Recently I got to do what every man dreams of. I spent and hour with a Playboy Playmate! The result is this great interview with lovely Neriah Davis, Playboy's Miss March 1994. Now she's master of her own domain - Neriah.Com - as well as many other talents. Neriah Davis has a cute nose and a fluffy tail, but she also has the mind of a businesswoman. She knows it's her pie and she want to control all the pieces. I’ll dispense with the explanatory text and let Neriah do the talking...
Titmowse: Tell us a little about yourself. Who are you Neriah Davis?
Neriah: I consider myself a California girl. Born and bred. I had a very interesting background. My parents were hippies and I grew up with no electricity. A very rural lifestyle. We didn’t have inside plumbing. I didn’t have electricity until I was out of my parent’s home and moved to LA. So I grew up very different than most but I always had a yearning for the glamour of I guess, Hollywood.
When I was seventeen I moved to LA and I started acting. I wanted to be an actress. That was my goal. I was in a bunch of movies. B movies you know, that play now all the time on Showtime and HBO and stuff like that. And then when I was 21, I got discovered by Playboy. They were searching for the fortieth anniversary Playmate at the time. It was a big search. A photographer submitted my pictures. I didn’t get the fortieth anniversary Playmate. I got the month after that. They made me a centerfold. I was Miss March 1994.
After I did that, my modeling career really took off. I started modeling for Frederick’s of Hollywood and a bunch of lingerie catalogs. Did lots of commercials. A lot of TV spots like Baywatch and Married With Children. All the bimbo roles!
It’s tough when you’re a Playmate. I mean it’s fun and it’s great but if you want to be taken seriously as an actress, it’s practically impossible. I really didn’t think about that. I was so young. I didn’t think about how it was going to affect my image. But I wouldn’t ever trade it. It was a wonderful experience and it still continues to be. So I continued to model and I’m actually still doing that.
Titmowse: What made you decide to bring yourself online?
Neriah: 1997 is when I was initially approached by someone to build a website for me. I started to do some research on the Internet and that’s when I saw that there was a hundred and twenty websites people had made of me. I was like, Ya know? Hmmm. There was a demand for it so why don't I go ahead and do it the way I want to? Put what I want to put up there? Produce my own stuff? Be in control. So that's what started me on this whole adventure.
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"It's tough when you're a Playmate. I mean it's fun and it's great but if you want to be taken seriously as an actress, it's practically impossible." |
I've had four different webmasters. I finally...in 2003 took the site over. I'm my own webmaster. I had it built so I can ADMIN the whole thing. Just seeing that there was an interest out there... it wasn't just that you could type my name and search for me, people were really interested in me. People were putting up these little Neriah shrines and stuff.
It's great! Because I have a copy of each of my sites up until now. And it's so fun for me to go back and look and see how it has evolved. Now, it's like a monster! It's great because I'm in control now. I love signups but I love rebills even more! Just seeing that people are happy with the product. There's a lot of competition out there. There's lot of girls and it seem like everybody has a website! To be able to stand apart from the crowd... I know that I'm like the only, like one of the only Playmates in control like this. I know there are other Playmates in control but they still have a web administrator.
Titmowse: I understand Playboy is very protective of their name. There was a case not long ago where a former Playmate got into trouble for using words like Playboy and Playmate on her site. How is it you’re able to use the name on NeriahDavis.com?
Neriah: That's a really good question...Terri Welles. I believe she was Playmate of the Year in 1981. She was one of the first Playmates to put her title up there. And Playboy sued her immediately. Because they are very protective. As much as I love them and am happy for everything they've done for me, I also have to be honest with you. They are not advocates of the girls really making it on their own. The thing about it is, she won in court. She won and so we can...I was Miss March 1994. I'm the only Miss March 1994 and I can use that. She was able to help all of us. She's really cool too. :-)
Titmowse: Do you build your own website? Do you know HTML?
Neriah: I do know HTML. I can create an HTML page. I do my own newsletters. My site is actually built in ASP. I am familiar with ASP. I didn't build the site. I had a programmer do it for me. I basically told him exactly how I wanted it and he built it. I can ADMIN it because I am familiar with ASP, HTML and PHP. I don't know it enough to build it but I can update it. I do all the updates. If something's broken I can go ahead and usually fix it. There's maybe ten percent...if something went wrong and I didn't know how to fix it, I can call him. That's only happened a couple of times.
