Sunday, July 30, 2017

The Butterfly Effect With Jon Ronson


The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson Radio/TV Program

The Butterfly Effect With Jon Ronson is a seven-episode podcast given away for free on Audible.  It's about the effects of massive amounts of free pornography around 2008 on PornHub, although there have been other outlets like peer-to-peer files haring programs and downloading options like Megaupload and Rapidshare.  To make a story out of it, the author, Jon Ronson puts the blame on free pornography squarely on the shoulders of PornHub and its "creator," a Belgian man who simply invested in the company, tracing the effects of free porn on the pornography industry, Ashley-Madison, and on the viewers.

I never went on Ashley-Madison, but it did tickle me to find out that only a tiny percentage of its members were women, and only a tiny percentage of that tiny percentage of those women were real women, the rest being bots.  Of course, we all know that Ashley-Madison was hacked, leading to the publication of millions of members in a database searchable by zip code and name, but to add further to the humiliation - in most cases undeserved - of these men in saying that they were paying $25 a month to talk to bots, is just hilarious to me.

There is a lot of darkness to this series, of course.  It follows the stories of a couple of people who attempted or committed suicide.  Among pro athletes, there's always the thought, "if only I'd come along 10 years later and made as much as the athletes are making today."  In the porn industry, all that money was made 15 or 20 years ago, in many instances before the producers, directors, and stars were born.

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