In this Spotlight, we’re delighted to share some of Patrick’s personal reflections as he marks an incredible 30 years in the adult industry. Industrious, entrepreneurial, and a self-proclaimed optimistic pessimist (or is it a pessimistic optimist?), Patrick is nothing short of a stalwart in the field.

If you had to sum up your industry in three words, what would they be?

Tough one. My industry? The Hun’s Yellow Pages is where it all started, but it’s not all I do these days. I took over a brewery for instance, and I have a recording studio and play in a couple of bands, so I guess the best three words to sum it up are: sex & drugs & rock-‘n-roll.

What sparked your interest in this industry?

The Hun started purely coincidental. I was doing my studies in technical computer science when this new thing – the internet – came along. It sparked my interest. I could chat with people from all over the world. At the time I was in a demo compo group where we would write demos in 32k of code. Back then I had a friend (Arnoud) and he was really good at that stuff, so I just tagged along and did other programming we needed. Right at that time the internet became available and I wanted to build something on that. In the chat groups I was in (mostly IRC channels) boys would be boys and shared images of naked ladies (yes, there were naked ladies besides the cat pictures!). I first had to think of something to build. So, I bought a floppy disk at a computer market, with a program on it to create a list of links to other pages on the internet. Kind of like a blog. I put the dirty links from the IRC groups in there and rendered a page. I was interested in the HTML it would generate. I started to play around with it, figured out how to change the background color of a page and things like that. Eventually I put it online somewhere. I think it was http://www.tip.nl/users/~652553/index.html. I put that link out on the IRC channels and within a month we had 100,000 visitors. People started mailing me links and I started to build what became the biggest source of free porn on the internet. 

What’s the most positive change you’ve witnessed in your career?

I don’t know… I don’t think a lot changed for the better. There were a couple of pioneers like myself in the early days. We had our talks and differences. Some verbal fights on GFY here and there, but it was all fun and a huge new industry was created. When we started, there were no affiliate programs as it was the early days of the internet. Video was impossible, bandwidth was way too expensive. People weren’t used to getting stuff for free, so it was a lot easier back then to make a buck, compared to today. Maybe a positive take is that today, it is a recognised industry. In the past you felt like you couldn’t tell anybody what you were doing. Now, even my bank knows exactly what business I’m in and they’re ok with that. As they should be. 

What does a typical workday look like for you?

Since I’m in a lot of different businesses every day is different. So, it all depends on what is coming up. Yesterday I went to the cinema, The Worker Man – quite entertaining. When I got home I checked some stats on my laptop, saw the server was at 100% utilisation, which usually is a sign something’s wrong. So, I contacted my son Martin – we’re working together very closely on The Hun, I can’t do this forever, lol – to see if he knew what was causing it. Over the past 30 years you learn it’s usually something stupid one of us has done, or it’s a full hard drive. It was the latter. This morning, I had to be at the recording studio to get some new lights installed. At the moment, I’m replying to your questions in this interview while looking at a webserver that has a hard drive that’s filling up and running too many MySQL queries… all in all an eventful day. It’s nice to be troubleshooting, fixing things, figuring stuff out. It never gets boring that way. 

What’s your take on the quintessential webmaster?

Webmasters are rare these days. I think most companies have more than one person on the payroll. Usually a techie that knows about setting up servers and what not, a programmer is handy to have, marketing, sales, design, finances, etc. The old-fashioned webmaster did all that by himself. There are many companies out there these days that can for a lot of that for you though. Your hosting company can set up your server, you can hire programmers or use tools available online for instance. We’re old fashioned. We program everything in-house, which might be a lot more fun, we do get exactly what we want and how we want it. That’s a big plus for us. If we want something, we build it. Both Martin and I like programming. That makes for some interesting discussions every now and then, but it’s also great to build something out of nothing. 

Would you call yourself an optimist or a pessimist? Why?

Pfff… neither… an optimistic pessimist, or a pessimistic optimist? I don’t know. If we get a new idea, you look at the opportunities and the possible rewards. But before you get too enthusiastic you also want to look at the risks and the possible failures you can run in to. After programming for so long I learned that everything that can go wrong, eventually will. Does that make me a pessimist, or does it make me realistic, lol. In the past I tended to upload things just before a convention. I wanted to show something new to people there, so you work towards a deadline and once you’re done and tested everything you can’t wait to put everything online… big mistake… I’ve been causing my host headaches over everything going down while I was in an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, unreachable and blissfully unaware of any problems. Never upload on a Friday and never upload before you’re travelling!

What’s your ultimate guilty pleasure?

Guilty pleasure – noun – something, such as a film, television programme, or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard. Hm… I don’t think I have such pleasures to be honest. I like lemonade?

What hobbies keep you busy (or sane)?

