Joe Mahavuthivanij—the co-founder and CEO of Twerk From Home, or TFH—wants to be the Dana White of twerking by legitimizing and growing the sport of exotic dancing.
The organization’s first tournament bounces into action on Saturday, as a group of dancers thrust themselves towards the final with a $10,000 grand prize. The TFH event will feature dancers from across the world, battling it out in head-to-head twerk-offs via their webcams—hence the “from home” branding.
Meanwhile, viewers will vote with their wallets by purchasing “gifts” for the best dancer. Every cent of those gifts will go straight to the dancer, Mahavuthivanij said, and the individual with the most gifts will win the battle.
Crypto bros can get in on the action by gambling on who will win via sportsbook Bet105. Plus, dancers have the option to be paid in crypto—due to the high levels of debanking the founder noticed in the industry, he said—along with gifts that can be purchased with crypto.
TFH will host weekly livestreamed events through to October 4, when the grand final will take place.
Mahavuthivanij told Decrypt that the idea for TFH came from meeting exotic dancers in Las Vegas and attempting to understand the challenges they face. Some of the hurdles, he said, were around “legitimacy and professionalism,” and he wanted to fix that.
“Seeing the UFC legitimize and professionalize combat sports,” Mahavuthivanij explained, “I was like, maybe there’s something that we can combine here and leverage from their learnings. Ultimately, I threw all these crazy ideas into a [blender], and out the other side came this crazy idea to turn this into an online battle.”
Mixed martial arts faced a treacherous path to where it is today, with the UFC now looking to host an event at the White House. In fact, MMA was once banned in 36 American states, with Senator John McCain calling it “human cockfighting.” It took the UFC adding weight classes, banning certain techniques, and instituting judges—as well as the creation of the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts—before the sport had any sense of legitimacy.
TFH, however, won’t have its competition officiated by judges. Rather, the winner will be decided by the audience, which Mahavuthivanij anticipates will be mostly made up of men—giving a new meaning to the phrase “human cockfighting.”
“We do see how this can be conveyed as a popularity contest, at least at this stage. That’s sort of potentially how we’re thinking about it,” the founder said. “We are not necessarily pioneering this sort of model. If you look at shows like [“American Idol”], the audience texts in and chooses who they want to see move on. They get their audience involved; it’s an interactive experience.”
Of course, twerking and exotic dance competitions already exist.
International Twerk Champions includes a series of local competitions that lead to an international battle. There are multiple categories of style—such as twerking in heels—and they are judged by twerking teachers. This is done because the average viewer may not understand what constitutes an impressive move—the same reason that sports like rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics require qualified judges.
Mahavuthivanij argued that the International Twerk Champions is too irregular, has limited prize pools, and small viewership. His goal is to propel TFH to a level the sport has yet to see by hosting regular events.
Still, what the International Twerk Champions has over TFH is proper judges—Mahavuthivanij hopes to iron that out over time with expert commentary. That should help with “educating people” on what to look for, he said, which could lend the competition additional depth and help avoid it being simply a content based on looks or popularity.
“Once people start to understand what they should be looking for, then we can start to evolve it to that next level of objectivity versus strictly subjectivity,” Mahavuthivanij added.
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Exotic dancers face immense stigmatization in society, the CEO noted, and he hopes that TFH can expand beyond twerking into other niches after this first tournament. He explained that many dancers have their bank accounts closed down, an epidemic that has swept the sex work industry as well. For that reason, TFH is offering dancers the option to be paid in crypto.
“As I’ve been building this, if I’m honest, I have experienced a lot of that same stigma that they face every single day,” Mahavuthivanij told Decrypt. “This is something that’s been here forever, and will continue to be here. And I think it is about time that we provide legitimacy for it.”
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