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- [00:00]
A
Hello. Quick note before we begin this week. Search Engine does not particularly believe in content warnings. That said, this week the show is a little racy. It involves pornography. Maybe one to skip if you're with a kid or you're my mom or my father in law. Okay, the episode after these ads this episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Vuori. Lately I have been wearing a lot of Vuori loungewear. I really recommend it. I picked up the Ponto Performance joggers and the Seaside Pullover hoodie and they've basically been my go to for everything. What sets Fiori apart is that it's not your average workout gear. Their clothes are designed to stand the test of time and fit seamlessly into real life. And the versatility. It's incredible. These loungewear pieces transition perfectly from fall into winter. The Dream Knit fabric is very nice. It's soft, lightweight, moisture wicking and has just enough stretch for any activity. Viori is an investment in your happiness. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet@vuori.com PJSearch that's V-U-O-R-I.com PJSearch exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% off your first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any US orders over $75 and free returns. Go to vuori.com pjsearch and discover the versatility of Vuori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Mubi, the global film company that champions great cinema. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover with Mubi. Each and every film is hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime, anywhere. This week, Mubi recommends Die My Love now in US Theaters. A visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness, anchored by a ferocious tour de force performance from Jennifer Lawrence that's destined for awards, glory and co Starring Robert Pattinson, Lynne Ramsey's fearless new cinematic vision charts the complexity of love and how it can change and transform over time. Visit mubi.com diemylove for showtimes and tickets and to stream great films at home, you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com searchengine that's M U B I.com searchengine for a whole month of great cinema for free. I guess. First things first, you want to just introduce yourself?
- [03:05]
B
Yes Hi, I'm Daniel Kolitz, and I'm a writer.
- [03:09]
A
And you've. Do you find uncomfortable to talk about pornography difficult? Difficult?
- [03:15]
B
No, not at all, really. I mean, I guess if I'm at a party, I wouldn't bring it up. But if someone wants to know about, you know, this kind of thing. No, I. I find that very easy to discuss.
- [03:25]
A
And that is just how you are anyway. Or is it that you spend a bunch of time reporting and it has, like, naturalized you in the world?
- [03:30]
B
I would say partly that. I mean, by the time I was finished reporting this piece, it was hard for me to remember that any of this was unusual. I started to point out, I was like, are people gonna find this strange? Because I was so inured to the crazy things I was looking at.
- [03:47]
A
If Daniel's a nerd to the more extreme parts of the online porn world, it's because he spent a year investigating a subculture most of us would prefer not to think much. Gooners. It's a word you might have already run into, but just as a joke. If you're around teenagers, they really enjoy accusing each other of being Gooners. But Gooners are also a real subculture online, with their own vocabulary and social hierarchy and strange behavioral codes. And if one of the missions of this show is to figure out what exactly the Internet seems to be doing to everybody right now, both at its margins and in its mainstream, the time has come to try to understand the Gooners, whose story has lessons in it about how the Internet affects all of us. Can you just explain what is Gooning and what is a Gooner?
- [04:38]
B
Sure. So Gooning is a kind of ritualized form of prolonged masturbation. It involves basically trying to reach the goon state by masturbating for sometimes hours, sometimes days at a time. Goon state being a kind of masturbation nirvana, a flow state that most Gooners claim is real and that you can tap into with practice. There's also a community component. Now, not every Gooner is part of the gooning community. Most are. And that is a world of discords and twitters. Sound like I'm 90 years old. That is a world online of people who masturbate together on camera, who play sort of gamified masturbation games, who are pornography enthusiasts and fans and oftentimes remixers of existing pornographic content.
- [05:37]
A
So the core belief of the community is that there is a place like the same way people who take psychedelics talk about having some elevated experience of spirituality, or people who go on, like, silent meditation talk about, you know, reaching something like enlightenment. These people are claiming that through kind of record breaking masturbation sessions they can get somewhere.
- [06:03]
B
Yes, that's their contention. And by the end of the process, I do believe them. I think it's real, really, kind of. I mean, just in the sense that I can see with enough stimulation and also oftentimes drugs, which I didn't really mention, but which a good number of them use, you can work yourself into a kind of. I'm not saying it's like, you know, some kind of. You're tapping into a new realm or dimension of consciousness, but I can certainly see the world falling away and getting single mindedly you know, focused on your porn world. And what do you normally write about? Oh, all kinds of things. Book reviews. I think the thing I published before this was about a neglected experimental novelist, short story writer, rather so similar terrain.
- [06:47]
A
Well, it's cultural criticism.
- [06:48]
B
Yes, cultural criticism.
- [06:50]
A
And then before we even like dive into your reporting journey to try to understand these people in this culture, one of the things that has confused me, like I've run into the concept of gooning a lot. Either people making jokes about online or I'm helping to raise teenage boys. And it's one of those words that they think I don't know. And so they're constantly referring to like other people having goon caves and stuff like that. I still feel like I struggle to just understand like how much the concept of gooning is a thing people do versus a thing people joke about or whether that's almost like a false distinction.
- [07:27]
B
Yeah, I think right now, sort of an online meme culture, gooning is just kind of a synonym for masturbation. You know, it's a synonym for a porn addict or someone who, you know, spends a lot of time watching pornography that is distinct from this kind of gooning culture. So there's two different strands at play here. But gunner, I mean, often is just used as an insult now I would say, right?
