* * * * *
                                        
                              Porn porn porn porn
                                        
A week or so ago, Mark [1], JeffK [2] and I ended up talking about “porn.”
Not necessarily the topic of pornography, but the term “porn” itself. I had
mentioned that CNN (Cable News Network) [3] was “news porn.” Mark and JeffK
had never heard of porn in that context, and I had to explain that in the
context of “porn” is an excessive repetative content on a single topic.
Hence, CNN (Cable News Network) is news porn, FoodTV [4] is food porn,
Cartoon Network [5] is 'toon porn.

I first encounted that usage of “porn” in Synners, by Pat Cardigan (way back
in the early 90s) and I found the concept both intriguing and quite on
target. And while such usage of “porn” is still somewhat rare, it's not
uncommon [6]:

> 1990s moviegoers who have sat clutching their heads in both awe and
> disappointment at movies like “Twister” and “Volcano” and “The Lost World”
> can thank James Cameron's “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” for inaugurating
> what's become this decade's special new genre of big-budget film: Special
> Effects Porn. “Porn” because, if you substitute F/X for intercourse, the
> parallels between the two genres become so obvious they're eerie. Just like
> hard-core cheapies, movies like “Terminator 2” and “Jurassic Park” aren't
> really “movies” in the standard sense at all. What they really are is half
> a dozen or so isolated, spectacular scenes—scenes comprising maybe twenty
> or thirty minutes of riveting, sensuous payoff—strung together via another
> sixty to ninety minutes of flat, dead, and often hilariously insipid
> narrative.
> 

Via kisrael.com [7], “F/X Porn [8]”

Which makes a good a generic definition of “porn” as anything. And puts CNN
into a whole new light … 

[1] http://grumpy.conman.org/
[2] http://www.livejournal.com/users/j3ff/
[3] http://www.cnn.com/
[4] http://www.foodtv.com/
[5] http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/
[6] http://www.smallbytes.net/~bobkat/waterstone.html
[7] http://www.kisrael.com/viewblog.cgi?date=2004.01.17
[8] http://www.smallbytes.net/~bobkat/waterstone.html

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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