The New york TimesArt Direction: Nathan Huang
“Porn” isn’t just a word for sex stuff anymore. There’s a new use of that word, a broader use. We’re talking about food porn, real estate porn, closet-organization porn. Sometimes “porn” is used as an accusation, as when you call out some artist who takes photographs of impoverished foreigners for making “poverty porn.” The comedian Alex Moffat teased an audience last year for its obsession with “impeachment porn” — and everyone knew exactly what he meant. But other kinds of porn seem just fine. This new, generic sense of “porn” is catching on because it’s useful. It gives a name to a specific kind of relationship we can have with images and other media. It’s worth getting clear about the nature of that relationship. For once we understand it, we may discover that we have cultivated some porn-y relationships in some unexpected places.
July 2019