- [07:50]
A
It's like perv or something.
- [07:52]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [07:53]
A
Okay, and why did you want to understand this? Like, what was driving your curiosity?
- [07:57]
B
There were a few things going on. I mean, one was just sheer awe that any of this existed. I had first encountered it in the early pandemic period when these goon caves first started diffusing across social media. And I was stunned at the time. I'd forgotten about them for a few years. But then the goon caves subreddit was banned last year and there was a news story about that somewhere, and I saw that and it was like revelatory. Seeing it again, I was like, I completely forgot that these existed.
- [08:26]
A
What is a goon cave?
- [08:27]
B
Yeah, I should definitely explain that. So a goon cave is kind of a porn consumption layer with an extremely elaborate audio visual setup. Often multiple screens, upwards of a dozen screens, often a projector blasting porn onto the ceiling, quite often printed out and taped up pornographic pictures on the walls, sex toys, lube. And in each of these images, of course, the Gooners penises are foregrounded in the frame.
- [08:57]
A
So they'll take.
- [09:00]
B
They're proud, they're proud, they're proud.
- [09:02]
A
But it's an anonymous penis in a room that is decorated as like a shrine to pornographic consumption.
- [09:08]
B
Yes, that's exactly right.
- [09:10]
A
Yeah. So you want to understand something that is half real to some degree. How do you start trying to understand it? Where do you go? What do you do?
- [09:19]
B
It's a good question. So I am. I'm somewhat online in a kind of normal way, not online in a kind of Discord TikTok way. And so I tried to find out where the Gooners were. It was Discord, which was a platform that I had never used before. I typed Gooning into some kind of, you know, discord server aggregator to see what was out there. I found the Goonverse. So it had 50,000 members. A lot of people. Yeah, clicked into it. And it really was like being transported into another. It felt like my laptop was alive. I'd never felt, not since like, honestly watching, like, not that I would watch these on purpose, but like an ISIS beheading video, basically. It was the equivalent in the sense that you're like. I thought I was inured to whatever I would see on my laptop. So you get into the Goonverse and there's a stream room, which is basically a zoom call where you're all watching something together, but everyone is masturbating. Head's cut off at the neck, so it's just neck down, they're watching pornography that I had no reference point for. This kind of hyperkinetic montage of just penises going into vagina. Nonstop crazy, one after the other. I would say not just humans. You know, CGI generated horse women, obviously a lot of hentai, things of that nature. And there's so much going on. I mean, they were kind of talking to each other. Some of them were kind of talking as if they were gamers. It's what I would. I mean, I'm not a gamer myself, but what I would imagine gamers sound like sort of talking shit on Each other.
- [10:49]
A
But just. Just so I understand, it's like the. The thing you see, because Discord is more like a chat server nor like it's like you.
- [10:56]
B
Yeah. And there's a lot of chatting going on these servers, I should say too.
- [10:59]
A
But there. But you're seeing live streaming video where there's like a center screen that's just a super cut of the most kind of visceral or strange porn. And it's like montage. So it's just like very short clips one after the other. And then around it, people are filming themselves masturbating without their faces.
- [11:21]
B
That's exactly right. Nailed it. Yeah.
- [11:24]
A
And the vibe is like, it's not. These are people who'd probably think of themselves as straight.
- [11:29]
B
You know, I would say for the most part at least the people that I then encountered and spoke to. But a lot of people are sort of. Some are openly bi. It's a big community. It's a very large community. I would say most of the people that end up talking to are people who identify as straight in real life and have had a weird kind of bi curiosity unlocked in them by the rituals of the Goonverse.
- [11:52]
A
Got it. And. But the tone of conversation. They're not talking to each other in sexy come on ways. They're talking like boys. Being kind of jockey.
- [12:01]
B
That was what I experienced. I mean this is going. There are so many of these rooms and it's. You can. Your listeners can go visit right now. There, there a quick link in the comments. I don't know if you're at work listening to this, but you know, it's free. There's. There's so many of them. But yeah, that. That was what I heard when I went in there.
- [12:16]
A
Okay, so. So that's the first thing you're seeing. This is the sort of. This is this strange new Internet mediated thing that they're doing together. Um, and then what, like to the degree you can see, like what is the view you're getting into into like their lives. Like you can see images of the rooms they're in.
- [12:36]
B
Yeah. I remember noticing like Spider man trinkets. You know, like little. Like maybe they weren't Funko Pop specifically. That's just the term I'm familiar with. But like what you would expect, you know, sort of a nerd tone. But you know, you're saying, I remember one person was masturbating on the toilet. So that was interesting. One really did look like they were masturbating in jail. Which I'm. Presumably they weren't but it had a kind of, I would say the vibe overall, sort of dark, seedy, abject. Possibly on purpose.
- [13:02]
A
Yeah, yeah. I had a friend in college who had an anthropology assignment which was to go somewhere that made him uncomfortable. And we were in Montreal and we went. I went with him to like the porn theater. And it sounds like that.
- [13:17]
B
Yes. Kind of bringing back the old kind of Times Square, you know.
- [13:20]
A
Yeah.
