his target audience where they’re at. 

Over about a year, Chang saw unprecedented traffic to his teaching material as more students purchased the courses on his websites. He also succeeded in earning enough to pay off his debts.

Other Pornhub users who stumble upon his videos also don’t seem to mind that the only content he posts are mathematical equations.

“Nothing like a nice Delta-Epsilon Proof for my post-nut clarity,” a user wrote under Chang’s video, just one of many similar comments poking fun at his calculus prowess.

But despite now being known as that Pornhub tutor, Chang has been keeping his hands off the adult website—his most recent Pornhub video was posted nine months ago.

“The original intention behind putting my videos on Pornhub was to get everyone's attention,” he explained. And now that he has it, he’s moving on to new things, starting with a revamp of his teaching platform set for sometime in December.

Chang said that he’s planning an auction for his famed gray hoodie. The proceeds will go towards helping students in rural areas who have difficulty accessing his online material. He beamed with pride as he flexed his iconic dark gray jacket over a video call, fondly recounting war stories with the chalky companion that had stayed by him during his foray into the sexy world of online teaching.

Throughout the hundreds of videos that he filmed, the hoodie hasn’t been washed once. The choice of teaching gear was two-fold, Chang explained. Firstly, he wanted the chunky clothing to stand out against the lack of garments on the rest of Pornhub. 

“On an adult website, everyone else is naked, but I'm all wrapped up in thick clothing. There’s a clash," he said.

The more pragmatic, and less sexy, reason is that he had to shoot so many videos in one go that he simply couldn’t be bothered to change.

After picking himself up from a life-changing setback, Chang has come out of the other end with an encouraging 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 said. 

His teaching videos can also be found on YouTube, where he also features a bunch of other tutors.

The next time you’re on Pornhub, think of Chang, and maybe consider getting another flaccid subject up—your math grades. 

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, help is available. Call 1-800-273-8255 to speak with someone now or text START to 741741 to message with the Crisis Text Line.

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