#6 Everyone watches porn.

Really, everyone.

I’m paraphrasing here, but I heard something recently that resonated: to be a successful writer, you must be persuasive; to be successful on TV or radio, you must be likable; to be successful on social media, you must be polarizing. I’ve fallen into these roles myself. When I publish an essay, I take on a voice that sounds authoritative and assured, even if that’s not how I sound in conversation. The few times I have appeared on television and the radio, I can feel myself trying to be as likable, presentable, and charismatic as I can muster (which, I confess, is not so much). I have had my occasional viral moments on social media, and they nearly always come from saying something pithy, outrageous, and polarizing. (The real masters of social media — Trump, AOC, Musk — know that attention follows outrage; they feed off the haters as much as the fans.)

This was the basis of McLuhan’s aphorism, “the medium is the message.” The medium we choose to communicate — whether its email, group text, Instagram, what have you — shapes not just what we share, but also the role we adopt in doing so.

So what, then, is a useful medium to build community? It is hard to beat the backyard BBQ or the picnic in the park, but what about when your community is spread across different locations?

I’ve been having fun with this weekly newsletter and am grateful to those of you who have responded with your reactions, reflections, and recommended readings. While it’s all words on a page, there is something about the low stakes of a newsletter that frees me from the need to make an argument and encourages me to share random anecdotes, reflections, and lessons from life with people I relate to.

I suppose I’m rediscovering how to have fun online, to be less annoyed, and more curious. And while I’ve mostly bemoaned Twitter over recent months (in an essay striving for authoritative and assured 🙄), our Twitter Spaces discussion yesterday afternoon with Emily Parker and Lena Zuñiga was largely an appreciation-fest for Twitter’s ability to connect and delight. Thanks to those of you who stopped by and have shared your feedback and reflections. In a couple of weeks, Luis and I will share our second episode from The 12 Inquiries project, where we discuss out feelings about masculinity, how they’ve changed over the years, and the potential to shape a positive vision for masculinity in the future. We’re planning on having another Twitter Spaces conversation about the topic with some special guests the week of August 22nd.

Everyone watches porn. Really, everyone.

You won’t be surprised by the four most visited websites in the U.S.: Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Amazon.

But did you know that more people visit Pornhub.com than Twitter.com? Or that more people visit xvideos.com than instagram.com? Porn is all pervasive and has been for some time, yet it remains a social taboo and under-reported industry.

I’m a big fan of Pushkin Industries, the podcasting company of Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis. And I’m a fan of the business journalism of the Financial Times. So when a new collaboration popped up on my podcast app, I subscribed immediately.

Hot Money is an 8-part series that looks at the evolution of the porn industry since the disruption of the internet. It is a wild wild story with all sorts of unexpected turns and surprisingly sympathetic characters as porn evolves from websites to “Tube sites” to OnlyFans. It is also a master class of the craft of investigative journalism. Like a good murder mystery, the hosts invite the listeners to work through the investigation as co-conspirators.

I’m still wrestling with my feelings about the ultimate takeaway of the series, which is that it’s not the government or porn operators who decide what is permissible in porn, but rather the payment operators: Mastercard and Visa. I was stunned to learn that there are teams at both companies who develop lists of what is and isn’t allowed and then spend their days watching porn looking for violations. There is an incredible clip where Bill Ackman, the storied investor, reads an op-ed by Nick Kristof about exploited and assaulted teens on PornHub and then calls up a tennis pal (also the CEO of Mastercard) to ask him what he’s going to do about it.

No one (I imagine) wants credit card companies to control content moderation. But do we trust the tech companies if it goes against their profit motives? Do we trust the government? Assuming that we survive climate change (and I think we will), it strikes me that content moderation — what is and isn’t permissible to say and do online — will be the issue of the 21st century.

Oh shit, I’m making an argument. 🙊 Anyway, a thought-provoking podcast series about an industry that everyone is familiar with but few of us talk about.

Though maybe that’s starting to change: Matt Yglesias recently suggested that a winning issue for a 2024 presidential candidate would be to propose a ban on porn for anyone under 18 through age verification. His newsletter included this survey data, which is not what I expected:

A useful tool

My former boss, Ruth Levine, has a great weekly newsletter that pointed me to How Normal Am I?, an illuminating, funny, and terrifying 5-minute interactive explanation of what algorithms can infer from video of our faces. Well worth the time. You won’t look at a security camera the same again.

Kudos

Big kudos to the newlyweds Rochelle & Tom, who got married last weekend at the Boonville Hotel in Anderson Valley. Iris and I got misty-eyed as they read their vows to each other. And then we danced like 20-somethings to LCD Soundsystem (but not to Miley Cyrus … I still have some standards.)

About those strava segments

A few weeks back I described my mixed feelings about Strava segments and the way they encourage me to strive harder, but sometimes at the expense of enjoyment. Well, I was delighted to learn that this year’s inspiring Tour de France champion, Jonas Vingegaard, was a fish monger until he was discovered by his team after posting a record time up on the Coll de Rates Strava segment. And he did look to be enjoying himself.

A pause

I’m on my way to Bishop, California to start hiking the middle section of the John Muir Trail. This has been on my bucket list for a long time, and I’m grateful to my cycling buddy Matt McHugh for hooking me up with an elusive permit. Have a wonderful couple of weeks!