- [13:21]
B
It's the seediest district of the Internet. I think I can. Well, that's probably not true, frankly, but it was, it was a seedy district of the Internet.
- [13:28]
A
And so then what happens? Like, tell me about just meeting these people.
- [13:33]
B
Sure. So basically I just start reaching out at random. I'm dying to talk to these people. Once I got over my initial sort of shock, let's say I was like, I gotta figure out what's going on here. I was worried at first because I figured, you know, these people aren't going to want to talk to me. You know, I don't have an anti masturbation agenda. But I think they would assume that a journalist was not coming in there to celebrate gooning. But people were immediately so receptive.
- [13:59]
A
Really?
- [13:59]
B
Oh yeah, they were so happy to talk to me. Now there was one person who said, I'm not talking to journalist scum. And I did want to say, you're a gooner, come on. But you know, beyond that, everyone was just so, so eager to talk. So the task for me then bec. Filtering out, just finding the right people to talk to basically.
- [14:14]
A
And why did they want to talk to you? Like what was your. Why?
- [14:17]
B
I mean, my sense of it now, one is that cooning is a hobby like any other. And this is a hobby you can't really talk about with your friends, your colleagues. And you know, it occupies so much of their lives. There's so many aspects of this community. I think they were just happy to have someone, you know, who was involved directly in the community, who could sort of sincerely listen.
- [14:40]
A
Yeah. And so there's one particular person you met who I wanted to ask you about. I just wanna make sure I'm pronouncing his name right. Spieshak.
- [14:47]
B
Yes, that's his username. Yeah.
- [14:49]
A
So tell me about Spishak.
- [14:51]
B
Spishak is a 28 year old pornosexual living in Los Angeles and.
- [14:55]
A
Pornosexual.
- [14:56]
B
Right. You know, these terms are so familiar to me that I forget this is not common, common language. Pornosexual is basically a voluntary celibate volselle who is not having sex because they are completely content with pornography, and they just want to watch porn, and that is their sex life. Can you describe yourself on Twitter and on Discord as, like, pornosexual? Is that how you actually identify? Because I know some people sort of just say that, but that's not actually the case.
- [15:21]
C
I mean, do you.
- [15:22]
B
Do you feel that way?
- [15:24]
C
So before. No, but the more that I've gotten into the community, I've feel that way, yes.
- [15:32]
B
And what does that mean to you? Like, how. I mean, I kind of know, but, like, how do you describe it?
- [15:38]
C
I prefer porn over having sex with a real person. I would just say that I. I would rather spend my time masturbating and watching porn versus having sex.
- [15:49]
B
I first came across him because this goon cave was really one of the most striking I'd seen. Can you just tell me your setup right now? Like, if you're doing it maximal, like, what. What does it look like?
- [16:01]
C
Okay, So I have two 2K monitors, so 1440p, which is going to be my center and my right. And then my left monitor is a 1920 by 1080p. Then I have eight Samsung A7 Lite tablets. And then I have a cheap 60 to $70 projector that I would use.
- [16:22]
B
Four monitors, eight tablets overhead projector, porn on the walls, sex toys, the whole setup. But what also is important to keep in mind to give a sense of the visuals here, Each of these screens, it's not like there's four screens. Each one is playing one pornographic film. It's four screens, each of which is playing, like, 30 pornographic films. And these pornographic films are themselves cycling in and out. So you're really looking at something like a thousand pornographic films in the course of, you know, a minute.
- [16:50]
C
You kind of, like, zone out. So you're seeing not everything, but you're just like, okay, I can look in the center screen. And then if I happen to drift off, then maybe I naturally twist to the right or maybe I naturally twist the left. Wherever you look, then there's something to keep you stimulated.
- [17:06]
A
So you were drawn to him because his goon cave was. Yeah.
- [17:09]
B
Elaborate goon cave. I didn't know anything about him when I reached out. Lives with his parents, so he has to basically build the goon cave. When they go to sleep at midnight, he says midnight to 8am is prime hours of. Of gooning.
- [17:21]
A
And they have no. They. They don't know.
- [17:23]
B
You know, if they do know, I doubt they want to bring it up. I don't think they. That's a conversation they want to have with their adult son.
- [17:29]
A
Are you ever worried they're gonna, like.
- [17:31]
B
Walk into the room or something?
- [17:34]
C
Yes and no. So I plan everything to where it's the least likely. So most people, if they're able to, you know, get into the cave, they'll go at whatever time. But for me, I have to wait until people are asleep. So that's usually, like, the time to where it's like, okay, no one's gonna. There's a low chance that someone's gonna bother me.
- [17:55]
B
He said he always kind of had trouble talking to women. He had female friends, but he said he was never able to really. He was always friend zoned, as he put it. And sometime around the pandemic, he was in college at the time. He found himself in this community, and from there, really just dove headfirst into this, you know, universe of porn. Started identifying as a pornosexual. But what I found interesting, talking to him was one of his reasons for his pornosexuality. He could never know what was in another person's head. He would never know what the other woman was thinking.
- [18:31]
C
It's just more of a pros and cons game of, okay, yeah, if I have sex with this person, the pro is I lose my virginity, and I probably feel good. But then I also have to worry about making sure that they feel good, making sure I last a decent time. Is everything okay? Is mood setting fine? Am I being weird? Am I being too forward? Blah, blah, blah. Cause then now I can't. I'm not good at reading signs. So now I have to wonder, oh, okay. Do they like this? Do they not? Should I be doing something different?
