A major side of this trend is the decades long slow and steady death of accessible third places or any other public space where young people can form offline connections.
This gap was filled by social media for a while, but in their quest to maximize engagement and profitability they morphed into the algorithmic dopamine dispensers of today. The isolationary, degenerative impact of which you highlighted in the article.
Breaking the isolation feedback loop propelling this system forward is going to be the existential problem that this generation needs to address.
thank you for saying this. there would be more buildings if online porn existed in a more minimal, fringe, harder to access way. literally, our physical world would look drastically different.
Not only that, but any existing third place is either for-profit (you have to pay to use/ it’s expensive) or you are only allowed a certain time before you’re being labeled as a loiterer. Karen’s calling the police on children just hanging outside is yet another layer of people giving up on being outside.
“It is all part of a greater effort to isolate and divide.” I know the next paragraph goes on to say their goal is simply to keep you scrolling, but this sentence seems too strong to allow it to be a simple byproduct of keeping you on a platform. Do we think the goal is explicitly to isolate and divide, or a means to an end of keeping you addicted?
I think that is a really good question, and one I am struggling with. I honestly do not know with much confidence what the final goal is here, except to make these companies more money.
I feel like the end goal, whether its intentional or not, is for women to have ai bfs, and men ai gfs with a more explicitly sexual component, because we all become so isolated and bitter the only things we can tolerate are mirrors and fantasies.
on some level it doesn't matter; the fact is that this kind of algorithmic optimization requires people to become increasingly isolated and divided, so regardless or original intention, the practical aim, the telos of these systems is to isolate and divide.
The tech platforms will push whatever content they can get away with, no matter how horrific, to keep users engaged and addicted. I doubt there’s a greater goal in that sense. But that’s already pretty awful IMO.
Now, the people creating and consuming this stuff? I’m no psychologist, but there’s a lot to unpack. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the creators of this content have very ulterior motives and get a thrill out of thinking what consumers are doing to themselves and/or society. Misogyny, isolation, destroying women’s rights may very well be among their goals.
though? Per the comment I replied to, if it’s to isolate and divide— then you think about the fact that this group is also the main consumer of first person shooter games.. don’t be surprised when you find yourself at the front lines fighting someone else’s war.
I think this is an excellent piece, and I agree the trends here are extremely concerning, but I want to push against one small thing with some slight optimism from my extremely limited perspective:
"It is the job of Meta, X, TikTok, Apple and Google to keep you scrolling, and the simplest way to accomplish that is by trapping you in this perfect mental corner of anger, loneliness and cheap stimuli. They’ve made it so you don’t even want sex or connection: you want a stream of thousands of gifs of women making the ahegao face."
Now, I'm not a gooner, and I've never identified with any kind of "incel" community, but I am an old perpetually single guy, and I've spent a lot of time talking to incels on deradicalization forums, real internet-poisoned types through and through. And I think that ultimately the sole limit that exists to these apps' control is desire. In my experience, and in my experience talking to the kinds of people who are very much far along the pipeline outlined above, the desire for sex and connection *always* remains. The endless scrolling is even predicated on it; the thousand ahegao gifs *fail* to fulfill any desire, and so the scroller keeps scrolling in the *hopes* that something, anything, will eventually satiate.
I think you're right that the desire remains, but there is little effort behind it. It's perceived as futile. And among young people, especially, whose whole lives have been defined by this narrative, some of these desires have been fully sublimated into the digital.
There I would agree. Desire remains, but the will is severely restricted, and in many cases so is the ability to even fully realize what it it is that is desired.
I feel like this is the first critique of gooning from the left I’ve ever seen, since I feel like being pro-gooner was an extension of the left’s dominant “let people enjoy things” mentality. It’ll be hard to change. I feel like the traditionalist objections to porn are easier to understand (people shouldn’t be commodified, they’re made in the image of God, etc.). The left critique agrees with the “people shouldn’t be commodified” part, but runs into a major issue when people start commodifying themselves, like with Only Fans, and can claim they’ve chosen to do this freely and that it’s an authentic expression of themselves. From the traditionalist perspective, individual whim doesn’t matter, and from an Old Left perspective you can say to OF girls or their fans, “You’re being manipulated by the market,” but “lived experience” does generally matter to the modern left. Which I think poses an issue.
I have had many leftists (almost always Men) push the notion that OnlyFans and PornHub does not commodify bodies because there is an element of "consent" involved, or the way you phrase it: Let people enjoy things. The imperative to enjoyment itself is the problem, I think. I like that you bring up the Old Leftist attitude towards OF Girls and how we've strayed from that to a more contemporary attitude of sex in general, which is to Enjoy by any means necessary. Consent itself in the online schema is elusive and muddied, it requires taking a look at the structure of consent in the context of the commodification of bodies. How much are you consenting to your body if the market itself wretches open that space for you? Much to think of...