I have tons of hobbies. Music is a big one. I built a recording studio which just got a new analog/hybrid 32 channel Neve Genesis Black console, so we’re bringing that to a top-notch level now. It’s not just for me either, people hire the studio for productions, we can compete with the best! I also like making music. I’m a bass player. I’m in three bands at the moment, all rock oriented. One of them is an Iron Maiden tribute band. The other is an 80’s rock band, all cover songs of bands like Deep Purple, Van Halen, that sort of thing. The third band is a bit different, but not. We play Spice Girls, Abba, Backstreet Boys, but all in metal versions. 

Describe your ideal getaway — where are you going and why?

The ideal getaway would be around 22-24 degrees centigrade with no mosquito’s and delicious food. Unfortunately places with those demands are hard to find. In the spring it’s easy. I absolutely loved the weather at the Phoenix Forum for instance. It was a lot warmer, but the dry air made it bearable. The atmosphere was always great there. I’d hate Phoenix in the summer. When the outside temperature gets hotter than myself, I give up. I’d rather be cold than warm. Which is a great thing when you’re living in the Netherlands! The ideal getaway should have great local restaurants and bars. No beaches. I hate lying in the sand all day with nothing more to do other than getting a tan. Absolute horror! I want to do something. Go fishing or run a boat somewhere. Or stroll along a city, looking for the next place to have an awesome lunch. 

I love traveling, I love finding new foods and sceneries. The adult industry we’re in allows us to travel a lot, which to me is one of the perks of this industry. I guess I see these events as a great getaway I guess. New places to go, new people to meet, new things to learn and new experiences to have.   

What’s the most fascinating place you’ve visited and why?

That one’s easy: Japan! I love that place! The food, the people, the way they do everything so much better compared to the rest of the world, it’s unbelievable. It’s so old fashioned and modern at the same time. 

What’s your go-to way to unwind?

I can lose myself in work. Once I start programming for instance, I tend to keep going on ’till what I wanted works. I pulled a lot of all-nighters with that in the past. Martin now is the one that takes care of most of the programming. I have a lot of other things I do besides the Hun, like the recording studio. Our new analogue Neve console can keep me busy for hours. I love playing with the bands I’m in as well. On stage you forget the whole world. Then that beer when the shows done and your backstage soaking wet and spent… wonderful! But good company and a campfire will do too.  

What’s the last book you read, and what drew you to it?

The last book I read was “The Redis Cookbook”. Not really a novel, it’s a book on Redis, a NoSQL database. We needed something fast for caching things on the Hun. Redis is good at that. At the time we needed fast caching (for the non-programmers, caching basically comes down to making a difficult calculation or query that takes a long time and save it somewhere for quick access the next time you need it), so we went looking for possible solutions. Redis seemed to be the way to go. I bought the book, went through it over the weekend and played around with it on Monday. Jokes.xxx runs fully on Redis, which was fun to make, but it was a mistake, lol. Not everything runs well on Redis. So now we’re reprogramming that to utilise Redis where it’s good and do the rest the old-fashioned way. 

Your top 3 movies or series — what makes them stand out?

Movies or series… hm.. I liked Cowboy Bebop a lot. The non-animated one. I also liked the non-animated version of One Piece. The fallout series was good too. I tend to spend more time playing games rather than watching series. Fallout, Red Dead Redemption, those sort of games. Love them! When it’s me and the ‘Mrs’ at home after dinner, it’s a reality series on the couch. We like watching those together. That started with The Missing and series like that. Binging with the Mrs. and a bottle of wine is perfect way to unwind!

First and most recent live band you saw — how did they compare?

That’s easy! The first concert I went to was Iron Maiden. Next one I have tickets for is Iron Maiden. Funny enough it’s not what I play most. In august I’m going to a metal festival in Helsinki called Hellsinki. Right now, I’m mostly listening to bands that will be playing there in preparation of a good time. I love the old school metal stuff. Slayer, Manowar, WASP, Accept, King Diamond, etc. One of the most impressive shows I saw recently was Manowar. Their singer, Eric Adams is born in 1952, but the guy still hits all his (impressive) notes on stage, almost effortlessly, and he is enjoying the hell out it too. It was very impressive to watch!

 What’s your take on the Dutch language?

That’s a weird question? I speak it daily at home. I speak it to my dog, he only understands a couple of words though, lol. The Netherlands is a small country. Since the beginning of time we’ve always traded with the world, so all Dutch people speak English, most speak German and a lot of them speak Fransch, Spanish, Italian, etc. Dutch isn’t the easiest language in the world to learn I guess. But if you’re in Amsterdam you’re usually better off speaking English anyway. 

Do you enjoy cooking? Got a signature dish?

I love cooking! A usual day ends with me riding my bicycle (yes, I’m Dutch, we ride bicycles a lot) past the store to get some fresh groceries and cook for the family at home. I like spicy food, Thai, and Chinese. I love Japanese food too, but that requires ingredients we can’t get easily in the Netherlands. There are a few Thai dishes I got very close to what you would get in Thailand. But at times I like to do some Italian cooking, or the good old Dutch cuisine, consisting mostly of stews and soups. Traditionally a lot of Dutch food would be prepared and then put on a stove in the morning. The dish would then be done in the afternoon for lunch. People would eat a hefty lunch and go back to work ’till the evening. Nowadays people tend to do a smaller lunch and a big dinner. But cooking is another way to unwind after a day. 