- [18:59]
B
And that created so much anxiety that it almost wasn't worth doing. Huh.
- [19:05]
A
What? But that's the whole point of other people.
- [19:09]
B
No, I've had the same thought. Yeah. I mean, I think these spaces, you know, the kinds of interactions you're having, are so prescribed. You're sending each other your favorite pornography. You're sort of talking about a very specific set of things. It can be very easy to just kind of check out of the difficulties of adult human relationships, which can be, I think, we all quite rewarding, you know, to get to know someone, to be scared and to not know what someone's thinking, but trust them and learn how to trust people. And these skills, I think, not just in the porn addiction space, but maybe across society, are being lost to some degree.
- [19:45]
A
And did he seem. I mean, it's interesting. You're describing somebody who, you know, he's 28 years old, he's living with his parents. He has an elaborate porn like dystopian theater that he's setting up and taking down every night. He also seems pretty self aware about the sort of anxieties that have gotten to that place. Like, did he want to be different or did he feel like he'd found this was fulfilling him sexually and he felt like a person who understood himself to be happy in life.
- [20:18]
B
That was the question. I was always delicately tiptoeing around with the pornosexual crowd because I don't want to go out there and say, hey, how come you're not going on dates? You want to get out there? But I was curious, I mean, are you just, is this it? Are you content with this? In his case, for the time being, he said yeah. I mean, the way he put it, it was easier to just fulfill his needs through, you know, the goon space and goon porn. And he was not at that time looking to change.
- [20:46]
A
And did you. I mean, like the fact that he's 28 and living with his parents suggests, like, professionally things might not be going.
- [20:53]
B
He does have a job. He has a job. Yeah. A lot of these gooners are, what would say, employed clocking in.
- [20:58]
C
So I work nine to five every day, Monday through Friday. I mean, it might seem like, oh, you know, porn. I'm basically just watching porn whenever I have time. But usually it's. If I have free time, I can either split it between hanging out with my family or my sibling, or I could go to bed early and watch porn. And you know, I, I haven't hung out with them in a while. Okay, let me, let me hang out with them, you know, catch up, you know, make sure that I'm there. And then maybe instead of two hours, I'll have an hour to watch porn. And then if I'm physically, like, I'm exhausted, then I'll push it off to maybe the next day.
- [21:34]
B
Yeah. And I really want to be clear. He and many of these other people that I spoke to were totally sincere, totally self aware. They knew that what they were doing was sort of strange. And that was honestly part of the appeal of the community is we're doing something that is like bizarre and transgressive in that way. I mean, I think I say it in the article. I mean, it is, it's kind of like punk or something in the sense that, you know, they're doing something that mainstream society that really, I would say 99.9% of people who have ever lived would find utterly repellent. Yeah, and there is something I don't wanna say cool about that, but it's, you know, certainly interesting.
- [22:18]
A
One of the strange facts that hovers over Daniel's reporting comes from this survey he conduct, which he got 107 gooners to fill out. He found a data point that he hadn't expected. A surprising amount. 44% of the Gooners had had sex in real life with another person. But when he cross referenced that number by age, his findings made more sense. The younger Gooners were unlikely to have had sex in real life. These were the young boys whose high school or college education had taken place during the pandemic, during the developmental stage where antisocial, awkward teenage boys typically find that their raging hormones forced them to develop social skills. These boys had instead apparently developed deep relationships with their screens, with pornographic fantasies, and then ultimately online with each other. And those relationships with each other the way Gooners use and exchange porn. I had not seen relationships like this in my entire life, not even online. We're going to take a short break and then we're going to examine what those relationships look like. How do two Gooners bond after these ads? Two words you won't find together in the Bible. Wank battling. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Axle. You know that feeling when you finally sit down to book a trip, spend hours hunting for the best flights and hotels and still aren't sure if you actually got a good deal. That stress of wondering if you overpaid or missed a better price, it's the worst. Axel is here to make sure you never feel like that again. You can Message Axel on WhatsApp to find deals, book travel and automatically get refunded when prices drop after you buy. Hotels average 50% less than major booking sites. And with automatic price monitoring, you get instant refunds and credits whenever prices fall. No work required. Just text what you need and get options in seconds. Plus, axle is 24 7, so you never miss a savings opportunity. With real time notifications keeping you informed, it's like having a personal travel agent in your pocket. On average, users save $400 per trip and 91% report less travel stress. Stop overpaying for travel. Go to helloaxle.com search and sign up for just 35 bucks a year. Most users save double that on their first booking alone. Sign up now and let Axel handle the deals and planning while you enjoy the trip. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by quints. Cold mornings, holiday chaos and all the errands. I just want my wardrobe to be simple with pieces that look sharp and feel amazing and that I will actually wear. Which is why I love quints this season. Quince makes it easy. $50 Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like a little everyday luxury and wool coats that are stylish, durable and made to last. Their denim fits perfectly and is insanely comfortable, all without the high end price tag. By working directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quinn's cuts out the middlemen so you get premium quality without the premium markup. I recommend their cashmere sweaters. They hold up beautifully, wash after wash. But it's not just clothing. Quint has thoughtful gifts for home, bath, kitchen and travel. Give and get timeless holiday staples that last this season with quint. Go to quint.comsearch engine for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com search engine free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com search engine.