Yeah, that’s all really well put! I definitely agree that holding up enjoyment as the highest good, regardless of whatever manipulation or soft coercion it might entail, has to be at the root of the problem.
I'm writing a series of short essays at the moment (currently unposted) that outlines that the "modern left" struggles with feminism due to women, for the first time in western cultural history, have en masse had a platform to vocalize their thoughts and (previously) private conversations. Combined with an increasing lack of socialization amongst young people, this causes problems because they don't understand how women socialize and their role in the "patriarchy."
Women cannot directly make demands, they cannot directly brag. This means that they resort to more clever social tactics (like manipulation) to get what they want. This means that they can't brag about receiving attention, so they complain about things like getting catcalled as a way of bragging. They can't directly say they like "toxic masculinity" so they verbally give lip service to the effeminate man.
In regards to sex work, the current discourse surrounding it is beyond aggravating. The last (unpublished) article I wrote outlines my experiences dating a radlib sex worker: my frustrations were that she acted like what she was doing was radical because she'd tell her customers about her strong beliefs, when all she was doing was showing men who explicitly believed things she was opposed to, that she would compromise her beliefs if the man paid her a sufficiently large of money. (She was a stripper). Sex work is no rebellion from the patriarchy, but rather a perfectly normal component of it.
Struck by this sentence "It is the job of Meta, X, TikTok, Apple and Google to keep you scrolling, and the simplest way to accomplish that is by trapping you in this perfect mental corner of anger, loneliness and cheap stimuli.", and I've never heard someone put it so succinctly. I recognize it in my day-to-day, sadly.
We're in a bit of a guinea pig generation, it seems, similar to the generation subjected to the Industrial Revolution. I hope my kids are better positioned to deal with endless stimulus better than Gen Z, Millennial and X have dealt with it.
The medium will create the addiction it must. On tv, that’s fear and outrage. Digital media allows for hyper personalization. It’s a different kind of low hanging fruit. With different players. Your conclusion/analysis is bang on.
The goonicide story reminds me of something. I used to be a 911 dispatcher. We had several calls of what seemed like a drunk driver. Kept swerving and hitting the interior guardrail of the highway. Cops finally pulled him over. Not drunk. He’d set up a tv and VCR (this was awhile ago) and was maturbsting to porn while he drove. Funniest part, he was on the way to a porn shop for a recharge!
tbh i dislike the view that "gooning" lead that one man to commit sexual harassment - feels like a cop-out for bad behavior. if you're doing shit like this imo there's a defect in your soul that isn't just too much PornHub or whatever. (also, the term "porn addiction" has been drained of all meaning, it's just "sexuality i don't like" now)
I agree with this sentiment through the lens of sexuality, but I think it speaks for itself as standalone for all their activity regardless of lens;
"None of it is designed to make you happier. It is the job of Meta, X, TikTok, Apple and Google to keep you scrolling, and the simplest way to accomplish that is by trapping you in this perfect mental corner of anger, loneliness and cheap stimuli. "
WOW! Great analytical piece about the huge and ever expanding divide between men and women, and isolation.
It has been written about by women here.
But I think you cracked the case. This casts a far reaching light. There is no coincidence in trump teaming up with technology to bend men's sexuality to their nazi will.
It would explain why they voted against Kamala and why they feel angry and misunderstood. Now we need to start having conversations with each other on tik tok, or wherever. Reconnect.
Recently there was an invitation going around on Notes for an event in London the point of which was just - let's exist in person in the same place for a bit. We need more of that.
I just watched a PBS documentary on the Gilded Age and it’s eerily similar except the control of the tech oligarchs has me even more scared because of what you describe as their goal of rendering us useless along with making us obsessed with fighting over gender and race and have totally different realities and not talk to one another rather than build solidarity networks to fight back while they exploit us. Back in the Gilded Age unions fought back in literal armed battles, there were explosions and people died. Now we scroll. People formed parties and marched the mall, now that’s something that might not make someone’s algorithm.
I tried posting about the techies in a way that framed it as going against American conservative values on conservative reddit but the mods blocked it twice. The members of that sub praise it as a beacon for free speech while the other subs shut it all down for banning X.
There is a state of mind induced by social media that we termed Severed Conscience. Dopamine addiction renders you open to trigger mechanisms. Gooning is product of that.
A major side of this trend is the decades long slow and steady death of accessible third places or any other public space where young people can form offline connections.
This gap was filled by social media for a while, but in their quest to maximize engagement and profitability they morphed into the algorithmic dopamine dispensers of today. The isolationary, degenerative impact of which you highlighted in the article.
Breaking the isolation feedback loop propelling this system forward is going to be the existential problem that this generation needs to address.
