Go read a satirical work written from before the 20th Century. Take your pick.
Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Gulliver's Travels, Dante's Inferno, anything by Shakespeare.
There are endless references in those works, with varying amounts of veiling, to popular personages of the time. Some politicians and princes, but also what passes for the pop culture of the age, usually some mix of court personalities, criminals, and occasionally a notable artist or learned person ("scientist" wasn't quite applicable for much of this period).
With the exception of arts, letters, and science, most of those names are all but lost.
Porn, or gossip, or other intrigue, has a broad currency (many people find it accessible and/or interesting), but also a very temporal one.
It's not that there weren't porn stars in the 1800s (vaudeville, "Little Egypt" at the Chicago World's Fair), but simply that you'd have no familiarity with their names (unless, say, you were an academic researching 19th century and prior pornography).
What are you talking about? "porn stars" in this context refers to (at least somewhat somewhat) widely known performers in sex movies. There were no mainstream movies back then, 'movie actor' wasn't a profession yet, and there was no way to become famous by doing outrageous sexual activities and exhibiting them to a broad audience. In fact in most of the world one would be thrown in jail for showing in public what is nowadays shown on prime time tv.
So, once again, it's ridiculous to suggest that porn actors are less important than scientists only supported by the argument that nobody remembers porn actors from that time. There weren't any!
(note that I'm not saying that one is more important than the other, I guess it depends on the definition of 'important', I don't know nor care - frankly I find the question quite trite and boring. My point is merely that the argument is ridiculous.)
Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Gulliver's Travels, Dante's Inferno, anything by Shakespeare.
There are endless references in those works, with varying amounts of veiling, to popular personages of the time. Some politicians and princes, but also what passes for the pop culture of the age, usually some mix of court personalities, criminals, and occasionally a notable artist or learned person ("scientist" wasn't quite applicable for much of this period).
With the exception of arts, letters, and science, most of those names are all but lost.
Porn, or gossip, or other intrigue, has a broad currency (many people find it accessible and/or interesting), but also a very temporal one.
It's not that there weren't porn stars in the 1800s (vaudeville, "Little Egypt" at the Chicago World's Fair), but simply that you'd have no familiarity with their names (unless, say, you were an academic researching 19th century and prior pornography).
Wear taller hats. You'll catch more.