- [25:57]
D
Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver, a board certified obgyn and menopause specialist. My new podcast, Unpaused, is the place for bold, unfiltered conversations about what it really takes for women to thrive in the second half of life. Every week I sit down with medical experts, cultural icons, and powerhouse women to talk about what really matters. Your health, your power and your future. We're covering hormones, identity, finances, relationships and so much more. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow unpaused with me, Dr. Mary Claire Haver. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:43]
A
Welcome back to the show. What is wank battling?
- [26:50]
B
So wank battling? Well, there's something in the gooning world that is pretty common called feeding and that is sort of one guy sending another guy pornography in an effort to get them off in a kind of, you know, just relaxed, friendly way. They learn, come to learn their interests, their kinks and they, you know, send them porn.
- [27:06]
A
And is this happening? Like, is it like epistolary or is it like live?
- [27:10]
B
I think it depends. It's often like in Discord DMs so it wouldn't be over video. It's like you have your, you know, most gooners have like a very carefully set up porn archive, but wank battling is kind of a gamified version of feeding where they're raiding the porn that they send to each other. Now the rules here are unbelievably complex and I tried learning about 8, 9, 10, wank battling and hentai wank battling. I really tried learning how it works and wank battled myself and I didn't really do a very good job in the end because it's like DJing.
- [27:42]
A
It's like a skill that you have to.
- [27:43]
B
Yeah, well, you're supposed to sort of pick up through the course of the game what your opponent is into, you know, like I realized that one of my opponents, Cum Dumpster, was into E girls and so I quickly had to sort of dive into the goonverse and find it was very stressful. I don't see why anyone would enjoy this. It was honestly not pleasant at all. I felt like I was like rapidly compiling a spreadsheet or something, but I was just sending him, trying to figure out whatever he liked and you know, he was giving me poor square. Now there's always the risk that someone is just going to give you low scores so you'll have to keep feeding them pornography. But there are sort of like good faith rules in place to kind of prevent against that.
- [28:22]
A
But isn't the thing you're describing, which is like two people are mutually pursuing an orgasm and over the course of it trying to figure out what the other person considers pleasurable? Like, isn't the thing they were calling wank battling just sex? Yeah.
- [28:38]
B
And I hope that's what sex is like for everyone in the future. It's a beautiful vision. Yeah. No, I mean there's a kind of intimacy there for sure.
- [28:48]
A
What a strange kind of intimacy though.
- [28:50]
B
Yeah.
- [28:52]
A
Daniel explained that while wank battling involves the Gooners sending each other porn they found online, the Gooners also make lots of new pornographic clips for each other.
- [29:01]
B
That's a huge part of the gooning world.
- [29:03]
A
But it's not as if they're videoing themselves. It's like they're creating sort of hyper montages.
- [29:08]
B
Yes, well, sometimes they're recording themselves watching pornography. Really? Yes. There are many meta layers of things going on here, but yeah, so there is a thriving, let's say folk art subculture in the gooning world, largely centered around PMVs. Porn music videos.
- [29:22]
A
What's a porn music video?
- [29:24]
B
Porn music video is sort of a quick cut spray of pornography usually sourced from pirated onlyfans clips, pornhub clips. Gooners aren't paying for the porn, I should say, I think largely. And spliced into these sort of like super cut productions like you've seen, I'm sure a fan cam, you know.
- [29:41]
A
Yes.
- [29:42]
B
Sort of along those lines a bit faster.
- [29:45]
A
And is there Actual music under the.
- [29:47]
B
Yeah. So I should say not only is there actual music, some of them make their own music, make gooning, like EDM songs that they play over the stuff.
- [30:02]
A
All night. Addicted to the Goonies my only delight Staring at my screen in a trans iron Locked in my room.
- [30:14]
B
Okay, so the biggest person in the community is someone named Noodle dude, who is one of the sort of key players in the scene, I would argue the most influential PMV maker currently living. He came in the scene around 2020, and it's really professional, operation, genuine. I mean, you look at them, you're like, this takes a lot of work. He innovated almost by accident. When I spoke to him, he explained to me he was editing a PMV and the beat happened to line up with the thrust, I guess I'll say. And he said, that's kind of cool. And he then went back to the clip and aligned everything so that the thrusting was synced to the beat. That is now the case, I would say, largely in almost every PMV video you see. Now, what's interesting about the PMV is because they're largely composed of pirated content, they can't be hosted on Pornhub, so they had to make a separate site called pmvhaven.com, which I have to imagine is not long for this world, given the really huge number of copyright violations going on there. But if you go on PMV Haven, you will see there is an active, highly competitive. You know that Brian Eno, term senior.
- [31:19]
A
You know the idea that, like, that scenes sort of push each other towards greater artisticity.
- [31:23]
B
That's exactly what's going on in the PMV space. I mean. I mean that. And they're doing sort of group vids where their different styles are being showcased. You know, I mean, they're horrifying to watch. A lot of them are genuinely, really tough to watch. But also you look at them and you're like, this is the future. Maybe. I don't know.