“Algorithmic Dopamine Dispensers” is a bar
thank you for saying this. there would be more buildings if online porn existed in a more minimal, fringe, harder to access way. literally, our physical world would look drastically different.
Not only that, but any existing third place is either for-profit (you have to pay to use/ it’s expensive) or you are only allowed a certain time before you’re being labeled as a loiterer. Karen’s calling the police on children just hanging outside is yet another layer of people giving up on being outside.
“It is all part of a greater effort to isolate and divide.” I know the next paragraph goes on to say their goal is simply to keep you scrolling, but this sentence seems too strong to allow it to be a simple byproduct of keeping you on a platform. Do we think the goal is explicitly to isolate and divide, or a means to an end of keeping you addicted?
I think that is a really good question, and one I am struggling with. I honestly do not know with much confidence what the final goal is here, except to make these companies more money.
I think that’s the Occam’s razor answer: to make more money.
I feel like the end goal, whether its intentional or not, is for women to have ai bfs, and men ai gfs with a more explicitly sexual component, because we all become so isolated and bitter the only things we can tolerate are mirrors and fantasies.
on some level it doesn't matter; the fact is that this kind of algorithmic optimization requires people to become increasingly isolated and divided, so regardless or original intention, the practical aim, the telos of these systems is to isolate and divide.
The tech platforms will push whatever content they can get away with, no matter how horrific, to keep users engaged and addicted. I doubt there’s a greater goal in that sense. But that’s already pretty awful IMO.
Now, the people creating and consuming this stuff? I’m no psychologist, but there’s a lot to unpack. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the creators of this content have very ulterior motives and get a thrill out of thinking what consumers are doing to themselves and/or society. Misogyny, isolation, destroying women’s rights may very well be among their goals.
And misandry, no? These are female creators who thrive taking men down.
Add a first person shooter game in the mix and it feels like a dystopian nightmare.
It's not the game but the person behind the game.
What’s the goal of the people at the top
though? Per the comment I replied to, if it’s to isolate and divide— then you think about the fact that this group is also the main consumer of first person shooter games.. don’t be surprised when you find yourself at the front lines fighting someone else’s war.
I think this is an excellent piece, and I agree the trends here are extremely concerning, but I want to push against one small thing with some slight optimism from my extremely limited perspective:
"It is the job of Meta, X, TikTok, Apple and Google to keep you scrolling, and the simplest way to accomplish that is by trapping you in this perfect mental corner of anger, loneliness and cheap stimuli. They’ve made it so you don’t even want sex or connection: you want a stream of thousands of gifs of women making the ahegao face."
Now, I'm not a gooner, and I've never identified with any kind of "incel" community, but I am an old perpetually single guy, and I've spent a lot of time talking to incels on deradicalization forums, real internet-poisoned types through and through. And I think that ultimately the sole limit that exists to these apps' control is desire. In my experience, and in my experience talking to the kinds of people who are very much far along the pipeline outlined above, the desire for sex and connection *always* remains. The endless scrolling is even predicated on it; the thousand ahegao gifs *fail* to fulfill any desire, and so the scroller keeps scrolling in the *hopes* that something, anything, will eventually satiate.
I think you're right that the desire remains, but there is little effort behind it. It's perceived as futile. And among young people, especially, whose whole lives have been defined by this narrative, some of these desires have been fully sublimated into the digital.
There I would agree. Desire remains, but the will is severely restricted, and in many cases so is the ability to even fully realize what it it is that is desired.
what
Sold, great read.
There is a nice thread to be plucked between doom-scrolling and goon-scrolling...
I feel like this is the first critique of gooning from the left I’ve ever seen, since I feel like being pro-gooner was an extension of the left’s dominant “let people enjoy things” mentality. It’ll be hard to change. I feel like the traditionalist objections to porn are easier to understand (people shouldn’t be commodified, they’re made in the image of God, etc.). The left critique agrees with the “people shouldn’t be commodified” part, but runs into a major issue when people start commodifying themselves, like with Only Fans, and can claim they’ve chosen to do this freely and that it’s an authentic expression of themselves. From the traditionalist perspective, individual whim doesn’t matter, and from an Old Left perspective you can say to OF girls or their fans, “You’re being manipulated by the market,” but “lived experience” does generally matter to the modern left. Which I think poses an issue.
I have had many leftists (almost always Men) push the notion that OnlyFans and PornHub does not commodify bodies because there is an element of "consent" involved, or the way you phrase it: Let people enjoy things. The imperative to enjoyment itself is the problem, I think. I like that you bring up the Old Leftist attitude towards OF Girls and how we've strayed from that to a more contemporary attitude of sex in general, which is to Enjoy by any means necessary. Consent itself in the online schema is elusive and muddied, it requires taking a look at the structure of consent in the context of the commodification of bodies. How much are you consenting to your body if the market itself wretches open that space for you? Much to think of...