It's amazing! I have this management console that he's built for me. I can go in and update my sites, pay my affiliates, give a credit if I need to. I can upgrade someone's membership. I can do everything within this management console. Oh my gosh. It's just a breeze! I have my own merchant account. We have our own billing engine. I go through Verisign and Card Services. I don't go through that other bullshit... I don't have to.
My site is next generation and so is my affiliate program. Not a lot of people have it right now...It's so advanced. My technician, he's advanced. He's a young guy and those young ones, they know it. They were raised on computers. They were born with a mouse in their mouth! But you know what? That's his unique ability. Let him do that.
It really worked out great because I've been so frustrated in the past. I always had had a webmaster and I was always pulling teeth to get an update done. I always had all this stuff planned and I would sit and wait and wait and it would never get done. Finally, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Titmowse: Your site is softcore. Surely there are adult webmasters who’ve told you you’d make more money if you did hardcore. What do you say to these people?
Neriah: I see what's out there. I see how hard it is to make money when you're softcore. It's tough! All that hardcore's taking the money. But for me, it's not even a decision. I am who I am. I respect Jenna Jameson. Secretly I wish sometimes...it would be fun to be a porn star. I would be like, what a crazy life! But I can't. I would never go there because that's not who I am. If I wanted to do that, I would have done it a long time ago.
I'm actually seeing more Playmates who are going hardcore. That's not something I foresee in my future. I have plans. Different plans. In mainstream, you can make more money if you blow up. I actually want to go a little more...not conservative...but...we're redesigning the tour now so it will have a little bit less nudity so we can appeal to those bikini sites. I'm finding a niche. It's a long process but I think I'm almost there.
Titmowse: Do you think there’s a double standard among females in the adult entertainment business? For instance, on the net, there are webmistresses who are perfectly fine selling porn yet they exhibit disdain for models. Do you find that to be the case with you?
Neriah: It's a double-edged sword because I am the model but I'm also a webmaster. I think that it's hard for some other webmasters to believe that and respect me. I do know what I'm doing and I am in this for the long haul. I'm not just dropping by. It's funny because I get a lot of people who doubt me. They don't think it's me. It's so frustrating. Maybe someday they'll believe me when I'm still around.
For me, when I hear of something like that (female webmistresses slamming models), I know it's because that person is envious. There's some sort of envy going on there. You usually don't hate someone unless you're jealous of them. That's what's driving it. Most of the women saying something like that, if they had the chance to do it, you bet your ass they would. My Mom told me "I can't tell you what to do because if I was twenty and Playboy asked me to be a Playmate, I would say yes."
There's times when I don't want to shoot. I get so sick of myself. I think, can I really take another picture? It's crazy. I have to just steel myself sometimes. But I have to say, after being in Hollywood for over ten years, not much can be said. I've been rejected plenty, plenty, plenty of times. I've had people tell me, what am I doing? I'll never make it. So I just say screw 'em. I just ignore the haters.
Titmowse: What's coming up for Neriah.Com?
Neriah: A lot of things actually. We're teaming up with three other sites. I can't name them yet. But they're softcore celebrity sites. Names that you would know. We're going to be more like a network. So when you get a membership to Neriah.com, you're also going to get these other sites along with it.
I'm shooting some DVDs that we're selling on the site. It's going to really hot stuff featuring other Playmates. We just launched the affiliate program called NeriahsMegaBucks.com. It's also next generation. As an affiliate, you get a Snapshot page and you get to see ALL your stats. You can get paid via E-Payment. That pays like two days after you make a sale.
We also have another feature called Notification Options where you can have it send to your phone or your email or your pager, every time you get a signup. Or a cancellation, whatever you choose. It keeps you in touch.
We're always working on improving the site. Adding content all the time. I think there's like ten thousand photos of me. There are over five thousand behind-the-scenes photos of me and all my friends, like my Playmate friends. It's packed full of stuff!
Well, that ends my dreamtime with Neriah. I sure had a good time chatting with this brainy bunny. Until next time, fair Froggers.
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