- [31:41]
A
It's weird. I feel like what you were encountering in your reporting is what I encounter hearing you recount your reporting, which is my internal compass, sort of flips between despair and appreciation.
- [31:56]
B
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a kind of creativity on display there.
- [32:01]
A
It's a kind of creativity. It's people caring about the craft of something very, very strange. It's weirdly people making things for. I don't want to say, like, artistically pure, but I'm assuming that there are not vast profits to be seized here.
- [32:13]
B
No, I Think noodle dude could have a subscription service going if he tried, but he's really the only one big enough to, to pull that off.
- [32:19]
A
It's so funny. Cause it's like my strange digital puritanism is such that when I'm watching a non pornographic, like a normal movie, if I start to watch something else on my phone, I feel disgusting. Like I feel like a fallen person. The idea that someone would intentionally set up almost like an infinite amount of porn screens, that the point is the.
- [32:41]
B
Overstimulation, it's just like, yes, they're leaning into brain rot. I mean that's a big part of it is almost like fetishizing, ruining your mind.
- [32:48]
A
Right. And it's part of it in terms of it's what they're celebrating or it's part of the joke or it's like there's something humiliating and sexual about that.
- [32:55]
B
Yeah, I think that's all tied up. I mean there's obviously with certain communities online, a kind of a difficult to parse ironic thing going on. But the main sort of thematic throughline of the gooning community and especially the content made there is like, ruin your life. You're a disgusting porn addict. Give up on society. You know, I would say for the most of the people engaging with this content, they don't actually plan on dropping out of the world and only watching pornography. I think it's kind of ties into a humiliation, kink sort of thing, you know, but it's, it's different, it's a new kind of meta level because it's pornography that is like about watching pornography.
- [33:41]
A
What is pornography that's about watching. What does it mean that the pornography itself is meta?
- [33:45]
B
Well, there's like text that flashes on the screen saying like, you're addicted to porn, you're ruining your life. Over 210 million people worldwide are addicted to social media. You are one of those people.
- [34:04]
A
Further, deeper, forever and ever submit to porn.
- [34:15]
B
You can, it's all these quick cut techniques. I mean, you even watch these porn music videos and it's hard to understand how someone would find it erotic because you can't even pay attention to anything. Everything's moving so quickly that it's almost more about, I don't know, the objection and the humiliation of engaging with it in the first place than it is about sort of conventional, I don't know, whatever people get out of regular pornography.
- [34:43]
A
So to speak, because it's not focusing on a character or a story or even a scene. Like the cuts are that fast?
- [34:50]
B
Yes, the cuts are super fast. I mean, the way that I conceive of it is like, you know, obviously porn's changed a lot in the last, like, 50 years. But fundamentally, from the 70s to the present day, porn is still two people or more in a room having sex in, like, something like real time. There's a climax. Whereas this pornography much more closely resembles the experience of just clicking around pornhub because, you know, a site like the tube sites, which, you know, emerged in the 2000s and have millions of clips, I think their internal data says that people will watch like 10 clips per session. No one's actually sitting and watching straight through. You know, I mean, I'm sure some are, but this kind of pornography is like porn by and for people whose dominant sense of sexuality is shaped by online porn itself.
- [35:39]
A
So it's like they've taken channel surfing and they've made channel surfing the movie. Yeah.
- [35:44]
B
Yes, yes, basically.
- [35:45]
A
Okay. And it sounds like everything is both tongue in cheek and not tongue in cheek.
- [35:50]
B
I would say so. But, you know, it's interesting. In any big, sufficiently large, whatever online space, you'll have some people who are in on the joke and some who aren't, and they can kind of interact if they're all saying the same things, even if some people might really mean it. So in the gooning space, someone might say, you know, I just masturbated for eight straight days and I never want to have a job, and, you know, my life is terrible and I love it. And they're doing a kind of joke, although kind of a strange one. And then you'll have someone else who says that and means it, and they can both, you know, happily trade porn and have a good time together.
- [36:26]
A
Yeah, it seems like that kind of dynamic one is very much a feature of the Internet we're in right now. But also you see it in places where people are coming together online to engage in behaviors that are sort of like, in some ways socially taboo. Like, I saw it when I was covering more cryptocurrency where people would refer to themselves as addicts and degenerates and sort of like gambling addicts. And it was both a way of anticipating a real criticism they might have gotten from people in the world and of neutralizing it and of being self aware, but not self aware in a way that would change their behavior. It's like both feeling bad about the thing, not feeling bad about the thing. It's a very effective defense mechanism that lets the community throw it out.
- [37:09]
B
I mean, I've engaged in addictive behaviors Myself, I might say, not this kind. I want to be clear. And if you can joke about something, it does sort of make it seem less serious. Maybe if you can just be like, oh, look at me, I'm such a fuck up, you know, and you can sort of rid. I think that's a way of maybe not interrogating it.
