Strip Spectacle: Joey Kim on Live Streaming, AVN Stars & JKTV

This is the cover story of the March 2021 issue of AVN magazine. Click here for the digital edition. LOS ANGELES—Joey Kim admits that curiosity got the best of her. “When I first started live streaming I don't think I was really prepared for it,” Kim says. “I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.” A sophomore who was studying photography at Parsons School of Design in New York, Kim started her career in adult entertainment as a non-nude model on MyFreeCams without doing any research—in 2010. When Kim streams live in 2021, it has turned into appointment viewing. Now the “Asian Strip Spectacle” shares her gift for performing on AVN Stars when she’s not experimenting with new technology on her official website, JoeyKim.tv, one of the most innovative online destinations in the industry that she and her team built from scratch. “I feel like all of this was very unexpected for me because I hadn't thought that live streaming would become what it is for me today, or that it would become as big as it has for me today,” says Kim, whose journey with self-portraiture started in 2013, around the time she began going nude on cam. The versatile performance artist possesses generational talent that extends beyond the standard cam show. She has moved audiences around the world with her effortless grace on the Lyra and silks, doing aerial burlesque in front of crowds from New York to Thailand.  In the past four years since she embraced her wanderlust, Kim has streamed from Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Lisbon, Portugal, London and Prague, Czech Republic, where she has lived and worked for extended periods. She teased on an outdoor swing on the island of Krk, Croatia, danced in the shadows in Moscow, Russia, and stripped on a balcony in St. Tropez, France. In Spain’s Canary Islands, where she resides at the moment, Kim demonstrated the art of seduction in a soapy escapade inside a glass-enclosed shower. Today Kim’s captivating stage presence stands in contrast to how she eased into cam modeling at a time when she was far more comfortable staying behind the scenes. “I wasn't even very confident in my body or in my sexuality at the time,” Kim recalls. “I feel like sort of throwing myself into the industry has been a huge learning experience for me. “Because it's almost like I slowly started to apply myself and my skills and my passions to live streaming. That’s when it really started to lift off for me—when I was starting to be more comfortable with just expressing myself and sharing who I am and what was going on in my life at the time.” She adds, “I think that really helped in allowing me to feel like I could do this for a living, when I began to embrace myself and my body and my flaws—and be raw and honest about who I am.” ***Kim built the foundation for the look she achieves with her extensive photography background—she had an affinity for shooting landscapes while in school—bridging her exquisite photo aesthetic with her live streams to create breathtaking imagery. “And actually that bridge happened because at some point I just started using my DSLR for streaming and I realized that regardless what people say about porn or art—or how they try to make a distinction between the two—I always found there is no distinction,” Kim reasons. “I feel like a lot of art comes from erotica and I feel like work can be both erotic and artistic if that is the purpose of the work, if that is the purpose of the person creating it. To create art that is also sexually stimulating. “I don't think the two things are exclusive.” Kim performed before a room full of people for the first time in Hollywood, Calif., in 2014 after someone discovered one of her videos online. By February 2017, she had brought her Lyra act to Wonderfruit, an annual arts, music and lifestyle festival held at The Fields at Siam Country Club in Chonburi province in Pattaya, Thailand. In March 2018, Kim headlined Eloha Yonim - Goddess of the Doves, a theatrical performance ritual at a private loft in New York, where Kim thrilled attendees with soaring aerial acrobatics and her sensational erotic rocking chair act. Even though recently she hasn’t been able to find a space to mount her aerial rig, Kim continued to hone her skills while she spent several months in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2020. “There was a dance studio that allowed me to practice there. But since I’ve been traveling it really just depends on if the space allows me to hang anything on top of,” says Kim, who last did an aerial show in August in Thailand, creating a movie called “Zero Gravity” in the process. She brought her talents to AVN Stars in February 2020, doing her first live stream in March en route to becoming one of the platform’s top models in her first year. “It's an honor for me to be a part of AVN Stars,” Kim says. “I’ve loved every moment of it. “I feel really fortunate that I had the confidence to just take that plunge and believe in myself. And I'm really glad I found a space that I feel free to express myself, but also feel like I can really see myself grow as a performer and flourish.” *** Kim feels a sense of nostalgia when she enters the weekly photo contests on AVN Stars. The three-day competitions—which are decided by fan voting—entail sharing a personal photo based on the contest theme for that weekend. “I really enjoy that a lot because it feels a lot like back when I was in school and I would have photo assignments,” she says.  “And for me having a topic always helped me in my creative expression because it kind of gave me a bit of a direction. I feel like it challenges me to be creative every month. And I always have to be on my toes because I never know what the next topic or what the next contest will be.” Kim won the “Winter Vibes” contest on January 15 with a stunning semi-nude, black-and-white image of herself on a rocky shoreline in Marseille, France, receiving the $750 first prize. For “Ring in the New Year” she shared a gif of her removing her bra while wearing a cardboard party hat, earning $600 for second place. And for her winning “Naughty of Nice” entry on Christmas weekend, she submitted a kinky striptease gif in front of a burning fireplace. Kim, who shot the images from her March cover and layout herself in the sand dunes on the Canary Islands, says she has felt a strong sense of community on AVN Stars—the subscription-based platform designed specifically for adult creators. “I feel like I've made a lot of new friends and also being around so many Domme's I thought at first I might feel kind of outcasted or something—or kind of stick out a little bit,” she explains. “But to my surprise I've actually made so many friends and having the energy of the women around me who have such boss woman energy, who are so confident and feel so powerful in their skin to me is very—it's very refreshing and it's also very powerful for me. “Because in a way it's also helping me to feel sort of that same energy. They're very confident and have that boss energy that I would love to be a little bit more like.” *** Kim launched the first version of JoeyKim.tv in 2013. Since then she has guided the site through several facelifts as she works to stay on the cutting edge of live streaming technology and maximize her users’ experience. “Even with how difficult it is to build and run my own site, I'm really enjoying the freedom it gives me… really the sky's the limit here because anything I dream up I can create,” she says. Kim, who can stream on JKTV from her phone, in April 2020 introduced camera switching in a sensual live show on AVN Stars from St. Petersburg. She dazzled in the pre-dawn performance that unfolded in her bedroom in front of large windows overlooking the city. In that stream a $5 tip triggered a 20-second close-up; $10 gave viewers 40 seconds; and a $20 gratuity treated the room to the more intimate angle for 80 seconds. The interactive feature allowed the audience to actively become her cameraman, giving them a choice between a close-up camera angle and a wide-angle camera. Later in 2020 she added slow-motion replay to her streaming options on JKTV. “The site has a whole player actually that can do slow-motion replay,” Kim explains. “So you can even watch movies that I've created and do a slow-motion replay as well as archives at some point. “It's totally an awesome feature for experiencing videos in a whole new way. Because now we're finding ways to enable the viewer to have control over the content and how they view it. And so that's really exciting for me because I'm constantly trying to figure out how I can make it more interactive for the members, too.” When JoeyKim.tv members send her tips, it rains confetti and hearts on the screen in slick animated overlays. Joey's viewers can also make a song request that queues up when she is live. Kim can choose to set a per-minute price on the close-up camera angle or keep it free. Her pay-per-minute show room also allows viewers to control the vibration of the Lovense toy she is using. Joey at press time was working to complete the archive player, so her members can play back a previous show complete with the chat messages appearing in real time, while also controlling the camera switching. “Which I think is amazing,” she says. Now Kim not only is working on building out JoeyKim.tv, she also is developing a sister site called MuseLink, “where I would host some of my favorite performers who inspire me.” “And I see it being almost like an online burlesque theater," Kim says. “JKTV is going to be the site where I will basically be testing all my new features, and where I'll be more experimental. And MuseLink is where I will host other performers’ solo sites and create MuseLink Academy, which is where I want to have these performers also teach courses. “So that we would be kind of cultivating this community, where we are sharing our experiences and our knowledge, and really like co-elevating. So that I'm really excited about.” Kim says creating this kind of educational space, where she and other collaborators would host events, exchange ideas and nurture friendships, has “really been a dream of mine.” “Like a sisterhood, where we can feel open and free to share what we know and help each other,” she adds. “Because I feel like there's like a wealth of information just between each of us. And to share that knowledge with each other and to grow together is I think not just going to be more fun, but it's also going to be easier for all of us to uplift each other.” Photography by JoeyKim.tv