What car do you drive, and what made you choose it?

 I love cars and although I do ride my bicycle a lot, longer hauls or bad weather makes me grab the car. My daily drive is a Jaguar i-Pace, a full electric car. I just loved the technology of going full electric. Tesla was taking off as a brand, so as per usual, I wanted a car that not everybody had. When the Jaguar was introduced I immediately ordered one, before it was actually available in the Netherlands. No regrets, it’s a nice car. For longer hauls I steel the Mrs.’ car. That’s a plugin-hybrid Mitsubishi Outlander. It does 35 kilometers on electric, which is plenty for most of the days, and it takes gas for when you need to go further. Then there’s fun cars. I had a couple of Ferrari’s and Lamborgini’s in the past, but kind of been there – done that. The fast cars were fun for sure, but at some point you’re kind of done with those cars. I switched to a Porsche 911 for a while, that was a very nice car to drive. I traded that in for a classic Ferrari, a 308 GTS (the Thomas Magnum Ferrari). That car is now for sale, it had to make room for a 2010 Ferrari California. I still have a Jaguar D-type sitting in a barn in the UK. That’s a very special car. I drove it to the UK a couple of years back. Then the weather went mad at us, so I left it there and flew home. Then covid happened and what not, the car is still in the UK. It’s maintained and taken well care of, but if anybody is interested in a Jaguar D-type, let me know, lol!

Any hot takes on Twitch or TikTok?

I only know TikTok from reposts on other platforms and to me it’s grinch as well… fill it in. Fingernails on a chalkboard? I can’t watch it. But it’s surely influential to people! I’ll let it pass. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that can be reached there, and I’m sure there’s a lot of business to be done there, but that may be someone else’s. We do the Hun, and a site like that has no place on TikTok. Twitch is kind of unknown to me. I like games, I like playing games, I don’t like watching other people playing games. 

How do you feel about AI? Game-changer or overhyped?

It’s an impressive feature. And I’m sure it can be helpful in a lot of things. People tend to use it for what it’s not intended for. For instance: people use it like they would use google in the past. But these AI’s don’t “know” what they’re saying. They’re a language model that uses a complex algorithm fed by a huge amount of data to come up with an outcome that it doesn’t understand either. That’s what causes the “AI hallucinations”, it can give complete non-sense as an answer. And grammatically it will be correct, and will be a comprehensive answer, but it might not be true. It’s a powerful tool. It can do translations like nothing else, it can find questions to ask, I used it on road trips to find stuff to see and it came up with some very interesting and good finds! I use it all the time. 

At some point in time I was contemplating going to University to learn AI. Self learning was always intriguing to me. The Hun started taking off around that same time, so I decided to go for that, but I always kept an eye on the AI world. For some applications it can be a game changer. In the medical world AI can find stuff a human will look over. It can do repetitive stuff that humans just can’t do. In those areas it can definitely be a game changer. 

Funny side story, I told my in-laws I wanted to go studio AI at the university in Amsterdam. They gave me this WTF look… they were farmers, AI for them was Artificial Insemination, lol. 

Be honest — what are your thoughts on ChatGPT?

I use ChatGPT like I described before. It’s a very useful tool, but like all tools, you have to find the right use for it. It’s used a lot these days for stuff it was never intended for. I spoke to someone who had a rental agreement made up by ChatGPT. Madness… you need a lawyer to do that. Or a notary. It could be good to ask ChatGPT what you need to keep in mind when setting up such a contract, it will give you great things to think about for sure, but I would not trust ChatGPT to make a waterproof contract… yet..

What’s happening for you in 2025?

This year will mark the 30th anniversary of the Hun. For any company to exist for 30 years is a milestone. For every company in adult it’s a huge milestone. For any online business it’s history in my eyes. We’re very proud that we’ve been able to keep things running for so long. The new generation is ready to pick things up where I’m going to step back a bit. I’m concentrating on other things besides the Hun. Martin updated the webcam aggregate a while back, and he just finished the software for the new tube which we are rolling out right now. The numbers look good, it’ll need some tweaking for sure, but that’s where we can work together, which is awesome for a dad. He’s a good programmer, he gets it. So, I’m sure this will be a success. We are now working with a lot of content providers to run their tube clips to advertise their site. Not random network ads where the provider of the video only gets a little kickback from the typeins, we’ll show the user exactly where to find more of the content they just saw, or where to find similar stuff. Kind of like the Hun always has been doing for the past 30 years. And hopefully for the next 30 years to come!

PayOut Magazine would love to thank Patrick for sharing with us and look forward very much to seeing him at upcoming events in 2025.