- [37:26]
A
Yeah, this is my favorite thing I learned about the Gooners from Daniel. Not that they're self aware or somewhat self aware. Many compulsive users of things possess something like this, some salve of humor and shame that lets them keep doing what they can't help but keep doing. What I enjoy about the Gooners is the idea that what Daniel believes is turning them on is in part the gross feeling we all get from Internet overconsumption. The stomach ache that tells us our eyes overate. The notion that ideas put forth by theorists like Jonathan Haidt, who tells everybody that screens are bad for us, that our phones are damaging something important and invisible in us, a soul or a psyche. The idea that Gooners hear that same refrain, but in the voice that a dominatrix uses to tell her submissive that he's disgusting, that they found ecstasy in their own humiliation. I don't want to say I admire it. I just want to say it makes me appreciate how complex the human animal is. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, what the Gooners have to tell us about ourselves. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Zapier. Over the past few months, everyone has been talking about AI. But let's face it, talking about trends doesn't help you be more efficient at work. For that, you need the right tools. You need Zapier. Zapier is how you break the hype cycle and put AI to work across your company. With Zapier's AI Orchestration platform, you can bring the power of AI to any workflow so you can do more of what matters. Connect top AI models like ChatGPT and Claude to the tools you already use so you can add AI exactly where you need it. Whether that's AI powered workflows or something else. You can orchestrate it with Zapier. Zapier is for everyone, tech expert or not. Teams have already automated over 300 million AI tasks using Zapier. Join the millions of businesses transforming how they work with Zapier and AI. Get started for free by visiting zapier.com search that's Z-A P-I-E-R.com search this episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Perfectly Snug. You ever notice how a bad night of sleep just wrecks your whole day? I used to wake up drenched in sweat, kicking off the covers, turning the thermostat down, then arguing with my partner because they were freezing. That all changed when I got the Perfectly Snug Smart Topper. It's like air conditioning for your bed. Not air conditioning, but the same kind of cooling comfort. And honestly, it made my old mattress feel brand new. If you deal with night sweats, hot flashes, or just sleep hot, this thing is a total game changer. And my favorite part, the dual zone controls so my partner can stay warm while I stay cool. You can pay with FSA or for HSA funds. It's super easy to set up. Literally drop it on, plug it in, done. And there's a 30 night risk free trial with free shipping both ways. Seriously, better sleep changes everything. Black Friday is their biggest sale of the year. Save up to $330 with code BLACK Friday. Visit perfectlysnug.com this episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Bombus. This time of year it is sensory overload everywhere. But one feeling we're all still chasing is cozy. And Bombas has the socks, slippers, tees, basically everything you need to get there. Honestly, there's something therapeutic about putting on a fresh pair of socks and Bombas has figured out how to bottle that feeling. Their slippers have sink in cushioning, their tees have the perfect weight to them and that comfort keeps going after the first wear. And when it comes to gifting, Bombas has answers for everyone on your list. Running socks for the marathoner. Baby socks that actually stay on tiny feet. They've got something for everybody and this season they're really stepping up their slipper and slide game with new styles and materials. What I really like about their mission is that every time you purchase, Bombus donates one pair to someone facing homelessness. So when you're cozy, someone else gets to be too. Head over to bombus.com engine and use code engine for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B A S.com Enjin code engine at checkout. Welcome back to the show. How much do you understand the Gooners as existing just on a continuum with the rest of like most of us who are consuming the Internet right now are consuming a more channel surfy hyper montage like overstimulated non narrative version of the Internet. We were talking to Ryan Broderick's report a few months ago, and he was saying that he understands our current sort of short form video Internet as a pornographic Internet. Not that it's all porn, but that it's all stimulation in the middle of a story. Do you think that's true?
- [42:49]
B
Yes. I will say that when I started reporting this piece, I thought I was writing a story about ready access to pornography and how it had affected the generation of young men. That was what I thought the angle was. By the time I was done, it was really a story about just sort of the rise of omnipresent short form, flickering content, content everywhere. The porn itself started to seem less interesting to me than the sheer volume of content being consumed in the way that it was edited and just the constant quick gratification. And it seemed on a continuum to me with the rise of all this stuff across platforms, you know, even non.
- [43:27]
A
Pornographically, that is more about. We've created technology that lets us be as overstimulated as we want to be. And while most people's reaction to that to some degree is to try to find a kind of moderation, you're always gonna have people who are like, no, I wanna see what it's like to be super served by this.
- [43:45]
B
Yes. And you can really easily do that now. And I think, you know, these people are weirdly eroticizing that process. But there are plenty of people who watch non pornographic TikToks for seven hours a day. You know, that's not a crazy kind of person. I mean, it's kind of crazy to do that, but those people exist, many of them. This is just sort of adding an extra layer of, I don't know, intensity or focus by masturbating while doing it.
- [44:13]
A
Do you think that the reason that the normal Internet is interested in the Gooners is because the Gooners, besides that they're interesting and it's weird, but that it's also like, I don't know how to explain it, that somehow it's like the shame we all feel about our Internet consumption. They're like a golem of, well, here's a much worse way to stare at your phone for seven hours.
- [44:37]
B
Yes. I think they're like the furthest possible extension of something that we all engage in to some degree. They're like the perfect subject of the content world. Content regime.
- [44:50]
A
Yeah. Cause most of what they're doing, like, hey, did you see this? Did you see this clip? Did you see this clip? Let me send you this clip. Oh my God. I can look at my screen while another Screen, like to some degree we're doing.
- [44:59]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'll look at Twitter for five hours a day, you know, and.
- [45:03]
A
Then afterwards you feel gross.
