Spotting pink-coloured wigs, cat ears, cosplay outfits, making ‘funny faces’ and modelling in unusual positions, that’s how popular YouTuber and social media influencer Belle Delphine grew a huge following for herself after entering the social media scene early 2015.

Born Mary-Delphine Kirschner, Delphine made the headlines in 2019 after she attempted a massive stunt that surprisingly, turned out to be a huge success. The British cosplayer posted two photos on her Instagram page where she put up her bathwater for sale to “Thirsty gamer boys” at $30 per bottle.

She advertised the bottles via a series of Instagram videos showing her playing with bathwater. Despite placing a disclaimer that the water was merely for entertainment purpose and not for drinking, the product was completely sold out in just three days.

However, her bathwater stunt was not the only unusual thing she tried. Delphine went viral again after she promised her followers she would release a video of her stroking ‘two big cocks’ on PornHub, the world’s largest pornographic website, if she got up to one million likes on a photo.

With over 3 million Instagram followers, she achieved and exceeded that number but rather than posting the adult content her fans were expecting, Delphine created a PornHub account and uploaded troll videos showing her stroking two stuffed roosters and doing other ‘weird’ things—like eating a picture of popular YouTuber PewDiePie.

However, before all these stunts, the 21-year-old made a name for herself by posting photos of her making funny faces and ‘Ahegao’ poses. Before long, she became known as the ‘Ahegao girl’ for her consistency and popularizing the hentai related term.

“This really was the start to everything, that one ahegao photo. I think it’s like that for a lot of people: ‘the right picture at the right moment’,” said Delphine in an interview.

Ahegao is a term related to a Japanese manga or pornography style, popularly known as ‘Hentai’. Hentai is fast becoming the most desired form of pornography amongst millennials today and loosely translates to “perverse” sexual urges in English.

The history of Ahegao can be traced to the early 1990s and is used to describe the facial expression of characters in Hentai videos as they engage in sexual intercourse or achieve orgasm. The term is derived from the combination of two Japanese words, ‘aheahe’ (which translates to moaning or panting) and ‘gao’ (which means face).

Hentai pornography comes in either cartoon, manga or anime format. It is typically filled with all kinds of erotic fantasies and can portray female characters to appear as homeless underaged girls who secretly desire to be sexually assaulted.

In Hentai porn, characters are often shown engaging in highly perverted sexual acts and fetishes such as incest, rape, bestiality and with exaggerated sexual organs. It is very common for Hentai porn to feature animated underaged women engaging in sexual acts with humans and even non-humans such as animals, aliens and giant insects.

These women are often depicted either with their tongues hanging out, rolling their eyes back, blushing, smiling seductively or panting. The whole concept of Ahegao is to show these anime characters expressing an extreme level of sexual pleasure to the point where they are completely overwhelmed by the rush of emotions. Delphine’s audience consists majorly of gamers due to the kind of content she creates but as pornography continues to become more accessible online, there’s bound to be more people who enjoy her Ahegao theme. Nonetheless, Delphine’s uniqueness has not only popularized the pose but has created a huge income stream for her—earning her millions of dollars in revenue.