This article was published on January 18, 2018

Threat of nuclear apocalypse briefly puts a damper on Pornhub traffic


Threat of nuclear apocalypse briefly puts a damper on Pornhub traffic

If you’ve ever been curious about what happens to a major porn site when there’s a nuclear missile bearing down on the US, we’ve got answers.

It turns out, when the government sends out a doomsday alert, porn connoisseurs are more concerned with getting out than getting off.

About 64 million people watch porn online every day, and while it’s unclear how many of those users are in Hawaii (which has a population of about 1.5 million), it’s clear the threat of nuclear holocaust is a real mood-killer.

Credit: Pornhub Insights

Once the threat turns out to be fake, however, they’re back – and in greater numbers. The very minute the threat was announced, traffic dropped to 77 percent below average. But there was an impressive 48 percent increase over normal user traffic once the threat was revealed to be false.

That’s right: the classic movie trope “near death experiences make people want to have sex” is actually true. Even for those going at it solo. If you’ve been traumatized by a fake nuclear missile threat, there’s nothing like a good self-love session to take out the stress — at least according to Pornhub. Keep in mind this probably shouldn’t be considered a full-on scientific analysis by any stretch of the imagination.

But I think we all know what the moral of this story is: yolo.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.