- [45:04]
B
Yes, exactly. And I guess they're sort of trick to get out of that to say I feel gross and I love that. And that's turning me on, you know. Huh.
- [45:13]
A
Did it change your Internet consumption at all?
- [45:16]
B
Well, in a literal way, I mean, I was basically clocking into the porn factory every day and, you know, queuing up my playlist of porn music videos. But, you know, I wish I could say that, you know, since I reported this, I've become more conscientious about my social media. I mean, if anything, it's increased drastically just sort of looking at the response to the article. But no, I mean, it is something that I would like to scale back.
- [45:40]
A
One of the things that I find confusing about my feelings about the piece is like my social circle, which is like Brooklyn journalist, whatever, are not people who are concerned about porn consumption. But it's tricky because it's like, I don't know, I think you can both. You can be not anti porn, but say porn is culture. Culture has effects, good and bad. And this is one where, I don't know, it's lately. Did you feel that you walked out of this with different views on pornography than you walked in with?
- [46:20]
B
You know, it maybe just kind of confirmed an intuitive sense. I mean, obviously I'm not against pornography, whatever that would mean. I did have something in the back of my head that always wondered, like, what is the generation raised with instant access to porn, their phones going to be like. And I'm sure the vast majority of them are not like this. But this did suggest to me that this sort of like overflow, massive library, infinite library of porn has, I don't know, created new ways of thinking about sexuality. It was always gonna have some effect. You know, there was no world in which you have all of this content out there freely available to everyone from when they were a kid and it would do nothing, you know, and so what this did was just show me. Well, this is one of the things that it's done. I think usually people come at it from the angle of like, you know, how is this affecting, like, you know, young men's real life sexuality? You know, you hear about like, you know, a lot of porn obviously is misogynist and violent. And that's always been a concern. This was more like, how does it affect the actual, like psychology day to day or just the way of thinking about sex? That a younger person would have.
- [47:28]
A
Yeah. And do you think, I mean, do you see the Gooners as like a sort of subculture unto themselves, or do you feel like they're a hyper expression of something that is sort of maybe happening with more. I'm trying not to use words like normal, but like typical. Typical young men.
- [47:47]
B
Yeah. I mean, I, I, it's hard to say. I mean, I would assume, yes, most young men are not, are not doing this. But I mean, you know, porn consumption is fairly widespread. I mean, obviously the Gooners take it to. But I don't think some of the stuff they're watching would be completely alien to a non gooner.
- [48:02]
A
You know, I looked at one of the PMVs from your piece and it was, it really felt alien to me.
- [48:07]
B
I mean, you look at this, you're like, this is the future staring me in the face. There's something about it that is like the Clockwork Orange. Like, it really just like, I don't even understand how a person could watch that, let alone masturbate to it. It is like a strobe light of pornography. Yeah.
- [48:21]
A
I felt like I was a medieval peasant who someone had put a VR headset on.
- [48:25]
B
I felt quite old. It's like someone, you know, an older person in the 50s hearing Elvis or something. Something. I was like, this is really, this is crazy.
- [48:32]
A
But you don't feel concerned? You feel surprised?
- [48:36]
B
I won't say I'm not concerned. I mean, I'm, I'm concerned, you know. But again, part of it is, you know, whatever how, how this is affecting people's ideas and their sense of sexuality. But a lot of this piece for me was my kind of anguish that nobody reads anymore, you know, because obviously I am a writer and, you know, to the extent I'm good in anything, it's books I love to read. And it seemed to me especially, I don't know, in the last year with the kind of real rise of slop culture, that that way of being in the world might be on its way to being extinct. And, you know, this piece to me was like trying to look at what will replace that world. You know, what is the post literate culture as people are calling it? What does it look like?
- [49:23]
A
It's funny though, as someone who also has that concern, what I've actually noticed seems to be happening is that while 80, 90, whatever, some lion's share of the Internet now is post literate, it's all sort of just like pictures and shapes. There does seem to be a rise in people's desire to have someone after the fact make sense of the stream. You know what I mean?
- [49:48]
B
Yeah, sure. I mean, there's just so much stuff that you need some kind of guide, I would imagine.
- [49:51]
A
But yeah, but it is like you have both the Gooners and the Harper's.
- [49:56]
B
Article about the Gooners. Yes, the Gooner Explainers, the Gooner Ethnographers.
- [49:59]
A
The job we all wanted to do.
- [50:01]
B
When we were kids. Yeah, that's right. Ever since I was a little boy.
- [50:10]
A
Daniel Kolitz. His excellent piece in Harper's about all this is called the Goon Squad. You can follow him on the website. He wishes he did not spend hours a day staring@x.com he's Daniel Kolitz. Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey. It was created by me, PJ Vogt and Shruti Pinamaneni. Garrett Graham is our senior producer. This episode was produced by Emily Moltair. Theme, original composition and mixing by Armin Bazarian. Fact checking this week by Gus o'.
- [51:11]
C
Connor.
- [51:11]
A
Our executive producer is Leah Rhys Dennis. Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey, Rob Mirandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuff. Our agent is Oren Rosenbaum at uta. If you'd like to support our show, get ad free episodes, zero reruns and some extras. Please consider signing up for Incognito Mode. You can join Incognito Mode at Search Engine Show. Please follow and listen to Search Engine wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.
- [52:10]
E
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