A Joke That Became a Logistics Problem
Joi AI's head of brand, Julie Levin, expected a few hundred applications when the company posted its listing for 'masturbation consultants' — paid $2,000 per month to test a new Daily Guided Masturbation feature and log its effects on stress, sleep, and mood. Two weeks later, more than 120,000 people had applied. The original link collapsed under the load.
The company migrated to a Google Form. It extended the deadline. It is now trying to figure out how to fairly evaluate a candidate pool it never designed a process for.
'I think it started as a joke,' Levin told Fast Company. 'So it went viral when people came to our Twitter account and started tagging their bros saying, 'Employment is calling your name.''
The original post on X has cleared 23.8 million impressions.
What the Role Actually Requires
Joi AI is looking for 10 consultants across different genders, age groups, and sexual orientations. The work is documentation-heavy: testers are expected to track and report on how the feature affects measurable personal outcomes. Levin says the company is specifically interested in hiring the oldest applicant who qualifies, though the team hasn't yet worked through the full pile.
The applicant pool skews male and young — most are men in their 20s — but Levin says thousands of women have applied as well. Among the more notable candidates: stand-up comedians, sommeliers described as people who 'know how to describe things,' and sex workers with years of phone experience. The credentialing is more serious than the job title suggests.
The Operational Scramble
Joi AI has 70 employees globally. It was not built to process 120,000 applications for 10 positions. The company is now planning a social media challenge to help surface serious candidates, though Levin says the logistics are still being worked out — the team simply wasn't prepared for the scale of response.
Levin is also managing internal pressure. Colleagues have tried to refer friends. One colleague's teenage son asked about the age limit. (Applicants must be 18.) Levin says the company intends to keep the process public and fair, but the gap between that intention and the current operational reality is visible.
The Business Signal Underneath the Noise
The viral moment has had measurable commercial effects. X became Joi AI's top revenue driver within days of the post going wide. The company's affiliate marketing platform has drawn new inbound interest from potential partners.
Joi AI averages 1 million visits and interactions per month. The platform lets users build custom characters or interact with more than 300 licensed AI twins of adult entertainment performers. It completed a rebrand in April that introduced higher-quality chat and improved image generation.
The broader market context is not trivial. Grand View Research estimates the AI companion sector at $36.79 billion last year, with a projected trajectory to $317.96 billion by 2033. Joi AI is operating in a space with real growth behind it — and now, unexpectedly, a recruiting problem that most companies would consider a good one to have.
The harder question is whether the company can convert 120,000 applications into 10 useful hires without the process becoming a distraction from the product work it was designed to support.