Yeah, that’s all really well put! I definitely agree that holding up enjoyment as the highest good, regardless of whatever manipulation or soft coercion it might entail, has to be at the root of the problem.
I'm writing a series of short essays at the moment (currently unposted) that outlines that the "modern left" struggles with feminism due to women, for the first time in western cultural history, have en masse had a platform to vocalize their thoughts and (previously) private conversations. Combined with an increasing lack of socialization amongst young people, this causes problems because they don't understand how women socialize and their role in the "patriarchy."
Women cannot directly make demands, they cannot directly brag. This means that they resort to more clever social tactics (like manipulation) to get what they want. This means that they can't brag about receiving attention, so they complain about things like getting catcalled as a way of bragging. They can't directly say they like "toxic masculinity" so they verbally give lip service to the effeminate man.
In regards to sex work, the current discourse surrounding it is beyond aggravating. The last (unpublished) article I wrote outlines my experiences dating a radlib sex worker: my frustrations were that she acted like what she was doing was radical because she'd tell her customers about her strong beliefs, when all she was doing was showing men who explicitly believed things she was opposed to, that she would compromise her beliefs if the man paid her a sufficiently large of money. (She was a stripper). Sex work is no rebellion from the patriarchy, but rather a perfectly normal component of it.
Struck by this sentence "It is the job of Meta, X, TikTok, Apple and Google to keep you scrolling, and the simplest way to accomplish that is by trapping you in this perfect mental corner of anger, loneliness and cheap stimuli.", and I've never heard someone put it so succinctly. I recognize it in my day-to-day, sadly.
We're in a bit of a guinea pig generation, it seems, similar to the generation subjected to the Industrial Revolution. I hope my kids are better positioned to deal with endless stimulus better than Gen Z, Millennial and X have dealt with it.
The medium will create the addiction it must. On tv, that’s fear and outrage. Digital media allows for hyper personalization. It’s a different kind of low hanging fruit. With different players. Your conclusion/analysis is bang on.
And all this time I thought telling people you were a gooner just meant you were a fan of Arsenal 💀
The goonicide story reminds me of something. I used to be a 911 dispatcher. We had several calls of what seemed like a drunk driver. Kept swerving and hitting the interior guardrail of the highway. Cops finally pulled him over. Not drunk. He’d set up a tv and VCR (this was awhile ago) and was maturbsting to porn while he drove. Funniest part, he was on the way to a porn shop for a recharge!
Anyway, insightful article. Thanks.
tbh i dislike the view that "gooning" lead that one man to commit sexual harassment - feels like a cop-out for bad behavior. if you're doing shit like this imo there's a defect in your soul that isn't just too much PornHub or whatever. (also, the term "porn addiction" has been drained of all meaning, it's just "sexuality i don't like" now)
True. Patronizing porn specially OnlyFans benefits women so more men should be encouraged to do it
I agree with this sentiment through the lens of sexuality, but I think it speaks for itself as standalone for all their activity regardless of lens;
"None of it is designed to make you happier. It is the job of Meta, X, TikTok, Apple and Google to keep you scrolling, and the simplest way to accomplish that is by trapping you in this perfect mental corner of anger, loneliness and cheap stimuli. "
WOW! Great analytical piece about the huge and ever expanding divide between men and women, and isolation.
It has been written about by women here.
But I think you cracked the case. This casts a far reaching light. There is no coincidence in trump teaming up with technology to bend men's sexuality to their nazi will.
It would explain why they voted against Kamala and why they feel angry and misunderstood. Now we need to start having conversations with each other on tik tok, or wherever. Reconnect.
Thank you!
Recently there was an invitation going around on Notes for an event in London the point of which was just - let's exist in person in the same place for a bit. We need more of that.
The system is not broken. It is working as intended.
My thought on Gooner: just leave them be. Life is already too hard on them.
I just watched a PBS documentary on the Gilded Age and it’s eerily similar except the control of the tech oligarchs has me even more scared because of what you describe as their goal of rendering us useless along with making us obsessed with fighting over gender and race and have totally different realities and not talk to one another rather than build solidarity networks to fight back while they exploit us. Back in the Gilded Age unions fought back in literal armed battles, there were explosions and people died. Now we scroll. People formed parties and marched the mall, now that’s something that might not make someone’s algorithm.
I tried posting about the techies in a way that framed it as going against American conservative values on conservative reddit but the mods blocked it twice. The members of that sub praise it as a beacon for free speech while the other subs shut it all down for banning X.
There is a state of mind induced by social media that we termed Severed Conscience. Dopamine addiction renders you open to trigger mechanisms. Gooning is product of that.