Hello, you glorious beasts.

This week in Bunce: 

💋 I went to a pornstar’s birthday party — and it was a business masterclass

🤖 7 jobs that will (probably) be safe from AI

💂 The time Londoners hacked Google to trick influencers

But spare me this poppycock! To business. 

Let me start by telling you… 

What I learnt about aspirational marketing at a pornstar’s birthday party

Her stage name is Zara du Rose. Perhaps you’ve seen her films? 

There’s the critically acclaimed Secret de Famille: la fille adoptive and 41 Years Old: The Cheating Spouse. I needn’t mention Blown Away.

Why was I at her 30th birthday party? 

I’m afraid that’s none of your business. 

This ‘party’ was held in a West London mansion rented out on a semi-regular basis to the teeming fetish community of London, the kinkiest city in the world. 

But it wasn’t just a birthday party… 

Because Zara du Rose is also a businesswoman.

She runs a quirky, well-reviewed boutique hotel in Brighton. The breakfast is apparently “delicious”, but one reviewer said they heard “strange banging in the night”. 

She is also the public face of ZDR Events, a popular fetish club night in London, which she runs with her husband, David. 

This was one such ticketed event, though this was marketed as her birthday party. 

Her husband (and business manager) greeted guests in high heels and fishscale trousers. 

But the guests were not her friends; they were fans and fetishists.

Zara manned a stall selling her company’s ‘latex shine’ and condoms as though she were selling chilled bottled water on a beach.

But she was really selling something more profoundly human. 

Consider her customers

The most striking thing about the guests (aside from their tasselled nipples and swinging guts) was how ordinary and boring they were. 

Accountants, civil servants, and administrators—a carnival of ordinaries, all average-looking people, politely and awkwardly engaging in reassuringly British conversations about the weather, in spite of the latex outfits and gimp suits.

And they hadn’t come exclusively for the sadomasochism. 

I saw very few people using the flogs, clamps, bondage harnesses, paddles, whips, stocks, benches and Berkley horses, all available in the playroom.

They had come for… 

A Walk on the Wild Side (a lesson in aspirational marketing)

It felt dangerous and exciting to be there. 

There was a fire-breather and a trapeze artist. One woman encoiled herself in a spiderweb of ropes. Another performer stretched her skin and pricked it with knives. 

This ‘birthday party’ was aspirational marketing at its finest.

Zara knows who her customers are—and knows they want the illusion of being so sexy and wild that they are friends with a pornstar, and not greying middle-managers.

She’s not selling latex or BDSM; she’s selling the validation that “I do live an interesting life”. 

And she lets them feel that danger in a way that’s ultimately very safe. You’re in a kinky playroom (exciting)—but with rules strictly enforced by the patrolling attendants (safe).

I sometimes imagine myself as one of those average-looking people with average jobs filling out spreadsheets next Monday morning:

Stacey from Marketing behaves as if I don’t exist.

But what the hell does she know?

I went to an award-winning pornstar’s birthday party. 

7 Jobs That Will Probably Be Safe from AI (for a While)

We’re not getting involved in the ‘coding is dead’ debate. Here are 7 other jobs.

1. Nurses

2. Therapists

3. Bartenders

4. Repair workers

5. Religious-y jobs

6. Policymakers

7. Competitive pursuits (e.g., gamers and athletes)

Read the full article here and let us know if you disagree. 

Let me be the subject of your ire.

How Londoners Hacked Google To Trick Influencers

R/London users were annoyed: all their favourite London dinner spots were getting pummelled by tourists and influencers—and they didn’t know why. 

Then, one user pointed out that the Google algorithm increasingly recommends Reddit content for travel queries and recommendations. 

Possibly something to do with their $60 million deal. I guess we’ll never know. 

So they hatched a plan to bury their favourite restaurants on Google

They wanted to divert all the tourists to the Angus Steakhouse, a remarkably underwhelming chain restaurant. About as authentically London as M&M World. 

The Londoners flooded Reddit with fake reviews hyping Angus Steakhouse to manipulate the search results for “best steak in London”.

And lo! It worked like a dream. 

Within days, these Reddit posts ranked #1 for "best steak sandwich in London"—above actual food critics and established review sites.

The top posts were packed with tongue-in-cheek praise for a chain universally known by locals as a mediocre tourist trap.

How is this even possible? Is Google stupid?

Google's algorithm considers hundreds of factors when deciding which information to trust and prioritise. 

Google increased algorithmic weighting in favour of user-generated content—lived experiences, in other words—to fight AI-generated slop. 

That means sites like Reddit, Quora, LinkedIn, etc.

The problem is that Google (and LLMs, for that matter) rely heavily on consensus for data surfacing rather than any real discernment.

And that perceived consensus can be easily established across a small network of sock puppet accounts.

In their effort to combat SEO manipulation from spammy self-hosted blogs, Google has become way more vulnerable to trojan horse content on third-party platforms—or ‘parasite SEO’.

Basically, don’t believe everything you read on the internet. People like us write the internet.

And with the clocks going forward, we’ll leave you with...

…this giant sundial, installed in 2008 in Hebden Bridge.

Except it was put up in the winter, so it’s an hour out during the sunny summer months.

Some of these geniuses were wasted in local councils.

Until next time, you glorious beasts

Ed + Joe

Bunce