XMA Europe Awards: how fan pre-nominations put a creator on the ballot

Update — August 2026: I wrote this in June, when pre-nominations had just opened. Award windows move faster than posts do, so check xma.show/fans for where the cycle actually stands before you act on anything below. The explanation of what pre-nomination is and why the stage matters holds regardless of which window is open.

The XMA Europe Awards opened pre-nominations, and that's the part most people skip past without realizing it's the part they actually have power over. Everyone shows up to vote once there's a finished ballot. Almost nobody shows up for the step before the ballot exists — the one where fans decide whose names go on it in the first place. That step lives at xma.show/fans.

So here's the plain-spoken version: what the XMA Europe Awards are, what "pre-nomination" actually means, how to do it in about a minute, and why this stage matters more than the final vote everyone fixates on.

What the XMA Europe Awards are

The XMAs are XBIZ's awards family. You might know the Creator Awards — the US show where Big Bear took Male Streamer of the Year this year on fan votes. The Europe edition, the XMA Europa Awards, is a separate continental show run by the same people (XBIZ), held in Amsterdam — and it's that one whose pre-nominations run on the same cycle. Different show, same idea: honoring the performers, work, and products that matter across Europe's side of the industry.

Plenty of adult-industry awards get decided in a closed room of executives and journalists. What I keep coming back to with the XMAs is where the fans get a real, direct say — the Creator Awards ran on fan votes, and this pre-nomination stage hands the nominating power straight to the people who actually watch the work. That kind of direct fan input is rarer than it should be, and it's the whole reason a pre-nomination from you carries real weight.

What "pre-nomination" actually means

A pre-nomination is you, the fan, putting a creator's name forward before the official ballot is set. Think of it as the nominating round: the names fans submit at this stage are what shape who ends up as an official nominee. No finished list to pick from yet — you're helping build the list.

That's why this step is quietly the most democratic one in the whole cycle. By the time a ballot is finalized, your choices are bounded by whoever made the cut. Right now they aren't. Right now, a creator who'd never crack a juried shortlist can land on a fan ballot purely because enough of the people who watch them said "this one."

How to do it (about a minute)

1. Go to xma.show/fans.
2. Sign in (it takes a Google or Microsoft account — presumably so submissions are tied to real accounts instead of anonymous bots).
3. Put forward the creators you actually watch — the ones who showed up for you this year.

That's it. The form on that page has the current categories and any deadlines; I'm not going to quote a date here that could be stale by the time you read it, so check it live. The thing worth knowing is that pre-nomination windows are always shorter than people expect — if one is open when you read this, it won't be for long.

Who you might put forward — us included

I'll be straight about the ask, because pretending otherwise would be weird. If you'd spend a pre-nom on me or on someone I shoot with, here's where each of us actually fits, so your nomination lands in the right category instead of getting lost in the wrong one:

• Me — Male Performer of the Year and Male Creator of the Year. I'm about a year into self-producing, so honestly Best New Performer and Rising Creator are just as fair a home for a pre-nom if you'd rather put me where the tenure fits.
• Big Bear — Male Streamer of the Year. He took exactly that at the Creator Awards this year; he belongs in the conversation again.
• Sexy Lexy Morgan — BBW Creator of the Year and MILF Creator of the Year. Wisconsin BBW MILF, and the work backs both.
• Raven Belle — BBW Creator of the Year (the BBW slot on this form). She was on the BBW Streamer ballot at the Creator Awards last cycle; the BBW lane is hers.
• Fortune Cooke — Cosplay Creator of the Year (and BBW Creator). The cosplay sets are the real thing.
• Serenity Willow — Cosplay Creator of the Year.

The rest of the people I work with are on the co-creators page, and the Female Creator, Female Performer, MILF, and Inked categories cover a lot of them — if one of them is who you actually watch, put them in.

There's no campaign here and no "vote for me" graphic spam. Just: if you've got a pre-nom in you, the link is xma.show/fans — spend it on whoever you genuinely think earned it, us or not. The point of a fan stage is that the people who watch the work decide who gets seen. The worst thing you can do is sit it out and let the ballot get built without you. Go put a name in.

— Sly